Network Administrator’s

Guide to Actifio VDP

Actifio VDP 10.0

Copyright, Trademarks, and other Legal Matter
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ii Network Administrator’s Guide to Actifio VDP | actifio.com |

Contents

Preface ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ vii

Actifio Appliances .........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................vii

The ActifioNOW Customer Portal ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................vii

Actifio Support Centers ..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................vii

Chapter 1 - Modifying Your Network Configuration Settings ............................................................................................................................1

DNS and NTP.......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................2

IPs and Interfaces .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................3

NIC Usage for Each Actifio Appliance Type....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 4

Outbound Policies.......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................6

Outbound Policies and Custom Configurations..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................7

Network Troubleshooting...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................8

Host Resolution...............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................9

Configure Self Service Network for Actifio Sky Appliances in the Cloud ..................................................................................................................10

Chapter 2 - Reference Architectures for Actifio Appliances .......................................................................................................................... 11

Actifio Sky Appliances............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................11

Actifio CDX Appliances .........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................11

Actifio CDS Appliance: Generation-3................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 12

Actifio CDS Appliance: Generation-4.................................................................................................................................................................................................................13

Actifio CDS Appliance: Generation-5.................................................................................................................................................................................................................14

Chapter 3 - Firewall Rules ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 15

Internet Protocol (IP) Network Security in an Actifio Environment...................................................................................................................................15

Chapter 4 - About the Actifio Connector .............................................................................................................................................................................21

What Does the Connector Do?.................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 21

The Connector and the Network Environment......................................................................................................................................................................................22

Host-Side Scripting.................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................22

Obtaining the Right Actifio Connector for Your Host .................................................................................................................................................................... 23

Maintaining Connectors on Hosts....................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 24

Chapter 5 - Supporting VMware with Actifio VDP ....................................................................................................................................................25

Actifio Sky Appliance Networking Requirements............................................................................................................................................................................... 25

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 Ensuring iSCSI Connectivity from ESX to Storage .............................................................................................................................................................................. 26

Ensuring iSCSI Connectivity with an ESX Server................................................................................................................................................................................... 26

Adding the iSCSI Actifio Definition to the ESX server ............................................................................................................................................................................................................27

Configuring AGM to See the ESX Host....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................27

Ensuring NFS Connectivity from ESX to Storage.................................................................................................................................................................................. 28

Setting NFS Data Transport Mode to a Host in VMware............................................................................................................................................................. 29

Specifying the NIC for NFS Mounts ...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................30

Chapter 6 - Supporting Microsoft Windows Server with Actifio VDP .................................................................................................. 31

Ensuring iSCSI Connectivity on a Windows Physical Host....................................................................................................................................................... 32

Ensuring Fibre Channel Connectivity on a Windows Physical Host ............................................................................................................................ 33

Installing the Actifio Connector on Microsoft Windows Hosts........................................................................................................................................... 34

Restricting Windows Connector Communication to Specific Appliances......................................................................................................... 35

To Unrestrict a Restricted Windows Connector .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................36

Notes on Discovering Specific Microsoft Application Types.................................................................................................................................................37

Chapter 7 - Supporting Microsoft Hyper-V with Actifio VDP ....................................................................................................................... 39

Chapter 8 - Supporting Linux with Actifio VDP ...............................................................................................................................................................41

Ensuring iSCSI Connectivity on a Linux Host ..............................................................................................................................................................................................41

Ensuring Fibre Channel Connectivity to a Linux Host ................................................................................................................................................................... 43

Ensuring NFS Connectivity on a Linux Host Connected to a Sky Appliance........................................................................................................47

Installing the Actifio Connector on a Linux Host.................................................................................................................................................................................48

Upgrading or Uninstalling the Actifio Connector from a Host Using AGM...........................................................................................................49

Chapter 9 - Supporting IBM AIX with Actifio VDP ......................................................................................................................................................... 51

Supported IBM AIX Configurations ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................51

Ensuring NFS Connectivity on an IBM AIX Host Connected to a Sky Appliance ............................................................................................. 53

Installing the Actifio Connector on IBM AIX Hosts..............................................................................................................................................................................54

Chapter 10 - Supporting IBM HMC with Actifio VDP ................................................................................................................................................. 55

Ensuring vSCSI Connectivity on an IBM HMC Host............................................................................................................................................................................56

Installing, Upgrading, or Uninstalling the Actifio Connector on an IBM HMC Host......................................................................................56

Chapter 11 - Supporting Oracle Solaris with Actifio VDP ....................................................................................................................................57

Installing the Actifio Connector on Solaris Hosts...............................................................................................................................................................................58

Ensuring iSCSI Connectivity on an Oracle Sun Solaris Host...................................................................................................................................................59

Ensuring Connectivity on a Solaris Host over Fibre Channel SAN..................................................................................................................................59

Ensuring NFS Connectivity on a Solaris Host...........................................................................................................................................................................................60

Chapter 12 - Supporting HP-UX with Actifio VDP .......................................................................................................................................................... 61

Ensuring iSCSI Connectivity on an HP-UX Host (Actifio Sky only) ......................................................................................................................................61

Ensuring Fibre Channel Connectivity on an HP-UX Host.............................................................................................................................................................61

iv Network Administrator’s Guide to Actifio VDP | actifio.com |

 Ensuring NFS Connectivity on an HP-UX Host Connected to a Sky Appliance................................................................................................ 63

Installing the Actifio Connector on HP-UX Hosts ................................................................................................................................................................................64

Chapter 13 - Adding Your Hosts to an Actifio Appliance ................................................................................................................................. 65

Assigning VDisks for the Host Copy Data (In-Band CDS Appliance only) ............................................................................................................66

Configuring Hosts to Auto-Discover their Applications..............................................................................................................................................................67

Reconciling Inconsistent Host Information across Multiple Appliances ...............................................................................................................68

Security Software on Hosts..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................68

Deleting Hosts Using the AGM ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................68

Chapter 14 - Adding Unix Hosts to AGM ............................................................................................................................................................................... 69

Notes for HMC Hosts...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................70

Chapter 15 - Adding Windows Server and Hyper-V Hosts to AGM ..........................................................................................................71

