Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Configuring a Netapp FAS to forward syslog messages

You would like to configure your Netapp FAS controller to forward its syslog error messages to a remote syslog server.

Cause:
By default all messages are logged to the console and to the /etc/messages file.  You must manually setup logging to a remote syslog server.

Solution:
You can use the following procedure to configure the Netapp FAS controller to forward messages to a remote syslog server.  The default configuration is to log error (*.err) and kernel (kern.*) messages to the remote syslog server.  Informational messages will still be sent to the console and the /etc/messages file.

1)      Connect to the Netapp FAS Controller etc$ share
a.       \\netapp_name\etc$
2)      Check for existing syslog.conf file in the etc$ share
a.       If the file does not exist copy the syslog.conf.sample file to syslog.conf
      3)      Open the syslog.conf file in a text editor
a.       You only need to edit one of the items circled in red or green as shown in the following screenshot, I recommend editing the line circled in red.
b.      Each section of the syslog.conf file demonstrates how you can manipulate the syslog configuration.  The information circled in purple is meant to point out the association between the description and the configuration line.  These require more advanced syslog server configuration, and are not covered in this article.
 
4)      Edit the syslog.conf file as needed.
a.       Basically, remove the comment indicator (#), and replace adminhost with the ip address or host name of the remote syslog server.
b.      If you need to log to multiple syslog servers use multiple lines.
c.       Here is an example showing how to log to two different servers, one by ip address, the other by FQDN.

d.      Save the file.
e.       The Netapp Controller will automatically detect the change to the syslog.conf file and load it; this may take a couple of minutes. When the change has completed, a syslog message similar to the following will be displayed:
Wed Jan 28 09:17:12 EST [syslogd:info]: syslogd: restarted
5)      You can now configure the remote syslog server to accept the incoming messages.

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Configuring DNS on a NetApp Storage System

Here is the processes to enable DNS without having to use the NetApp system’s initialsetup command. This came in handy for me when I was doing some testing in my lab and overlooked setting it up during the initial config. With the latest OnCommand you can not edit these settings via the gui.

a. Create or confirm the system’s /etc/resolv.conf file with nameserver entries:

nameserver <dns-server-ip-address>
nameserver <dns-server-ip-address>

b. Set the following options on the NetApp storage system’s command line:

toaster> options dns.enable on
toaster> options dns.domainname <DNS domain name>

c. Edit the NetApp storage system’s /etc/rc file with the following entries so the DNS options are persistent across system reboots:

options dns.domainname <DNS domain name>
options dns.enable on

d. Please ensure that the NetApp storage system’s /etc/nsswitch file has the hosts entry that looks like this:
hosts: files dns nis