In my continuing effort to make the adoption of the BES-53248 more streamlined, I figured I would also write a migration guide as I personally had to read the documentation more than once to understand it completely. If you haven’t already checked it out, it might be helpful to first consult my first timers’ guide as the following guide starts with the assumption that your new switches are racked and Inter-Switch Links (ISL) connected and initial configuration has been performed.
Another quick caveat, this is by no means a replacement for the official documentation and the methods below may or may not be supported by NetApp. If you want the official procedure, that is documented here.
Now that we’ve got the above out of the way, I’ll get down to brass tacks. To keep things simple, we’re going to start with a simple two-node switched cluster which should look like this:
You should also have your new BES switched setup as so:
Next step, lets make sure we don’t get a bunch of cases created by kicking off a pre-emptive auto support:
system node autosupport invoke -node * -type all -message MAINT=2h
Elevate your privilege level and confirm all cluster LIFs are set to auto-revert:
set advanced
network interface show -vserver Cluster -fields auto-revert
If everything above looks good, it’s time to login to your second BES which NetApp wants you to name cs2 and configure a temporary ISL back to your first CN1610. Personally I feel the temporary ISL is optional, but can provide a bit of added insurance to your change:
(cs2) # configure
(cs2) (Config)# port-channel name 1/2 temp-isl
(cs2) (Config)# interface 0/13-0/16
(cs2) (Interface 0/13-0/16)# no spanning-tree edgeport
(cs2) (Interface 0/13-0/16)# addport 1/2
(cs2) (Interface 0/13-0/16)# exit
(cs2) (Config)# interface lag 2
(cs2) (Interface lag 2)# mtu 9216
(cs2) (Interface lag 2)# port-channel load-balance 7
(cs2) (Config)# exit
(cs2) # show port-channel 1/2
Local Interface................................ 1/2
Channel Name................................... temp-isl
Link State..................................... Down
Admin Mode..................................... Enabled
Type........................................... Static
Port-channel Min-links......................... 1
Load Balance Option............................ 7
(Enhanced hashing mode)
Mbr Device/ Port Port
Ports Timeout Speed Active
------- -------------- --------- -------
0/13 actor/long 10G Full False
partner/long
0/14 actor/long 10G Full False
partner/long
0/15 actor/long 10G Full False
partner/long
0/16 actor/long 10G Full False
partner/long
At this point, we’re going to disconnect any of the connections to the second CN1610 and run these to the second BES-53248. You may need different cables to ensure they are supported, check Hardware Universe. When you’re done this recabling step, it should look like this:
Note: It’s this step here that made me realize the temporary ISL is optional since we now have our two sets of LIFs isolated from each other.
Next, let’s put the (optional) temporary ISL into play. At your first CN1610, disconnect the cables connected to ports 13-16 and once they’re all disconnected, assuming these cables are supported by both switches, plug them into ports 13-16 on your second BES, so it looks like this:
Now on the second BES-53248, verify the ISL is up:
show port-channel
Assuming the port-channel is up and running, let’s check the health of our cluster LIFs by issuing the following commands at the cluster command line:
network interface show -vserver Cluster -is-home false
network port show -ipspace Cluster
The first command shouldn’t produce any output, give the LIFs time to revert however. The second command, you want to make sure all ports are up and healthy. Once all the LIFs have reverted home, you can now move all the links from the first cluster node as well as removing the temporary ISLs so you end up with this:
Run the same two commands as before:
network interface show -vserver Cluster -is-home false
network port show -ipspace Cluster
Provide everything looks good, you’re free to remove the CN1610s from the rack as they are no longer in use. The final step is to clean up the configuration on your second BES-53248 by tearing down the temporary ISL configuration, done like this:
This guide is by no means a replace for the official documentations but rather a companion to it. You should always consult the official documentation, I purposely cut out some of the steps I felt gave the docs a bit of a TL;DR feel but it doesn’t mean I wouldn’t personally run those steps if I were doing the work. This document is only my attempt to clarify the official docs, hopefully it does so for you.
With the CN-1610 starting to get long in the tooth and with more platforms supporting and/or requiring a cluster interconnect network greater than 10Gbit, the need to introduce a non-Cisco option came to be. This option is the BES-53248, which is a “Broadcom Supported” switch produced by Quanta, makers of all things hyper scale who sells it as the QuantaMesh T4048-IX8. At some point Broadcom’s EFOS is installed on the T4048-IX8 via the Open Network Install Environment (ONIE) and it becomes the product we know as the BES-53248. While definitely a superior switch, supporting 10/25/40/100Gbit, the deployment thereof is not as streamlined, hence this post.