Chapter 16 - Configuring External Snapshot Pools on IBM Storewize and Pure Storage FlashArray ............73

Prerequisites for an External Snapshot Pool Deployment .......................................................................................................................................................74

Adding an External Storage Array........................................................................................................................................................................................................................75

Adding an External Snapshot Pool.......................................................................................................................................................................................................................76

Chapter 17 - Configuring LDAP and Role-Based Access ................................................................................................................................... 77

LDAP Authentication.............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 77

Things to Consider when AGM Is Configured for LDAP Authentication ......................................................................................................................................................... 77

Configuring LDAP Settings ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................78

Mapping LDAP Groups to Roles and Organizations..............................................................................................................................................................................................................79

Viewing LDAP Groups .................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................81

Deleting an LDAP Group........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 82

SAML Authentication............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 83

Configuring SAML Settings................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 83

Downloading SP Metadata............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 83

Managing Web Certificates........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................84

Upload PKCS12 File .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................84

Reset and Generate New Web Certificate.....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................85

Chapter 18 - APPID Pre- and Post-Scripts for Scheduled Data Protection Jobs ...................................................................87

Chapter 19 - Super Scripts for Workflows and On-Demand Data Access Jobs ................................................................... 89

Super Script Phases.............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 90

Super Script Arguments .................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 90

Super Script Timeouts........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 90

Super Script Environment Variables...................................................................................................................................................................................................................91

CLI Commands Supported in Super Scripts ............................................................................................................................................................................................ 92

Sample Super Scripts ......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 93

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Chapter 20 - Actifio Event Notifications .............................................................................................................................................................................. 95

Types of Actifio Events.......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................96

Example of Automating Corrective Action Based Upon an Event Notification .............................................................................................96

Events that Go from Information or Warning to Error...................................................................................................................................................................97

Alert Methods Supported by Actifio Appliances.................................................................................................................................................................................98

Chapter 21 - Monitoring Alerts in the AGM Events Monitor ............................................................................................................................ 99

Interpreting Event Details in the Events Monitor............................................................................................................................................................................... 100

Chapter 22 - Configuring the Call Home Feature ................................................................................................................................................... 101

Sending Alerts from an Actifio Appliance by HTTPS ....................................................................................................................................................................... 101

Sending Alerts from an Actifio Appliance by Email........................................................................................................................................................................103

Configuring an Actifio Appliance to Communicate with an SMTP Server.............................................................................................................................................. 103

Setting Up Automatic Emails of Events............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 104

Interpreting Notifications............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 106

Chapter 23 - Sending Traps from the Actifio Appliance to a Trap Receiver .......................................................................... 107

Configuring an Actifio Appliance to Forward Traps to a Trap Receiver................................................................................................................107

Setting the Community String for Forwarding Traps to a non-Actifio SNMP Trap Receiver.............................................................................................. 108

Configuring the SNMP Agent to Support SNMP GET Operations..................................................................................................................................... 109

Activating the SNMP Agent in an Actifio Appliance ........................................................................................................................................................................................................... 109

Accessing the Actifio MIB .................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 110

Using the Actifio MIB ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 111

Interpreting Traps ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 113

Chapter 24 - Collecting Alerts from Storage and Switches (CDS only) ........................................................................................ 115

Polling Alerts from IBM V3700, IBM DS 3512, and NetApp E2700 Storage Arrays .............................................................................................. 115

Forwarding Alerts from an IBM System Storage SAN24B-4 Express Switch to an Actifio CDS Appliance....................... 116

Checking Fibre Channel Connectivity from a CDS Appliance to Storage ...........................................................................................................117

Chapter 25 - Actifio Remote Support ......................................................................................................................................................................................119

Actifio Call Home Remote Event Notification ........................................................................................................................................................................................120

Actifio SecureConnect.......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................121

Index .............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................123

vi Network Administrator’s Guide to Actifio VDP | actifio.com |

 Preface

This guide is for network administrators and system administrators who have to support Actifio systems.
It provides information and procedures necessary to ensure connectivity and performance between the
Actifio system, your production data, and your data storage.

Actifio Appliances
Unless otherwise specified, all features and functions described in this document apply to all Actifio
appliances.

The ActifioNOW Customer Portal

During the configuration and initialization of your Actifio appliance your Actifio representative provided
you with a user name and password for the ActifioNOW customer portal.
From the ActifioNOW customer portal you can obtain detailed reports about your Actifio appliance,
access the Actifio product documentation, including release notes, and search the knowledge base for
answers to specific questions.
To log into the ActifioNOW customer portal:
1. Go to: https://now.actifio.com.
2. When prompted, enter the user name and password provided by your Actifio representative.

Actifio Support Centers

To contact an Actifio support representative, you can:
• Send email to: [email protected]
• Call:
From anywhere: +1.315.261.7501
US Toll-Free: +1.855.392.6810
Australia: 0011 800-16165656
Germany: 00 800-16165656
New Zealand: 00 800-16165656
UK: 0 800-0155019

| actifio.com | Network Administrator’s Guide to Actifio VDP vii

viii Network Administrator’s Guide to Actifio VDP| actifio.com |
1 Modifying Your Network
Configuration Settings

Your Actifio Appliance includes a self-service network configuration feature. This chapter describes how
to use it to:
• Modify DNS and NTP on page 2
• Modify IPs and Interfaces on page 3
• Create and modify Outbound Policies on page 6
• Perform Network Troubleshooting on page 8
• Create and modify Host Resolution on page 9
• Configure Self Service Network for Actifio Sky Appliances in the Cloud on page 10

Accessing the Appliance System Management Tools

1. Open a browser to the Resource Center HTTP://<appliance IP address>/.
2. Click System & Network Management Login Page.
3. Log in using the appliance credentials. The Network Settings page opens. If your Sky Appliance is
in a public cloud platform, such as AWS, GCP, or Azure, see Configure Self Service Network for
Actifio Sky Appliances in the Cloud on page 10.

Accessing the System & Network Management Tools

1
DNS and NTP
Enter this information:
DNS Domain: Enter the domain of the hosts connected to this appliance.
If you have additional hosts on other domains, you can set up a DNS Suffix Search to ensure the
Actifio Appliance can find them by their short names.

