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NetApp simulator 9.2 Installation and Configuration

In this article we explore the NetApp simulator 9.2 Installation and Configuration and how to create a NFS store and present it to a vSphere environment, as well as a share through CIFS where users can keep their files. To start with, logon with you NetApp account to NetApp Support (you would need to register the Serial Number of the unit of your company first, and create an account with NetApp, so that you are entitle to support from them, and hence have the rights to download the simulator)

If you are after the NetApp Simulator upgraded version 9.6, please have a look at this my other article: https://www.nazaudy.com/netapp-simulator-9-6-installation-and-configuration

On a nutshell, these are the steps to follow on this article:

  1. Preparing the VMware Workstation environment
  2. Configuring the NetApp Simulator, command line
  3. Optimization of the NetApp Simulator, website management
  4. Install NetApp Simulator licenses and configure aggregates
  5. Creating the Storage Virtual Machine (SVM)
  6. Configure Network and VLANs
  7. Configure CIFS and NFS protocols and volumes
  8. Connect NetApp to Splunk Enterprise

 

Once you can logon to the support area, go to Software > Downloads and visit the "Data ONTAP" simulator close to the ToolChest tools https://mysupport.netapp.com/

Download Data ONTAP Simulator

 

After you get there, download the 9.2 simulator for VMware Workstation (we'll install it on Workstation version 12; have tested both and I believe VMware Workstation is easier to configure than the simulator for the VMware ESX version, besides you won't need to alter absolutely anything on your production environment), together with the licenses for it

 Download licenses for 9.2 installation

 

1. Preparing the VMware Workstation environment

First of all you might need to prepare a VM on your Workstation software that will act as a client, something with Linux or Windows from where you can open Firefox or Google and configure the NetApp Simulator. I call this (throughout this article) the MGMT or Management VM

In addition to the Management VM, you also need to prepare a Domain Controller VM, where the Simulator Netapp will attach to. On my example I created a 2008 R2 domain called "nazaudy.internal", and both the DC and the MGMT are attached to the local LAN VMnet3, with subnet 10.0.0.0/24

Once you have both the MGMT and the DC VM ready, import the OVA file into VMware Workstation (File > Open)

  • Give it 8GB of RAM instead of the default 5GB
  • Set LAN 3 and 4 to VMnet4 instead of the default NAT. On my environment, VMnet3 is serving the net 10.10.10.0/24 where my Management VM and DC are connected.

Configure the NetApp simulator

 

2. Configuring the NetApp Simulator, command line 

Upon the 1st boot, press Control + C and select option 4 = clear configuration and initialise all disks, enter “yes” twice

 

 NetApp simulator 9.2 Installation and Configuration

 After the wipe type “yes” to enable autosupport, though we’ll disable it after

 Enter the IP address for the Node Management Interface [e0c]

  • eoc = 10.10.10.230 (that would be the IP to manage the single node only)

  eoc IP address

Press enter, then select to "create" a new cluster

Create a new NetApp cluster

Type "no" for Single Cluster; then type "yes" to accept the defaults

User single cluster defaults

 Type a new password for the admin account, I used "Simulator7!"

Enter admin password for the simulator

Enter the cluster name “NetAppX”, and enter too to skip the license (we’ll do it later)

 NetAppX

After we skip license again, so just press enter for blank, then enter this IP address for the Cluster Management Port interface:

    • eod = 10.10.10.231 (this is the web address to manage the NetApp Cluster)

     eod netapp interface

    TEST: Visit your domain controller, and ensure you can ping to both 10.10.10.230 and 10.10.10.231, then enter DNS [nazaudy.internal] or whichever your domain

    IP address for eod

     Type the location "London", then you're done! :) The system should be ready to login

    Netapp time

     

    3. Optimization of the NetApp Simulator, website management

    If all has been successful, go to your MGMT and visit the encrypted site https://10.10.10.231 and then go to Administrator > Settings and set the timeout to “180” and the log to “OFF”, otherwise the simulator quickly run out of space

     Turn off Log level in the NetApp simulator 9.2 Installation and Configuration

    Visit “Hardware & Diagnostics” > Autosupport and disable it

    Disabled AutoSupport in the Turn off Log level in the NetApp simulator 9.2 Installation and Configuration

    Click “Protection” > Snapshot Policies > Status > and disable them all

    Disabled Snapshot Policies in the NetApp simulator 9.2

    Visit the command line and type this command to assign all drives:

    :: system node> disk assign –all true –node NetAppX-01

    NetApp assign drives

     

    Go to Hardware $ Diagnostics > Aggregates and click on the “aggr0”  > Actions > and choose to add capacity

    NetApp aggregates

    Add 4 disks to the pool

    Add thise to t he pool

     

    4. Install NetApp Simulator licenses and configure aggregates

    Click “Configurations” > licenses and add the licenses from the .txt that you downloaded previously. If it does not recognise the licenses, press spacebar and then remove the blank space:

    CIFS license:

     

    • YVUCRRRRYVHXCFABGAAAAAAAAAAA

    NFS license:

    • MBXNQRRRYVHXCFABGAAAAAAAAAAA

    NFS and CIFS licenses

    Still in the Configuration sections, visit “Date and Time” and add the FRDC as the NTP server, otherwise it will give you an error at the time of creating the CIF due to lack to sync

    NetApp edit date and time

    Go to "Hardware and Diagnostics", click Aggregates, create a new aggregate called “aggr_data

    Create aggr_data for NetApp simulator 9.2 Installation and Configuration

    5. Creating the Storage Virtual Machine (SVM)

    For us to have a NetApp simulator 9.2 Installation and Configuration in working conditions, we need to create Storage Virtual Machines on it. Visit the SVMs tab and create a new Storage Virtual Machine called “SVM1” with the security style of NTFS

     NetApp SVM Details

     

    On the next window, create password for “vsadmin” [Hello999]

    If all goes well with NTP, you'd successfully create the SVM 

    SVM Creation done

     

    6. Configure Network and VLANs

    For CIFS traffic we would use the subnet (192.168.1.0/24 with vlan48), visit Network > Ethernet Ports and choose to Create VLAN, add the physical e0c and set it to VLAN 48, then do the same for e0d

    For NFS traffic we’ll use VLAN 60, so add it as well on both interfaces (one at a time) e0c and e0d

     NetApp create VLAN

    So at the end, it should look like this:

     VLANs in NetApp

    Once the port are created, visit Broadcast Domains and create a new one called “CIFS”, choose the settings below and associated it to the newly created ports eoc-48 and e0d-48

     CIFS MUT

     Once you finish, create another broadcast domain called "NFS" and associate it to the vlan 60

     Create Broadcast Domain

     

    7. Configure CIFS and NFS protocols and volumes

    Visit SVMs > click on Edit and enable the CIFS protocol (if they happens to be greyed out, ensure that you have installed the licenses!)

     CIFS for SVMs

     

     Then, at the bottom of the page, click on “CIFS” to configure the protocol

    Configure CIFS protocol

    Click on create a new LIF, an assign an IP address without a network. Choose 10.10.10.233; this will be the IP address that users will use to map drives on the CIFS share

     CIFS protocol IP address

     

    Map the LIF to port e0c-48, the one that we previously created for broadcast CIFS

    Data LIF configuration

    Now enter the name of the netapp (CIFS name) that you want the users to know it by, enter also the AD credentials to add the netapp to AD. Ensure that the name that you use (the account NetAppX) does not exist on AD!

    CIFS Server Name

    If you get an error about NTP, visit the netapp and issue the command "date", to see at what time it's running at; then visit the DC and add 1 x hour to the server; it seems that the simulator runs always one hour ahead and does not understand time saving (remember that if you fail, you need to delete the NetApp account from Active Directory!)

     

    8. Connect NetApp to Splunk Enterprise

    If you would like to gather information of your NetApp and display it on Splunk, do as follows:

    1. Download the Splunk OVA for VMware, this is a VM that will act as a collector, where both VMware and NetApp (we'd need to configure the VM to do that) will send data and Splunk will grab it from there. Get the VM on this link: https://splunkbase.splunk.com/app/3216/

     Once you got it, do that on the VM

    yum - y update

    vi /etc/ntp.conf //**and enter the IP for your NTP server

    sudo service ntpd restart

    date  //**check you got the correct date configure

    system-config-network //**run this command to configure the nic correctly!

    ./splunk enable boot-start

    Run the command "cp -r props.conf" to copy the props.conf from /opt/splunk/etc/apps/ Splunk_TA_ontap/default to local https://docs.splunk.com/

    On your NetApp enter this command:

    event notification destination create Splunk_Collector -syslog 192.168.0.33

     

    Hope all that helps!

    If you have enjoyed reading this article about NetApp simulator 9.2 Installation and Configuration, you might like this other one too:

     

    London, November 2017