Installation Notes

Install Update within Cluster

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

/ Important information

Please have a look at the Collax V-Cube 6.9.0 Release Notes if the nodes have Version 6.8.28 or above and haven’t been updated yet. For updates below 6.8.22, 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) V-Cube+ node 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

Virtualization: Shutting down paused VM

Virtual machines that are in the operating system-initiated hibernation mode will be shut down properly within this release when shutting down the VM host. The real problem is that VMs that have to be paused can be remedied by the power settings within the virtual machine by setting hibernation=never there.

Virtualization: Virtio RNG device

Within this release we Provide a paravirtual random number generator to virtual machines, to prevent entropy starvation in guests. There are virtio drivers on the Virtio Driver CD which have to be installed therefore.

System Management: Monitoring consistency check on Broadcom Controllers

Nagios’ active monitoring of RAID controllers from Broadcom (Avago / LSI) will be adapted with this release. The consistency check activated in the RAID controller is no longer displayed as a warning by Nagios.

System Management: Linux Kernel 4.9.230

This update installs Linux kernel 4.9.230.

System Management: Reduced number of messages from Active Monitoring

The number of messages from the Nagios monitoring system has been reduced. If the maintenance status for a cluster node is activated and canceled again, fewer e-mails are now sent.

When a node is put into maintenance mode, a warning is issued: “Cluster Nodes is WARNING”. In addition, a message was previously triggered that the shared memory was no longer synchronous: “eSAN is CRITICAL”. However, this is intended as a consequence of the change in status and therefore the associated message is unnecessary. With this update, the shared memory is still checked. A message is only sent from the active one Node issued if it is not due to maintenance mode. If the maintenance mode is exited again, the warning (“Cluster Nodes is OK”) is only issued when the shared memory is also synchronized again. The color coding on the dashboard for the “Monitoring” box is no longer red but orange during maintenance mode.

Please note: In rare cases, the message “eSAN is CRITICAL” can still be triggered after exiting maintenance mode. This happens when the regularly scheduled review of the shared memory takes place at a very inopportune time.

Hardware: AMD Zen 2

With this update the latest server CPU generation from AMD with the code name “Rome” is supported.

Issues Fixed in this Version

Security: Important security relevant System Components

This update will also install/update the following important system components:

• Kernel 4.9.230
• KVM-Kernel-Patches
• Qemu 3.1.0
• microcode-20200616

CVE-2020-2732 CVE-2020-13765 CVE-2020-13754 CVE-2020-8608 CVE-2020-13659 CVE-2020-13362 CVE-2020-13361 CVE-2020-10756 CVE-2020-1711 CVE-2019-15034 CVE-2019-20382 CVE-2019-12068 CVE-2020-0549 CVE-2020-0551

Security: Intel SRBDS Special Register Buffer Data Sampling

Intel has discovered further critical security vulnerabilities on numerous CPUs. These can be protected by adapting the operating system and updating the microcode. With this update the kernel-side protection mechanisms and the new microcode are introduced.

The new microcode is updated to microcode-20200616. The new Linux kernel is updated to version 4.9.230.

Virtualization: Deleting drives

Drives can be configured in virtual machines. If a drive was deleted, it could happen that the BUS type was wrongly inherited. If e.g. a CD-ROM drive of the type “ide” was deleted and the subsequent drive of the “virtio” type was moved, this could adopt the “ide” type. This will be corrected with this update.

Virtualization: OpenSuSE 42.3 with UEFI did not start

A virtual machine with OpenSuSE 42.3, which uses UEFI, aborted when starting with a message within the VM. With this update, the UEFI package for the VMs is renewed so that the error no longer occurs and the VM starts completely.

Virtualization: VM with IDE drive at position> 4 did not start

A VM that had a hard disk or a CD drive of the type “IDE” configured in a position greater than four did not start and reported the error: “unsupported configuration: Only a single IDE controller is supported for this machine type”. This update ensures that drives of the type “IDE” are only connected to working positions can be configured and the VM starts without an error message.

Virtualization: Warning of the communication port of a Windows VM

For VMs with the Windows Server 2019 operating system, two COM ports were sometimes given a warning in the device manager and displayed, that there are no drivers. With this update, the UEFI package for the VMs is renewed so that the warning is no longer displayed.

V-Cube+: Memory problem in cluster process

In the program “crm-notify”, which is responsible for the status of the complete cluster for Identifying the administration interface, there was a bug, that caused over time more and more main memory to beeing used. With this update the error in memory usage has been fixed.

Backup/Restore: VM restarted during backup up to a UEFI shell

It could happen that a VM restarted itself under rare circumstances during a backup and did not start completely afterwards. But only got as far as the UEFI shell, as the hard drives could not be found in the UEFI system. However, the VM could be restarted at any time via the administration interface without any problems. With this update the qemu package is renewed, with which the error no longer occurs.

System Management: Monitoring BBU state on Broadcom Controllers

Nagios’ active monitoring of RAID controllers from Broadcom (Avago / LSI) will be adapted with this release. Due to a behavior change, the code had to be adjusted to give a degraded BBU the status CRITICAL.

Notes

Hardware: Changed partition scheme for new installation since version 6.9.0 / Important

when replacing a node

If one of the nodes is defective, it can simply be exchanged via the “Add New Node” dialog. Due to a changed partition schemes take a few things into account.

• Both nodes should have nearly identical hardware equipment - Both nodes must have the same version - An additional 10 GB of free space must be available on the storage volume “default” if the version of the existing node at installation was older than 6.9.0. Under “Virtual Disks” click on “Storage Volumes”, then right click on the storage volume “default” and check the free space specified under Size.

Misc: 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.