Note: If you set any entries in DNS Suffix Search, then the DNS Domain will NOT be searched. To
search both the manual entries AND the DNS domain, include the DNS domain in the DNS Suffix
Search.

Primary DNS: Enter the IP address of your primary DNS server.

Secondary DNS: Enter the IP address of your secondary DNS server (optional).
NTP Server: Enter the IP address or hostname of your NTP server.

DNS and NTP

2
IPs and Interfaces
The IPs & Interfaces tab shows a list of configured IP addresses. You can modify these if necessary, and
configure new interfaces added to the Sky Appliance in vCenter. The list is sorted by node first, then by
interface, then by type in order (Node, iSCSI). appliance IPs are listed at the end since they are not
associated with a single node. DHCP is not supported.

IPs and Interfaces

Configuring a Default Interface

The Default Interface specifies which interface is used to reach arbitrary remote hosts:
• If you specify a Default Interface on a CDS Appliance, then that interface’s Node IP address is
used.
• If none is specified for a CDS Appliance, then the eth0 cluster IP address is used.
• Sky Appliances have no cluster IP address. Sky Appliances always use a Node IP address.
• If no Default Interface is specified for a Sky Appliance, then the first valid Node IP address is used.

Modifying IP Address Settings

To modify a setting:
1. Check its box and click Modify.
2. Make your changes and click Update. Changes take effect immediately.

Modifying the MTU for eth0 of Node1

3
NIC Usage for Each Actifio Appliance Type
Actifio Appliances can be configured for different levels of security and availability depending on network
resources. For best results, configure appliances according to the following tables:
Table 1: Actifio Sky Appliance NIC Usage on page 4
Table 2: Actifio CDS Appliance Generation-3 NIC Usage on page 4
Table 3: Actifio CDS Appliance Generation-4 and Generation 5 NIC Usage on page 5
Table 4: Actifio CDX Appliance NIC Usage on page 5

Table 1: Actifio Sky Appliance NIC Usage

Network Security Requirement Use

1G only virtual network Low Eth0 (1G) for all traffic

1/10G mixed virtual network Medium Eth0 (1G) for management

Eth1 (1/10G) for backup/restore/replication

1/10G mixed virtual network High Eth0 (1G) for management

Eth1 (10G) for backup
Eth2 (1/10G) for replication
More Eth* for backups only if required.

Each Sky appliance can support up to 100 iSCSI sessions. You can support an additional 100 sessions by
adding a NIC card to the Sky appliance.

Table 2: Actifio CDS Appliance Generation-3 NIC Usage

Network Security Requirement Use

1G only Low Eth0 (1G) for all traffic

1G only Medium Eth0 (1G) for management

Eth1 (1G) for backup/restore/replication

1/10G mixed Medium Eth0 (1G) for management

Eth2 (10G) for backup/restore/replication

1/10G mixed High Eth0 (1G) for management

Eth2 (10G) for backup
Eth3 (10G) replication

1/10G mixed High, with improved availability Eth0 (1G) for management
Eth1 (1G) for replication
Eth2/3 (10G & HA) for backup

4
 Table 3: Actifio CDS Appliance Generation-4 and Generation 5 NIC Usage

Network Security Requirement Use

1G only Low Eth0 (1G) for all traffic

1G only Medium Eth0 (1G) for management

Eth1 (1G) for backup/restore/replication

1G only Medium Eth0 (1G) for management

Eth1 (1G) for backup/restore
Eth2 (1G) for replication

1/10G mixed Medium Eth0 (1G) for management

Eth2 (10G) for backup/restore/replication

1/10G mixed High Eth0 (1G) for management

Eth3 (10G) for backup
Eth5 (10G) replication

1/10G mixed High, with improved availability Eth0 (1G) for management
Eth1 (1G) for replication
Eth3/4 (10G & HA) for backup

1/10G mixed High, with improved availability Eth0 (1G) for management
Eth3/4 (10G & HA) for backup
Eth5 (10G) for replication

1/10G mixed High, with improved availability Eth0 (1G) for management
Eth3/4 (10G & HA) for backup
Eth5/6 (10G & HA) for replication

Table 4: Actifio CDX Appliance NIC Usage

Ethernet NIC Number of Comments

Ports

10Gb DA/SFP+ Ethernet 4 Quad port adapter. General use

10Gb DA/SFP+ Ethernet 2 Dual port adapter. Dedicated interconnect

1GbE Ethernet 4 DO NOT USE - Quad port adapter. Reserved.

1GbE Ethernet 1 Dedicated BMC management port

5
Outbound Policies
Outbound policies define how the Actifio Appliance will reach specific remote networks for outbound
connections. Any remote network not addressed by an outbound policy will be governed by the Default
Interface configured in IPs and Interfaces on page 3.
You can also use this page to set a static route. An outbound policy is essentially a group of static routes
that are automatically tailored to each of your specific interfaces.

Outbound Policies

To modify an outbound policy:

1. Check its box and click Modify.
2. Make your changes and click Update. Changes take effect immediately.
To add a new outbound policy:
1. Click Add.
2. Enter your information and click Add. Changes take effect immediately.
A Gateway setting is optional. If you do not assign a gateway, then the default gateway for the interface is
used. If your traffic must traverse a non-default gateway, then assign that gateway here. This gateway
will be installed on every interface where it fits the netmask.

Adding an Outbound Policy

6
Outbound Policies and Custom Configurations
If this system has some custom networking configured by Actifio Support, then the View and Delete
Custom Configuration buttons appear on this page. You can view the text of the custom networking
configuration file here.

Note: These buttons are not visible if your appliance has never had a custom configuration. A custom
configuration can be created/modified only by Actifio Support. If you cannot make modifications to
this page, it means that this system has some custom networking configured by Actifio Support.
Contact Actifio Support for guidance.

If the appliance has an active custom configuration, then you see a Delete option. This disables the
custom part of the configuration, allowing you to proceed with the formerly disabled management
functions.

Note: Disabling a custom configuration may make the appliance unreachable.

This Appliance has a Custom Configuration

If you want to reactivate your custom configuration, use the Restore Custom Configuration button.

