Installation Notes

Install Update

Please read the following release notes carefully, before continuing. When installing this update on a Collax V-Bien cluster the following steps have to be performed:

/ Important information

Please have a look at the Collax V-Bien 6.5.28 Release Notes if the nodes have Version 6.5.26 or above and haven’t been updated yet. For this update, it is necessary that both nodes are set in maintenance mode simultaneously.

Procedure

1. Click at High Availability within the Dashboard.
2. Select the other (not the local) and change into the Start Maintenance dialog.
3. Now, put this other node into maintenance mode by confirming the query in the dialog. Wait until the maintenance mode is reached. Depending on the number of virtual machines and hard disk, this can take some time. Virtual machines will be migrated live, which can take a few minutes depending on the size of the RAM. The progress will be displayed in the list of background activities.
4. Close the dialog.
5. In the list of nodes, select again the other node whose software is to be updated by right-clicking it.
6. Change to System Update ….
7. Click Check for Updates. The completion will be displayed as “100%”.
8. Click Download and Install. This function will download the latest software packages from the update server and install them. The completion will be displayed as Install - 100%.
9. Close the dialog and set the node to active.
10. Please repeat this procedure for the local node.

New in this Version

V-Cube+: Size Unit for Virtual Disks

The size unit of main memory of virtual machines is going to be standardized. An size unit can be defined as MB (MegaByte) or GB (GigaByte).

V-Cube+: Auto-logout after 60 minutes

With this update an unused admin session will be automatically closed after 60 minutes.

V-Cube+: Important System Components

The following important system components will be installed with this update.

• bind 9.9.5
• kernel 3.10.37
• ntp 4.2.6p5
• lldpd 0.7.7 Die Meldung unable to find br0 in /proc/net/bonding or /proc/self/net/bonding erscheint damit nicht mehr in den Logdateien. Die Meldung unable to find br0 in /proc/net/bonding or /proc/self/net/bonding erscheint damit nicht mehr in den Logdateien.

V-Cube+: Internet connection Check in Installationwizard

The initial installation of the Collax V-Bien Cluster is beeing improved. You will find an internet connection check in the basic wizard now.

V-Cube+: Filesystem check on next system boot

Collax Servers use the EXT3 Linux file system. The tool fsck is used to check and optionally repair that Linux file system. From this update on the file system check can be initialized. After the check had been executed without errors the server resumes the boot process to normal operation. Choose one V-Bien node and change into the Start Maintenance dialog to select the menu Shutdown and Reboot.

V-Cube+: Start Delay for Backup Jobs

Occasionally it is useful for scheduled backup jobs to be rejected automatically because of an existing still running job. This version adds a start delay. When a scheduled event is processed, the scheduler first checks whether the system’s maxqage was exceeded by that job, and will refuse to run deprecate jobs. The parameter can be set in the dialog Backup

V-Cube+: Haptics

The bahaviour (haptics) in administrating the Collax V-Bien Cluster has been improved in many ways which makes it more reactive.

V-Cube+: Virtual WAN Interface

Issues Fixed in this Version

V-Cube+: New

New

V-Cube+: Checking for updates

In order to check for updates, you had to start Maintenance mode on the V-Bien node. This restriction will be removed with this release. Checking for updates is possible in Online mode.

V-Cube+: Collax Fencing Device

Under certain conditions the Collax fencing device could have problems detecting the other node during the initial setup. This is going to be improved with this update.

V-Cube+: Active Monitoring of Collax Fencing Device

The “Active Monitoring” tool (Nagios) can be used to check local services. The nagios check recognized a disconnected or broken cable and then reported UNKNOWN. The state has been improved. With this update it says Collax Fencing Device: CRITICAL - Node vbien1: Cable disconnected or broken? Node vbien2: Cable disconnected or broken?.

V-Cube+: Cluster Join with differing system time

The initial setup of the Collax Cluster could abort when the system time of the cluster nodes differed to much. This is going to be improved with this update.

V-Cube+: FQDN and Join Cluster

To prevent invalid non-standard FQDN which would cause authentication problems between the nodes, the method to verify the cluster name is beeing improved. Names like node1.company or the pseudo TLD .local won’t be allowed any more. the integrity of the FQDN is verified when joining a cluster.

V-Cube+: Integrated Windows Authentication

A dialoguebox popped up, when browsing the Web-Administration-GUI through the browsers Internet Explorer and Chrome, when the integrated windows authentication was active in the advanced Internetoptions. With this update, the option is deactivated when accessing the Web-Administration-GUI.

V-Cube+: Number of CPU Sockets and Cores per Socket

Inside the configuration of the virtual machine, the number of CPUs that the virtual machine is permitted to use is entered. The CPU sockets and CPU cores are automatically calculated and allocated on the basis of this number and the VM type specified in the wizard. The allocation to sockets can be configured in the advanced settings. There was an error in the save dialogue. This error is repaired with this update.

V-Cube+: Progressbar

The backup status of virtual machines in the Web-GUI seemed to stop at 45%. This is fixed within this release. The status is now visible.

V-Cube+: Job-notify and domain-configuration

The job-notify service could prevent backups from beeing executed under certain circumstances. In this case, the nodes apparently never got the “finish” messages for each other during the domain-configuration. The domain-configuration then still sees the two unfinished jobs and does not terminate, which in turn hangs the backup run. This is fixed within this release. The domain-configuration will finish now.

V-Cube+: Delete data of non existing VMs

When deleting virtual machines, some of the temporary files have not been deleted. This is fixed within this release.

V-Cube+: State of eSAN Hard Disks after Split-Brain

In case of a hardware failure of the network connection between the cluster nodes the cluster manager takes care of the affected cluster resources. This could lead to suspended virtual harddiscs after a fencing event under rare conditions with more than 10 virtual harddiscs. With this update the split brain handling of a virtual harddisc is improved.

V-Cube+: Deletion of host element and backup target

A host as an existing element is a precondition for a backup target. A host must have been added before an backup target can be entered. There was an error in a method that prevented deleting host and backup target simultaneously. This is fixed within this release.

Notes

V-Cube+: Windows Setup notes Error Message 0x80300001

If Windows Server 2008 R2 and above is to be installed on Virtio hard disks using the Virtio driver CD for Windows, Windows reports the error code 0x80300001. The error message occurs if the partitions are recognized and the user clicks the button Next. The message means, that the installation CD of Windows needs to be inserted again.