I struggled a bit with how to approach this topic and settled up the following: I will provide a numbered list of steps as a guide and index but then have sections below that expand upon those steps. There could very well be times where you want to perform these steps in a different order but if this is your first time working on this switch and it’s factory-fresh, the steps below are how I would advise proceeding.
The BES-53248 has 48 × 10/25Gbit ports and 8 × 40/100Gbit ports; by default the first 16 × 10/25Gbit ports are available for cluster interconnect connections and the last 2 × 40/100Gbit are reserved for Inter-Switch Links (ISL); which is already an improvement over the CN1610’s 12 × ClusterNet ports. If the environment requires more ports than this, the 10/25Gbit ports can be licensed in blocks of 8 (Part # SW-BES-53248A2-8P-1025G) all the way up to 48, and there is one license (Part # SW-BES-53248A2-6P-40-100G) to activate the remaining 6 × 40/100Gbit ports. Be sure your order also has all the requisite transceivers and cables, consult HWU for specific compatibilities. Lastly, the BES-53248 doesn’t ship with rails by default, so make sure your quote shows them if you need them.
When your switches arrive they will include a manilla envelope with licensing information if licenses above the base configuration were ordered, do not recycle this envelope as it contains the very important Transaction Key which you will use to generate your license file at this site:
Before visiting that link, along with your license keys you’ll need the switch serial numbers which are located on the switches themselves like so:
The license file generation procedure is instant, so not having this ahead of time isn’t that big of a deal provided you have internet access while at the installation site.
Broadcom Support Account, Firmware Download
What isn’t instantaneous however is the creation of a TechData-provided, Broadcom Support Account (BSA), and you need this account do download firmware for the switches. In order to setup a BSA, which hopefully you did a couple of days in advance of requiring the firmware, you need to send an email to: support@techdata.com with the following information:
Indicate if OEM (Netapp/Lenovo), Partner/Installer or Customer: Name of Company device is registered to (if partner/installer): Requester Name: Requester Email Address: Requester Phone Number: Address where device is located: Device Model Number: BES-53248 Device Serial Number:
I’ve found the folks that respond to this email address are pretty easy to deal with, though I’m not sure you’ll be able to get your account if you don’t already have the serial number, comment below if you know. My account creation took roughly 24 hours and then I had access to the firmware downloads. Download the appropriate firmware for your environment. The switches I received in August of 2021 shipped with EFOS 3.4.4.6 which was supported in the environment I was deploying into, but so was 3.7.0.4 so that’s where I wanted to land.
Reference Configuration Files (RCF)
Download the appropriate RCF for the environment and edit accordingly. If you visit HWU and drill down into the switch category, you can download the RCF from there:
I was converting an AFF8080 from two-node switchless to switched and adding an A400 at 100Gbit. I grabbed RCF 1.7 from Hardware Universe (not where I’d expect to find it but nice and easy) and uncommented ports 0/49-0/54 by removing the initial exclamation point on the lines in question since the additional 40-100 license activates all of these ports, I deleted the lines setting the speed to 40G full-duplex. I hope in version 1.8 of the RCF, this configuration will also be applied as a range since that’s the only license option available for purchase on these ports.
Supporting Infrastructure
In your site requirements checklist, ensure the availability of an http (or ftp, tftp, sftp, scp) server on the management network. Once the equipment is racked and the management interface cabled, you will need this server to host your EFOS firmware, license files and RCF.
Initial Configuration
The first time you connect to the device, most likely via serial, assuming the unit was factory-fresh like mine, the username should be admin and the password should be blank. You will be immediately forced to change the password. I noticed that when I was going through this, copying, and pasting the new password didn’t work for me but typing the same password did; this may have had something to do with the special characters chosen or the app I was using (serial.app on macOS). Another thing to be aware of, if you’re applying RCF 1.7 you will have to be on EFOS 3.7.0.4 first. The switches I based this post on shipped with 3.4.4.6 and there are some commands in the RCF that aren’t compatible, so you’ll want to upgrade EFOS before applying RCF 1.7. Also, applying an RCF means wiping any existing configuration first, so you might as well get this out of the way while you are on site.