Restoring a Custom Configuration

7
Network Troubleshooting
Use this page to troubleshoot problematic network connections. Under Utility, select the troubleshooting
tool to use, enter the necessary parameters, and then click Run Test. The results appear in the Test Results
box.
Ping: Runs a ping to determine reachability of a target host, returning the output as a plain text
stream. This command sends 3 ICMP echo packets. 
Enter:
o Source IP: Select the IP address of the appliance to test. This tests the behavior of a reply
packet. If you do not enter a value here, then the Outbound Policy rules are used. This
tests the behavior of outbound connections.
o Destination IP: A valid IPv4 or IPv6 address.
Example Ping result:
PING 1.2.3.4 (1.2.3.4) 56(84) bytes of data.
--- 1.2.3.4 ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 3001ms
IP route get: Queries the routing tables for the selected Destination IP address without sending
any packets. Enter:
o Source IP: Select the IP address of the appliance to test. This tests the behavior of a reply
packet. If enter no value, then Outbound Policy rules are used to test the behavior of
outbound connections.
o Destination IP: The IP address of a target host.
Example IP route get result:
test/routeget 1.2.3.4
1.2.3.4 via 172.17.1.2 dev eth0 src 172.17.134.80
cache mtu 1500 advmss 1460 hoplimit 64
Traceroute: Runs a traceroute to the given IP address by sending a series of UDP probes,
returning the output as a plain text stream. This can take 30 or more seconds to run. Use
Traceroute to identify intervening networks on the path. Traceroute cannot accept a source IP
parameter, so it is not useful for testing the behavior of reply packets. Only outgoing
connections can be diagnosed with this tool.
o Destination IP: The IP address of a target host.
o UDP Port: See Chapter 3, Firewall Rules
Example Traceroute result:
test/traceroute 8.8.8.8
1: dev134-86.dev.acme.com (172.17.134.86) 0.092ms pmtu 1500
1: devgw-waln5k02.dev.acme.com (172.17.0.3) 4.287ms
1: devgw-waln5k02.dev.acme.com (172.17.0.3) 1.287ms
2: e-1-20-walpalo.core.acme.com (192.168.255.21) 2.805ms
3: ge-0-0-1-walasr.edge.acme.com (192.43.242.209) 2.769ms
4: 205.158.44.81.ptr.us.xo.net (205.158.44.81) 9.247ms asymm 14
5: vb1020.rar3.nyc-ny.us.xo.net (216.156.0.25) 10.080ms asymm 12
6: 207.88.12.104.ptr.us.xo.net (207.88.12.104) 8.537ms asymm 12
7: 207.88.13.35.ptr.us.xo.net (207.88.13.35) 8.175ms asymm 11
8: no reply
9: no reply
.
.
.
31: no reply
Too many hops: pmtu 1500
Resume: pmtu 1500

8
 TCP Connection Test: Attempts a TCP connection to the target IP and port. If successful, the
connection is closed immediately without transferring any data. If not successful it returns a
failure message.
o Source IP: Select the IP address of the appliance to test. This tests the behavior of a reply
packet. If you do not enter a value here, then the Outbound Policy rules are used. This
tests the behavior of outbound connections.
o Destination IP: The IP address of a target host.
o TCP Port: See Chapter 3, Firewall Rules.
Example TCP Connection Test result:

Troubleshooting: TCP Connection Test

Host Resolution
A host that has both management and production IP addresses may be configured with only the IP
address for the management NIC in DNS. Use this page to add the NIC used for production
communications. The information that you enter here becomes the contents of /etc/hosts.
Note you cannot define a single hostname with multiple IP addresses, as the Management Panel will not
allow you to do this. Even if it allowed more than one IP address to be added for the same hostname, only
the first IP address would ever be used as this how name resolution with the /etc/hosts file works (which is
the reason the panel blocks attempts to add the same hostname). For the scenario where a single
hostname needs to resolve to more than IP, you must rely on an external DNS to do this resolution.

Host Resolution

9
Configure Self Service Network for Actifio Sky Appliances in the Cloud
For Actifio Appliances on the Cloud, once you login to the System Management you will see the DNS, NTP
tab.

System Management Tool for Actifio Appliance on Cloud

3. Enter or modify the network settings using information in DNS and NTP on page 2. Any field you
leave empty will revert to DHCP provided values.
4. Click the IP & Interfaces tab to view the a list of configured IP addresses. You cannot edit any
information, it is view only. For more information, see IPs and Interfaces on page 3.
5. Click the Troubleshooting tab and troubleshoot problematic network connections using
information in Network Troubleshooting on page 8.

Network Troubleshooting

6. Click the Host Resolution tab to override DNS resolution for specific hosts. For more information,
see Host Resolution on page 9.

Note: For appliances on the Cloud, you will not see the Outbound Policies tab.

10
2 Reference Architectures for
Actifio Appliances

Actifio Appliances can be configured for different levels of security and high availability depending on
network resources. For best results, appliances should be configured according to the following tables:
Table 1: Actifio Sky Appliance Reference Architectures on page 11
Table 2: Actifio CDX Appliance Reference Architecture on page 11
Table 3: Actifio CDS Appliance Generation-3 Reference Architectures on page 12
Table 4: Actifio CDS Appliance Generation-4 Reference Architectures on page 13
Table 5: Actifio CDS Appliance Generation-5 Reference Architectures on page 14

Actifio Sky Appliances

Table 1: Actifio Sky Appliance Reference Architectures

Sky Using Network Securit High

y Availabilit
y

Sky-1 Eth0 (1G) for all traffic 1G only virtual network Low The Sky
Appliance
Sky-2 Eth0 (1G) for management 1/10G mixed virtual Medium uses the
network hypervisor’s
Eth1 (1/10G) for backup/restore/replication High
Availability
Sky-4 Eth0 (1G) for management 1/10G mixed virtual High features.
Eth1 (10G) for backup network

Eth2 (1/10G) for replication

More Eth* for backups only if required.

Actifio CDX Appliances

Table 2: Actifio CDX Appliance Reference Architecture

CDX Using Network Security High

Availability

CDX-1 eth0, eth1 for management 10G only High Ports bonded
eth2, eth3 for backup 10G only for HA

11
Actifio CDS Appliance: Generation-3
The Actifio CDS Appliance Generation-3 includes the two nodes in the middle and the batteries above
and below.

