SvHCI & SvSAN Console usage – StorMagic

This article is intended for administrators wishing to leverage the console for SvHCI on hardware to configure IP addresses, troubleshoot networking etc.

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Information

This document will detail the configuration of a StorMagic HCI node via the console.

This could be setting a static IP address, or changing an IP address after moving to a different environment.

SvHCI offers a curses (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curses_(programming_library)) based console interface to enable keyboard only, not mouse, configuration when web access is not available/not yet configured.

Most actions will be performed with arrow keys, tab or shift tab (to go back), Enter press to select a menu item, backspace to delete, and space bar to checkbox an item such as mirror flagged on an interface.

It is also possible to refresh the screen, should it not happen automatically, by pressing 'q'.

This includes the diffent menu options displayed:

System Status

This will present the system status and status messages on the node:

Discovery

This will present a list of existing discovered StorMagic devices, including the ability add or remove entries, alongside configuring a SAN name. As detailed below:

https://stormagic.com/doc/svsan/6-3-U1/en/Content/discovery.htm?Highlight=discovery

Witness

This shows clusters that this node is providing quorum/acting as witness for:

Or another example from a witness appliance below:

Network Interfaces

Network interfaces enables the creation, deletion and configuration of the SvHCI interfaces. These are the hypervisor stack's connectivity to the network, similar to a vmkernel port in VMware, enabling the nodes themselves to communicate for cluster communication, management via Powershell commandlets and WebGUI. Or alternatively on the storage side for synchronization of the VM disks (RF2) and VM live migration.

This is password protected with the password defined for the SvHCI instance.

Note: Default password after install is 'password'

Note: Default console keymap is a UK keyboard. This will impact passwords with special characters or non-qwerty keyboards. This can be modified with the Keymap option in the console detailed later in this document.

Virtual Switches

The Virtual Switches option enables the addition, removal and editing of vSwitches.

This is most likely to be utilized to change the physical NIC(s) attached to a vSwitch, should the wrong one have been selected during install, to get a management web connection.

To change the physical NIC select to Edit the vSwitch, and enter the password:

up/down arrow to select the NIC in question and tab and Enter to select add or remove against a NIC.

Port Groups

A Port Group is a Virtual Machines connection to the network. This could be external to the host and the outside world over physical NICs, or purely internal to the host.

The menu option enables the creation, delete and editing of Port Groups on the node.

It is possible to use microsegmentation/VLAN tagging on a port group by selecting the VLAN mode to Access and defining a LAN tag.

Note: For a Guest VM to failover the Port Group needs to exist, matching name and tag, on both nodes.

Network Devices

This shows the physical NICs in the node/host. This includes detail such as MAC, that it is live connected with a carrier, connection speed, and driver in use.

This page is typically utilized to change MTU size, such as increasing to Jumbo Frames.

Network

This menu item enables the nodes universal network configuration, e.g. not detail applied to a specific interface, such as network hostname, DNS and NTP details:

Routing

This section enables the configuration and editing of routes. This can be the default route, however this is typically defined under the interfaces section.

This does enable the configuration of static routes.

Ping

The page enables network testing of connectivity to the node.

The Interface will default to any however this is also a useful tool to validate jumbo frames. By selecting the specific interface, the packet size will increase, e.g. if jumbo frames is configured the packet size will increase to 8972, to test jumbo frames are being passed correctly.

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Traceroute

Per a standard traceroute utility this enables the determine of where a packet may be stalling in case there's issues in routing between nodes, for a stretch cluster for example.

Or connectivity to the witness, in a different network.

Set Password

This enables the changing of the password via the console. This requires the entry of the old and then defining a new node password.

Should a node password get lost, it is possible to request a reset code from StorMagic support per the below:

https://support.stormagic.com/hc/en-gb/articles/6455571624989-Password-Reset

Power

This enables the clean shutdown or restart of the node.

Upgrade

This enables the pull and application of an SvSAN/SvHCI upgrade image from a web server.

Keymap

This enables the changing of the console keymap from the default [English-UK] to other available options.

License Key Setup

This enables the application of a license key to the node. This will cause the node to route out to https://licensing.stormagic.com to tie a license key to the node serial number, and pickup features such as capacity, caching or encryption.

https://support.stormagic.com/hc/en-gb/articles/5355376684445-SvSAN-Licensing-model