Once you’ve changed the password, it’s time to configure the management IP address so you can retrieve the license files, EFOS image and RCF from the http server mentioned previously. You’ll need to be logged in, and have elevated your privilege level to enable:
User:admin
Password:************
(CLswitch-01) >enable
(CLswitch-01) #serviceport ip 10.0.0.209 255.255.255.0 10.0.0.1
(CLswitch-01) #show serviceport
Interface Status............................... Up
IP Address..................................... 10.0.0.209
Subnet Mask.................................... 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway................................ 10.0.0.1
IPv6 Administrative Mode....................... Enabled
IPv6 Prefix is ................................ fe80::c218:50ff:fe0b:24c5/64
Configured IPv4 Protocol....................... None
Configured IPv6 Protocol....................... None
IPv6 AutoConfig Mode........................... Disabled
Burned In MAC Address.......................... B4:A9:FC:34:8F:CE
(CLswitch-01) #ping 10.0.0.1
Pinging 10.0.0.1 with 0 bytes of data:
Reply From 10.0.0.1: icmp_seq = 0. time= 2 msec.
Reply From 10.0.0.1: icmp_seq = 1. time <1 msec.
Reply From 10.0.0.1: icmp_seq = 2. time= 26 msec.
Now that you are on the network, the first thing we should do is add any additional licenses. Here are the commands with an explanation of what they do:
show license
show port all | exclude Detach
copy http://10.0.0.80/switch1_license.data nvram:license-key 1
reload
show license
show port all | exclude Detach
See how many licenses are currently applied, if any.
Display currently licensed ports.
Copies the file from the http server and places it in index 1
reboots the switch
This is after you’ve re-logged in, it should show you something different than the last time you ran this.
This should show additional ports than from before adding the license.
Once you have added your license file(s), it’s time to upgrade EFOS, here are the commands with an explanation of what they do:
show bootvar
copy active backup
show bootvar
show version
copy http://10.0.0.80/FastPath-EFOS-esw-qcp_td3-qcp_td3_x86_64-LX415R-CNTRF-BD6IOQHr3v7m0b4.stk active
show bootvar
reload
show version
Shows the images: active, backup, current-active and next-active.
Copies the active image to the backup slot, just in case.
Verify that the above worked.
Shows the version actually running.
Copies the image on the web server to the active slot.
Verify the last command.
Reboot the switch.
Verify the upgrade worked.
Now that we have upgraded our EFOS image, it’s time to apply the RCF. There really is no point in doing any additional configuration until we’ve done this since we have to destroy our configuration before applying the RCF anyway. Be sure that you’re only applying the default RCF if you haven’t added any licenses. If you have added licences, you need to uncomment the lines that configure the additionally licensed ports. Here are the commands with an explanation:
erase startup-config
copy http://10.0.0.80/BES-53248_RCF_v1.7-Cluster-HA.txt nvram:script BES-53248_RCF_v1.7-Cluster-HA.scr
script list
script apply BES-53248_RCF_v1.7-Cluster-HA.scr
show running-config
write memory
reload
This clears the startup configuration, overlaying an RCF-sourced configuration can have negative consequences.
This copies the txt file from the web server to NVRAM as a script and renames it in the process.
gives you a directory listing of available scripts to confirm the above transfer worked
applies the contents of the RCF to the configuration
displays the new running configuration to verify successful application of RCF
commit new configuration to non-volatile memory
reboots the switch so this new configuration can take affect
There, you’re all done, now you can proceed with the official guide on (re)configuring the management IP address, ssh and so on. Good luck, and if you have an experience that strays from the above, please let me know so I can update the post.
**Important update at the end that should be read prior to wasting your time.
This weekend I found myself in need of an additional ESXi host so instead of acquiring new hardware I figured I might as well run it nested on my beefy QNAP TVS-h1288X with its Xeon CPU and 72GB of RAM. I already use the QEMU-based Virtualization Station (VS) for hosting my primary domain controller and it’s my go-to host for spinning up my ONTAP simulators so I figured nesting an ESXi VM shouldn’t be that difficult. What I hadn’t taken into account however is the fact that VMware has deprecated the VMKlinux Driver Stack, removing support for all of the NICs VS makes available to you in the GUI while provisioning new virtual machines. At first I researched injecting drivers or rolling my own installation ISO but these seemed overly complicated and somewhat outdated in their documentation. Instead I decided to get inside of VS and see if I could do something from that angle, it was after all simply their own version of QEMU.