An Actifio CDS Appliance Generation-3

These are the most reliable network architectures for a CDS Appliance Generation-3:

Table 3: Actifio CDS Appliance Generation-3 Reference Architectures

Type Using Networ Security High

k Availability

3CDS-1 Eth0 (1G) for all traffic 1G only Low No

3CDS-2 Eth0 (1G) for management 1G only Medium No

Eth1 (1G) for backup/restore/replication

3CDS-3 Eth0 (1G) for management 1/10G Medium No

Eth2 (10G) for backup/restore/ mixed
replication

3CDS-4 Eth0 (1G) for management 1/10G High No

Eth2 (10G) for backup mixed

Eth3 (10G) replication

3CDS-5 Eth0 (1G) for management 1/10G High Yes

Eth1 (1G) for replication mixed

Eth2/3 (10G & HA) for backup

12
Actifio CDS Appliance: Generation-4
The Actifio CDS Appliance Generation-4 looks like this:

These are the most reliable network architectures for a CDS Appliance Generation-4:

Table 4: Actifio CDS Appliance Generation-4 Reference Architectures

Type Using Network Security High

Availability

4CDS-1 Eth0 (1G) for all traffic 1G only Low No

4CDS-2 Eth0 (1G) for management 1G only Medium No

Eth1 (1G) for backup/restore/replication

4CDS-3 Eth0 (1G) for management 1G only Medium No

Eth1 (1G) for backup/restore
Eth2 (1G) for replication

4CDS-4 Eth0 (1G) for management 1/10G Medium No

Eth2 (10G) for backup/restore/ mixed
replication

4CDS-5 Eth0 (1G) for management 1/10G High No

Eth3 (10G) for backup mixed

Eth5 (10G) replication

4CDS-6 Eth0 (1G) for management 1/10G High Yes

Eth1 (1G) for replication mixed

Eth3/4 (10G & HA) for backup

4CDS-7 Eth0 (1G) for management 1/10G High Yes

Eth3/4 (10G & HA) for backup mixed

Eth5 (10G) for replication

4CDS-8 Eth0 (1G) for management 1/10G High Yes

Eth3/4 (10G & HA) for backup mixed

Eth5/6 (10G & HA) for replication

13
Actifio CDS Appliance: Generation-5
The Actifio CDS Appliance Generation-5 looks like this:

These are the most reliable network architectures for a CDS Appliance Generation-5:

Table 5: Actifio CDS Appliance Generation-5 Reference Architectures

Type Using Network Security High

Availability

5CDS-1 Eth0 (1G) for all traffic 1G only Low No

5CDS-2 Eth0 (1G) for management 1G only Medium No

Eth1 (1G) for backup/restore/replication

5CDS-3 Eth0 (1G) for management 1G only Medium No

Eth1 (1G) for backup/restore
Eth2 (1G) for replication

5CDS-4 Eth0 (1G) for management 1/10G Medium No

Eth2 (10G) for backup/restore/ mixed
replication

5CDS-5 Eth0 (1G) for management 1/10G High No

Eth3 (10G) for backup mixed

Eth5 (10G) replication

5CDS-6 Eth0 (1G) for management 1/10G High Yes

Eth1 (1G) for replication mixed

Eth3/4 (10G & HA) for backup

5CDS-7 Eth0 (1G) for management 1/10G High Yes

Eth3/4 (10G & HA) for backup mixed

Eth5 (10G) for replication

5CDS-8 Eth0 (1G) for management 1/10G High Yes

Eth3/4 (10G & HA) for backup mixed

Eth5/6 (10G & HA) for replication

14
3 Firewall Rules

This section opens with an overview of Internet Protocol (IP) Network Security in an Actifio Environment.
Then it details the network ports used within a fully functional Actifio VDP environment:
Actifio Local Management from Administrator Workstation on page 16
Actifio Appliance Local Services on page 16
Traffic to and from the Actifio Appliance on page 17
Backup Traffic from the Actifio Appliance, Replication Traffic Between Appliances on page 18
Actifio Remote Support on page 18
Local Storage Management on page 19
Actifio Report Manager on page 19
Actifio Global Manager (AGM) on page 20
Resiliency Director on page 20

Internet Protocol (IP) Network Security in an Actifio Environment

All components of Actifio Virtual Data Pipeline have been designed with security in mind and the IP
interfaces as traditional attack vectors have been given particular focus in hardening efforts.

Appliance Outbound Connections

The appliance may make outbound connections to some services, but does not listen on or run a service
for these ports unless listed in Actifio Local Management from Administrator Workstation on page 16.

SNMP
For the most part SNMP code on an Actifio Appliance is outgoing only, sending traps to a configured
receiver to notify of events and failures. The exception is when integrated with Actifio Optimized Storage
or SAN Fabric, a CDS Appliance will listen on UDP 162 for SNMP traps from specified IPs that are whitelisted
for Actifio CDS Integrated Storage components.
To see a list of whitelisted IP addresses, use udsinfo lsmonitoreddevice. SNMP v1 and v2 are supported.
No Actifio configuration can accept any SNMP walk or write (e.g. GetRequest, SetRequest, GetNextRequest,
GetBulkRequest) and this configuration of community names is not required or supported.

Cross Appliance Communication and Replication

All Actifio Appliances utilize strong mutual authentication of the partner appliance with verification of
2048-bit RSA public keys.
Once authenticated, data in flight between appliances is encrypted using 256-bit AES encryption with
session keys protected by Diffie-Hellman algorithms affording Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) over a TLS
v1.2 channel.

15
Actifio Appliance IP
Actifio Appliance IP Address depends on the type of appliance:
Actifio Sky Appliance: Actifio Appliance IP is the IP address of the Sky Appliance.
Actifio CDX Appliance: Actifio Appliance IP addresses must include Node 0, Node 1, and cluster.
Actifio CDS Appliance: Actifio Appliance IP addresses must include Node 0, Node 1, and cluster.

