2009.Q2.2.0

This is a minor release of the 2009.Q2 software that contains numerous fixes. The following areas are specifically addressed:

• Core I/O stability improvements
• Better performance when running out of space
• I/O performance improvements
• Network hangs
• Configuring 4x10Gb link aggregation fails
• Hangs when canceling replication
• CIFS stability improvements
• Active directory join problems
• Firmware performance with 7310 and 7410 system disks

Supported Platforms

• Sun Storage 7110
• Sun Storage 7210
• Sun Storage 7310
• Sun Storage 7410
• Sun Storage 7000 Simulator

Issues Addressed

The following CRs have been fixed in this release:

Known issues

IP Multipathing (IPMP) groups can be configured to permit fail-over of IP addresses from one IP interface through link-based failure detection (monitoring the link state of the physical network devices that are used by the IP interfaces that comprise the group) and (optionally) probe-based failure detection (actively sending ICMP probes to peers on the local network, such as the first-hop router). If the local network is saturated, enough ICMP probes may be lost to trigger a fail-over even when the IP interface is still functional (though saturated). This can be worked around by disabling probe-based failure detection on the impacted IP interfaces (by using an IP address of 0.0.0.0/8).

The Configuration/Network view permits a wide variety of networking configuration changes on the Sun Storage system. One such change is taking an existing network interface and associating it with a different network datalink, effectively moving the interface's IP addresses to a different physical link (or links, in the case of an aggregation). In this scenario, the network routes associated with the original interface are automatically deleted, and must be re-added by the administrator to the new interface. In some situations this may imply loss of a path to particular hosts until those routes are restored.

The Configuration/Network view permits a wide variety of networking configuration changes on the Sun Storage system. One such change is modifying or deleting the active administrative interface over which the administrator is connected to the web browser or command-line interface itself, which may also be providing the default route for the system. The appliance software attempts to detect such modifications and warn the administrator first. If such a reconfiguration is confirmed or not detected in advance, the administrator will lose contact with the appliance during the network reconfiguration. The network reconfiguration will complete, but if contact cannot be restored with the appliance (by reloading the web address or reconnecting using ssh) due to an error in the configuration applied by the administrator or the loss of the default route, the administrator should log in using the service processor console and correct the configuration using the command-line.

In the current version of J4400 Array firmware, used in the disk enclosures for the Sun Storage 7410, the J4400 emits an audible alarm when a disk drive is hot-unplugged. The alarm warns the operator that a drive has been removed, and the alarm is silenced when the drive is replaced, either by the original drive or by a new replacement. In some operator scenarios, it may be preferable to not emit such an alarm, particularly if a spare drive is not immediately available. The operator can manually silence the alarm by depressing a button on the J4400 front panel. Future versions of the J4400 firmware and appliance software will disable this behavior and/or permit it to be configured by the administrator.

The Sun Storage products permit administrators to manage collections of shares and LUNs, grouped together into named projects that have common settings. NDMP backup applications operate on mounted filesystems and do not intrinsically understand Sun ZFS metadata and the relationship between projects and shares. In the current release of the Sun Storage 7x10 products, NDMP backup applications should be configured to backup individual shares of interest, and should not be directed to backup or restore the base mountpoint associated with an entire project. These settings will insure that individual shares are backed up and restored with all of their associated independent metadata.

If the IP address of an Active Directory domain controller appears incorrect after a reboot, restart the CIFS service to obtain the correct IP address.

When reconfiguring the Active Directory service to participate in a different domain, restart the CIFS service before attempting to reconfigure the Active Directory service.

In a 7210 System, removing the first system disk will make the system unbootable, despite the presence of a second mirrored disk. To workaround this issue, break into the BIOS boot menu, under 'HDD boot order', modify the list so the first item is "[SCSI:#0300 ID00 LU]".

With a large number of network interfaces, the CIFS service NetBIOS registration mechanism can time out, causing the CIFS service to fail. If you encounter this situation, please contact Sun support to work around the issue.

Under heavy load in large configurations, the first SIM card (SIM 0) can fail. The symptoms are a blue LED on the card itself and an audible alarm, with possible alerts in the UI regarding paths and/or power supplies being removed from the chassis. I/O will continue down other available paths, and there no impact to availability, though performance may suffer. Re-seating the SIM card (removing it and inserting it) should fix the problem. If this problem persists, please contact Sun Support.

Under heavy streaming write workloads, there can be a significant performance regression under some circumstances. Read workloads are unaffected.

If an automatic snapshot is deleted during replication of the same project, it's possible for the replication to fail. The safest workaround is to disable automatic snapshots if a project is being replicated. Alternatively, picking a schedule that is guaranteed to not interfere with ongoing replication may work, but is dependent on each incremental replication stream being sent in a well-defined period of time.