I started the installation process, but it wasn’t long before I received this error message:
ESXi 7 No Network Adapters error message
I shut down the VM, and changed the NIC type over and over eventually exhausting the five possibilities presented in the VS GUI:
Not even the trusty old e1000 NIC, listed as Intel Gigabit Ethernet above worked…Over to the CLI I went. Some Googling around on the subject lead me to believe there was a command that would produce a list of supported virtualized devices, but the commands I was finding were for native KVM/QEMU installs and not intended for VS so I poked around and came across the qemu-system-x86_64 command, and when I ran it with the parameters -device help and it produced the following, abbreviated list:
./qemu-system-x86_64 -device help
[VL] This is a NROMAL VM
Controller/Bridge/Hub devices:
name "i82801b11-bridge", bus PCI
................<SNIP>
Network devices:
name "e1000", bus PCI, alias "e1000-82540em", desc "Intel Gigabit Ethernet"
name "e1000-82544gc", bus PCI, desc "Intel Gigabit Ethernet"
................<SNIP>
name "vmxnet3", bus PCI, desc "VMWare Paravirtualized Ethernet v3"
................<SNIP>
That last line is exactly what I was looking for, this lead me to believe that QEMU should be able to support the VMXNET3 network device so I cd’d over to the .qpkg/QKVM/usr/etc/libvirt/qemu directory and opened up the XML file associated with my ESXi VM and changed the following sections:
I saved the file and for good measure I also restarted VS. I booted the VM, and I received the same error message as above. This time I cc’d over to .qpkg/QKVM/var/run/libvirt/qemu and had a look at the XML file that represented the running config of the VM, and the NIC was still set to e1000. It took me a bit of hacking around to determine that in order to make this change persistent, I needed to edit the XML file using:
virsh edit 122d6cbc-b47c-4c18-b783-697397be149b
That last string of text being the UUID of the VM in question. If you’re unsure of what the UUID is of a given VM, simply grep “qvs:name” from all the XML files in the .qpkg/QKVM/usr/etc/libvirt/qemu directory. I made the same change as I had previously, exited the editor and booted the VM once again…This time, success! My ESXi 7.0u2 host booted fine and didn’t complain about the network. I went through the configuration and it is now up and running fine. The GUI still lists the NIC as Intel Gigabit Ethernet.
I’m reluctant to make any changes to the VM using the GUI at this time for fear of the NIC information changing, but I’m okay not using the GUI if it means being able to nest ESXi 7 on Virtualization Station for testing purposes.
**Update: While the ESXi 7.0u2 VM would boot find, I have been unable to actually add it to my vCenter server. I tried running the VM on my physical ESXi host and was able to add it to vCenter, then I powered down the ESXi VM and imported it into VS. The import worked, but then it showed as disconnected from vCenter. Next I tried importing vCenter into the virtualized ESXi host, but that won’t boot as VS isn’t presenting the VT-x flag even though I have CPU passthrough enabled. I’m still going to try and get this going, but won’t have time to devote to troubleshooting VS for a couple of days.
Ever since macOS started enforcing code signing there’s been the occasional hoop to jump through to get non-App Store software to run. Typically it’s as easy as right-clicking on the binary and choosing Open, which is all well and good until that application needs to launch a subsequent one. Recently I downloaded the ISO for vCenter Server Appliance and double-clicked on it to mount it. I then navigated to:
/Volumes/VMware VCSA/vcsa-ui-installer/mac
Once here, I double-clicked Installer[.app] and of course got the following:
I dutifully two-finger-clicked (ie: right-click) and chose Open and then Open again and proceeded with the initial vCenter configuration. Not too far into the process, Installer wanted to call ovftool but since this was a direct launch, I received a message similar to the previous one:
sudo xattr -r -d com.apple.quarantine <directory of ISO contents>
but that assumes you’ve copied the ISO to another drive and not running it directly as if it were a read-only file system mounted much like the DVD media it represents. I copied all ~8GB of the ISO to my local SSD issued the command above and sure enough, it was going to work. I wasn’t happy with this however and was determined to run this installer from the ISO as intended. The root of the problem is that when you mount the ISO, either by double clicking on it in Finder or issuing an hdiutil mount image.iso, it mounts the file system with the quarantine option:
I did some quick research on how to mount an ISO without this option using any of mount, hdiutil, diskutil or Disk Utility[.app] to no avail. I did notice however that after I unmounted the ISO using diskutil unmount /dev/disk3 that the image remained in the sidebar albeit greyed out:
I decided to right-click on it here and choose Mount:
A quick check over in Terminal[.app] and voilà, no quarantine!
At this point I navigated to the Installer once again and was able to run through to completion without any security notifications. I’m not sure if this is a well known workaround but I didn’t find any reference to it online so hopefully someone will benefit from it.
TL;DR: Instructions for running installers directly from read-only mounted file systems on macOS:
Double-click the image so that it mounts normally with DiskImageMounter.app
Issue the following CLI command to unmount it: diskutil unmount /dev/diskX
Launch Disk Utility.app
Right-click the image name in the side bar and choose Mount
Your installer can be run directly from the r/o filesystem
At the time of writing this 9.8 is available but I’m specifically writing this for someone who is trying to install 9.7 and having problems. Before I get into the actual simulator installation we need to come cover some stuff around VMware Fusion first.