Actifio Local Management from Administrator Workstation

Destination Port Protocol Source Destination Description

22 (TCP) SSH Admin workstation  CLI access for management and

 backup commands. Hosts may
also need to connect to Actifio.
Actifio IMM Node IMM Ports for installation
addresses and service

26 (TCP) SSH Admin workstation Service CLI access.

80 (TCP) or HTTP Admin workstation Actifio IMM Node IMM Ports for installation
443 (TCP) HTTPS addresses and service.
Enables local download of Actifio
Connector. No appliance control
or data access possible on this
port.

443 (TCP) HTTPS Admin workstation TLS-encrypted communication

between Actifio Desktop and the
appliance, and some appliance-
to-appliance communication.
SSL certificates may be replaced.

3900 (TCP) HTTP Admin workstation Actifio IMM Node IMM for remote access

ICMP Admin workstation Target Host System & Network Mgmt ping

Actifio Appliance Local Services

Destination Port Protocol Source Destination Description

25 (TCP) or SMTP Client email server Event notification via your SMTP
465 (TCP) SMTPS email relay server.

53 (UDP) DNS Client DNS server DNS

123 (UDP) NTP Client NTP server NTP

162 (UDP) SNMP Client SNMP server SNMP trap notification

389 (TCP) or LDAP Client AD server Authentication of user accounts

636 (TCP) LDAPS and LDAP against Microsoft AD/LDAP
directory, if configured.

16
 Traffic to and from the Actifio Appliance

Destination Protocol Source Destination Description

Port

26 (TCP) SSH Appliance to appliance cross-

node management. Node
addresses should also be
allowed.

111 tcp/udp Host IP addresses An RPC service used to map other

RPC services
756 tcp/udp Network status monitor daemon
2049 tcp/udp NFS server process
4001 tcp/udp NFS mount daemon
4045 tcp/udp Network lock daemon

427 (TCP) SLP “any” Service location for WBEM 

(CDS only)

443 (TCP) HTTPS vCenter Server IP Required to communicate with

vCenter servers and ESX hosts for
snapshot and image
management during backup and
mounts over an encrypted link.
Used for joining Actifio Appliances
and sharing certificates.

623 UDP idrac CDX appliance (only) installation

Used for STONITH.

5106 (TCP) Actifio API Host Servers, Encrypted control channel

including Hyper­V between Actifio Appliance and
Host Servers hosts running the Actifio
Connector.

5989 (TCP) CIMOM VMware SRM SSL encrypted WBEM (CDS only,
server used for VMware SRM
integration).

17
 Backup Traffic from the Actifio Appliance, Replication Traffic Between Appliances

Destination Protocol Source Destination Description

Port

443 (TCP) HTTPS Other Actifio Appliance-to-appliance traffic,

Appliance, Amazon appliance-to-Actifio OnVault
S3 endpoint or other cloud data transfer, StreamSnap
OnVault cloud. traffic

902 (TCP) VMware ESX Server VMKernel Encrypted connectivity to

IPs VMware ESXi hosts for data
movement operations.

3205 and iSCSI Host servers Actifio iSCSI iSCSI target

3260 (TCP) addresses

5103 Actifio API Encrypted bidirectional

appliance-to-appliance data
replication traffic. Both sides use
strong mutual authentication of
the partner appliance.

5107 (TCP) Actifio API Actifio Appliance to appliance

data transfer for cross-site
mirroring and for Actifio
StreamSnap data replication.
Must be bidirectional.

5108 (TCP) Actifio API Please keep this port open for a
planned StreamSnap feature.

Actifio Remote Support

Destination Protocol Source Destination Description

Port

443 (TCP) HTTPS callhome.actifio.net Call Home Alerting

25 (TCP) SMTP callhome.actifio.net Call Home Alerting

(legacy)

443 (TCP) OpenVPN/ secureconnect2.actifio.com SecureConnect proxy

HTTPS mode (optional)

1194 (UDP) OpenVPN Sky Appliance:  secureconnect2.actifio.com SecureConnect encrypted

Sky Appliance IP remote support access to
Actifio data centers. As the
CDX Appliance:
connection is mutually
node 0
authenticated with strong
CDS Appliance: cryptography, the
CDS node destination should not be
limited by a firewall.

18
 Local Storage Management

Destination Protocol Source Destination Description

Port

Actifio SAN Switch

TCP-22, 23 SSH Admin workstation Actifio SAN switch CLI access for installation and
service

TCP-80 HTTP Admin workstation Actifio SAN switch Management web GUI for
TCP-443 HTTPS installation and service

UDP-162 SNMP SAN Switch Optional delivery of events in

Management IP the form of SNMP traps to a
trap receiver

UDP-123 NTP SAN Switch Client NTP server NTP

Management IP

Actifio Storage V3700

TCP-22 SSH Actifio Storage V3700 CLI access for installation and
(Node1/2) service

UDP-162 SNMP Actifio Storage Internal SNMP Notification

V3700 (Node1/2)

UDP-123 NTP Actifio Storage Client NTP server NTP

V3700 (Node1/2)

TCP-25 SMTP Actifio Storage Client Email Server SMTP Email Notification
V3700 (Node1/2)

TCP-22 SSH Admin workstation Actifio Storage V3700 CLI access for installation and
(Node1/2) service

Actifio Storage DS3512

TCP-2463 Management Admin workstation Actifio Storage DS3512 DS Storage Manager

(Ctrl A/B) installation and service

Actifio Report Manager

Destination Port Protocol Source Destination Description

443 (TCP) HTTPS Administrator Report Manager Actifio Report Manager

workstation server (reports & setup/admin)

5103 (TCP) SSH Report Manager Actifio Report Manager (data

server collection)

19
 Actifio Global Manager (AGM)

Destination Port Protocol Source Destination Description

5103 (TCP) SSH AGM server Outbound connection from AGM to all
Actifio Appliances. Once the connection is
established, data flow is bidirectional.

443 (TCP) SSH AGM server Outbound connection from AGM to Sky
Appliances. Once the connection is
established, data flow is bidirectional.

443 (TCP) HTTPS Workstation AGM server Web browser access to AGM for inbound
or laptop connection to AGM server.

TCP-389 (TCP) or LDAP AGM server Client AD Microsoft AD/LDAP Active Directory
TCP-636 (TCP) LDAPS server Authentication

Resiliency Director

Destination Port Protocol Source Destination Description

TCP-443 HTTPS Resiliency Director Collector Source appliances Data collection

Resiliency Director Collector Source vCenter Data collection

Resiliency Director Collector RD Server Replication of

configuration data

Resiliency Director Server DR appliances Recovery orchestration

Resiliency Director Server DR vCenter Recovery orchestration

Resiliency Director Server RD Collector Partnership setup

Resiliency Director Cloud AGM Data collection

Resiliency Director Cloud DR appliances Recovery orchestration

Resiliency Director Cloud Cloud REST API Security verification

endpoint

TCP-5103 HTTPS Resiliency Director Collector Source appliances Used to establish secure
session ID
Resiliency Director Server DR appliances

Resiliency Director Cloud DR appliances

ICMP Resiliency Director Collector RD Server ping used to validate

connectivity between
Resiliency Director Server RD Collector collector and server

20
4 About the Actifio Connector

This chapter describes the Actifio Connector, including Obtaining the Right Actifio Connector for Your
Host on page 23 and Maintaining Connectors on Hosts on page 24. The Actifio Connector is a small-
footprint process that you install on your hosts.
This section includes:
What Does the Connector Do? on page 21
The Connector and the Network Environment on page 22
Host-Side Scripting on page 22
Obtaining the Right Actifio Connector for Your Host on page 23
Maintaining Connectors on Hosts on page 24

What Does the Connector Do?

Actifio Connectors:
• Discover and capture individual and groups of applications, including applications that cannot
be snapped by VMware, Microsoft SQL Server clusters, and Microsoft Exchange Database
Availability Groups (DAGs).
• Quiesce applications for application consistency during capture
• Enable change block tracking on Windows hosts and low-splash on non-Windows hosts for
incremental-forever capture
• Capture and manage transaction logs, including truncating database transaction logs and
rolling database transaction logs forward for point-in-time recovery.
• Rescan storage buses, brings new devices on-line, assigns drive letters, imports volume groups,
and mounts file systems, based on the operating system of the application host.
• Prepare application volumes for restore operations
• Enable directory and file browsing, and packages selected files into a ZIP archive when
restoring one or more files from a mounted backup.
• For Hyper-V servers, the Actifio Connector enables the capture of entire Hyper-V VMs and
incremental backup of Hyper-V VMs stored on Clustered Shared Volume (CSV) disks.
• Enable applications on pRDMs and vRDMs on VMware VMs to avoid virtual server “stun” issues.
• When the Actifio Connector manages data movement, the Actifio Appliance uses a staging
disk to create a copy of application data during each Snapshot or Dedup Async job.
Each new version of Actifio VDP is compatible with older versions of the Actifio Connectors up to two
minor releases back (VDP software version 9.0 supports VDP 8.0.x and VDP 8.1.x Actifio Connectors), but it is
always best to use the most recent versions available.

21
The Connector and the Network Environment
The Actifio Connector runs as the UDSAgent process, either UDSAgent.exe (Windows) or udsagent (unix).
For best results with the Actifio Connector, pay attention to network traffic and possible interference from
antivirus software.

Network Traffic
Traffic between the Actifio Appliances and the connector on your hosts is encrypted and communicated
via SSL. The Actifio Connector uses port 5106 by default for bidirectional communication from the Actifio
Appliance. You may see the legacy port 56789 in use for the same purposes. Make sure your firewall
permits bidirectional communication through this port. If you have existing services using both ports,
contact Actifio Support for assistance. For much more on network best practices, including iSCSI and
Fibre Channel configuration, see the chapter for the OS of the host.

Antivirus Software
Here are some high-level recommendations. Specific anti-virus/security products may call things by
different names, not support some features (process exclusion is commonly not supported), and are
configured by different means.
Exclude the udsagent process from Anti-Virus Monitoring: This is typically called "Process
exclusion" or "Process Threat Level". Excluding anything that UDSAgent.exe (Windows) or
udsagent (unix) does from scanning provides the best performance for the backup and the
least chance that the antivirus software will block anything.
Exclude scanning of mounted staging disks: Prevent the antivirus software from scanning
everything that VDP writes to the staging disk. This is typically slower than reading files on the
protected volume already.
o On Windows, exclude C:\Windows\act
o On Unix, exclude /act/mnt

Note: You might still have failures if the antivirus software blocks the Connector from opening or
reading a file on the protected volume.

Disable antivirus heuristics: This is not required, but may help in some cases. Anti-virus
heuristics typically block operations that look suspicious. When the connector is running a
backup of a system volume, it looks suspicious since it is reading the contents of the Windows
directory and re-creating it on the staging disk.
In some cases, disabling the antivirus software failed to prevent backup failures, but disabling the
antivirus software heuristics allowed backups to succeed.

Host-Side Scripting
The Actifio Connector enables scripting on the hosts on which it is installed. Scripts can be invoked for:
• On-demand jobs triggered by the Actifio CLI with the -scripts argument.
• Pre and Post phases of a VDP Workflow job.
For detailed instructions on how use VDP scripting, see:
• Chapter 18, APPID Pre- and Post-Scripts for Scheduled Data Protection Jobs
• Chapter 19, Super Scripts for Workflows and On-Demand Data Access Jobs

22
Obtaining the Right Actifio Connector for Your Host
The Actifio Appliance comes with different connector installer files. Each is of a file type appropriate to its
intended host type. You can download these with a web browser from the Actifio Resource Center; just
open a browser to the IP address of the appliance.
• connector-AIX-<version>.bff
• connector-HPUX-<version>.depot
• connector--Linux_x86-<version>.depot
• connector--Linux-<version>.depot
• connector-Linux_Ubuntu_amd64-latestversion.deb
• connector-Solaris_SPARC-<version>.depot
• connector-Solaris_x86-<version>.depot
• connector-win32-<version>.depot
Each section of this book details which connector installer you need for each type of host.

All of the Actifio Connectors are Available from the Actifio Resource Center

23
Maintaining Connectors on Hosts
From the AGM Manage > Appliance page, right-click the appliance that supports the host and select
Configure Appliance. Then use the Connector Management tool to uninstall or upgrade the Actifio
Connector on your hosts when new versions are available. For details, refer to the AGM online help.