With regards to networking, VMware Fusion can provide three different interface types, they are as follows:
Bridged – this type puts the interface directly on the same LAN as your Mac, this is great if you want the VM to appear as though it’s on the network that your Mac is using.
Host-only – this is a completely isolated network, the only hosts that can access it are those on your Mac configured with this type of interface. There is no external access with this type.
NAT – this is similar to number two, but allows the host with this type to reach out of the Mac, such as for Internet access.
If you want more details on this please go read this KB.
By default, the simulator has four network interface; the first two, e0a/e0b are for the ClusterNet network, the back-end network used by cluster nodes to communicate with each other, and should be of type host-only. The second two, e0c/e0d are for client access and management access, these are of type NAT but can also be set to bridged. If you use Nat, then VMware will assign IP addresses via DHCP based on the configuration of the VMNET8 interface settings; to view this cat the file located here:
What this means is that any interface set to NAT in my instance of Fusion will receive DHCP addresses in the subnet 172.16.133.0/24, but the DHCP pool itself is only 172.16.133.[128-254]. The subnet mask will still be 255.255.255.0 (ie: /24) and the default gateway is 172.16.133.2 as that is the internal interface of the virtual router created to do the NAT; .1 is held by the “external” interface which you can view by issuing an ifconfig vmnet8 at the command prompt. Note, this interface is created when Fusion is launched and torn down when you quit. If you set the interface type to bridged, those interfaces will get DHCP addresses from the same LAN that the Mac is connected to.
On to the actual installation…
First thing you need to do is download the OVA from NetApp:
Download the OVA and license keys for the version you’re looking for.
Now that you have the OVA, you’re ready to import it into Fusion. Launch Fusion, then click the + sign and choose Import:
import
Browse for and open the downloaded OVA:
choose fileopen
Now click continue:
continue
Give the folder you’re going to store it in a name and click save, I like to name it after the node:
ONTAP 9.7, Node 1
Fusion will import the OVA and present you with the settings. You can modify them if you want, but for now I’m going to leave them as default. Click Finish:
finish
You’ll likely be asked if you’d like to upgrade the VM version, don’t bother:
At this point the vSIM will boot for its first time, I believe the official instructions tell you to hit CTRL-C, halt the boot and call for the maintenance menu then issue an option 4, but if this is the first node you do not have to do that. The root aggregate is automatically created:
First boot with aggr0 creation
Now you can open a browser and point it at the IP address listed on your screen, in my case it will be https://172.16.133.132/, but it may be different for you. You will get a certificate error, but bypass that to access the GUI to finish the configuration. IF you do not get the following screen or get no site at all, there’s something else wrong. Also, hover your mouse over the node in the Health card, if the serial number doesn’t appear, refresh the web page, otherwise configuration will fail:
No node serial
It should look like this:
With node serial
Now enter all the required information, since the IP addresses are being statically assigned, I’m choosing ones outside of the DHCP range, as should you:
Cluster name and admin passwordNetworking information
I don’t check the “single-node” box, it will still work as a single node if you don’t but if you do, it removes the ClusterNet interfaces completely. I like having those interfaces for experimentation and teaching purposes; also it keeps the door open to adding a second node, which I will cover in a follow up post if there is anyone interested. Now click Submit:
other info
At this point I like to start pinging either the cluster IP I specified or the node IP so I can see when the cluster gets configured since the browser doesn’t always refresh to the new IP address:
ping
Once ping starts responding, go ahead and visit the new IP address via your browser:
Now the person I wrote this blog entry for isn’t getting the GUI above, but instead the GUI for the out-of-band interface for a UCS server, so the IP space their vmnet8 is using collides with production IP space. This can be verified at this point by disconnecting any Ethernet connections and turning off WiFi, once that is done, reload the browser and the IP conflict should be resolved until you’re connected once again. To resolve it permanently, that person will need to edit the dhcpd.conf file for vmnet8 mentioned above, using a subnet known to not conflict. Here’s an example, alternative dhcpd.conf:
This changes the subnet in use to 10.0.0.0/24 with the DHCP range being 10.0.0.[128-254] and the default gateway of VMs using it to 10.0.0.2.
This is where I’m going to end this post for now as the simulator is now accessible via HTTPS and SSH and ONTAP is ready to be configured. You will still need to assign disks, create a local storage tier (aggregate) as well as an SVM with volume(s) for data among other things. The intent of this post was to get this far, not to teach ONTAP. If you’d like to see a post around either adding a second node to the cluster or configuring ONTAP on the first one, please leave a comment and I’ll try and get around to it.