24
5 Supporting VMware with
Actifio VDP

This includes:
• Actifio Sky Appliance Networking Requirements on page 25
• Ensuring iSCSI Connectivity from ESX to Storage on page 26
• Ensuring iSCSI Connectivity with an ESX Server on page 26
• Ensuring NFS Connectivity from ESX to Storage on page 28
• Setting NFS Data Transport Mode to a Host in VMware on page 29

Actifio Sky Appliance Networking Requirements

Sky Appliances installed in a vCenter require the following network settings:
• Static IPs: You must provide static IPs for all NICs on Sky Appliances.
• VMXNET3: Sky Appliance models 30, 50, 120, and 200 must use the VMXNET3 Ethernet adapter.
These adapters enable 10GB performance.
• Adding NICs: By default, the Sky Appliance comes with a single NIC. To add additional NICs, see
Adding and Configuring Additional Network Interfaces on page 29.

Actifio Sky Network Protocol support

Actifio Sky installed in a VMware environment supports storage presentation (as part of backup/recovery
and mount operations) over iSCSI or NFS. The configuration requirements for each of these protocols are:
• NFS: As long as you have a network connection from both the Sky Appliance and the vSphere
host that the VM resides on, all backups and mounts using NFS will proceed normally. You can
use NFS over your network without configuring iSCSI.
• iSCSI: The Sky Appliance uses iSCSI to mount data. Ensure that iSCSI is on for the Sky Appliance’s
vSphere host, and for the servers that host the data the Sky Appliance will capture and manage.
When capturing an entire vSphere VM, iSCSI does not need to be configured on the vSphere
host that hosts the VM to be captured. Once the VM has been captured, to present the VM to
another vSphere host, including the vSphere host from which it was captured, the vSphere host
must have iSCSI configured.
When capturing individual applications on a VM, rather than capturing the entire VM, iSCSI must
be configured on the VM’s vSphere host.
The Snapshot pool and the Dedup pool each need their own SCSI controller set to VMware
Paravirtual.

Note: For best iSCSI network traffic results, see NIC Usage for Each Actifio Appliance Type on page 4.

Each Sky Appliance and CDX Appliance can support up to 100 iSCSI sessions. A CDS Appliance can support
275 sessions. You can support an additional 100 sessions by adding a NIC card to a Sky Appliance.

25
Ensuring iSCSI Connectivity from ESX to Storage
To test the iSCSI connection from an ESXi server to a V3700 or V7000 storage array or to an Actifio CDS
Appliance:
1. Enable ESXi Shell and connect to ESXi as root.
2. Use netcat (nc) command to confirm connectivity:
~ # nc -z 123.45.67.89 3260
Connection to 123.45.67.89 3260 port [tcp/*] succeeded!
This example confirms that the device is listening on that port. If a port is unreachable then you
return to the prompt with no output.

Note: ESXi does not have telnet, so issuing a ping does not prove that connectivity for iSCSI is available.

Ensuring SAN transport of data to an external storage pool

A newly created vCenter will default to Transport Type NFS. This is incompatible with ESP, and should be
changed to SAN. This setting is visible in AGM and from the Command Line, but is not displayed in the
Actifio Desktop.
You can also do this from the CLI:
[root@sky812-900-RC2 ~]# udsinfo lshost 207823
udstask chhost -transport san <id>'\
The -transport parameter is detailed in the Actifio CLI Reference.

Ensuring iSCSI Connectivity with an ESX Server

This has two parts:
1. Adding the iSCSI Actifio Definition to the ESX server on page 27
2. Configuring AGM to See the ESX Host on page 27

Before You Begin

In order to ensure connectivity to ESX servers reached via iSCSI:
• Check that the NICs are as described in NIC Usage for Each Actifio Appliance Type on page 4.
• Check that the network ports are as described in Network Administrator’s Guide to Actifio VDP.
• Check each ESX server to be sure that these are set to the following recommended values:

Setting Recom. Description

Value

LoginTimeout 60 When iSCSI establishes a session between initiator and target, it must log into
the target. It will try to log in for a period of LoginTimeout. If the login attempt
exceeds LoginTimeout, then the login fails.

Noopinterval 30 iSCSI uses the noop timeout to passively discover if this path is dead when it
is not the active path.

Nooptimeout 30 This is tested on non-active paths every NoopInterval. If no response is

received by NoopTimeout, the path is marked dead.

This procedure is for a single Actifio Ethernet iSCSI connection to a single iSCSI Ethernet connection on the
ESX server. Actifio Professional Services can help you with any other configuration.

26
For CDX Appliance cluster (which is high availability), these parameters are different to ensure the iSCSI
connection survives a failover event.

Adding the iSCSI Actifio Definition to the ESX server

1. Highlight the ESX server in vCenter and select the Configuration tab.
2. Select the iSCSI Software Adapter and then Properties. A pop up window appears to discover
the Actifio iSCSI connection.
3. Select Dynamic Discovery tab and click Add to add the iSCSI IP of the Actifio Appliance.
4. Enter the IP address of the Actifio iSCSI port and click OK. It is added to the target listing.
5. Right click on the iSCSI software adapter and click Rescan.
Continue to Configuring AGM to See the ESX Host on page 27.

Configuring AGM to See the ESX Host

1. Open AGM to Manage > Hosts.
2. Right-click the ESX server and select Edit.
3. Scroll down the right side to the Ports section and click Add Port.

Configuring AGM to Recognize an ESX Server

4. From the Type menu, select iSCSI.

5. At Port Name, enter the iSCSI iqn name, and click Add. This will configure the iSCSI relationship on
Actifio to the ESX server.

Adding the Port

27
Ensuring NFS Connectivity from ESX to Storage
Minimum ESX versions
ESXi hosts must be running these minimum levels to support NFS client.
• ESXi Version 5.5 Patch 5 (Build 2718055) OR
• ESXi Version 6.0 U1a (Build 3073146)

Increasing the NFS datastore limit in ESX

The vSphere ESXi/ESX default configuration allows for only eight NFS mounts per ESXi/ESX host. There are
three advanced configuration options which control the maximum number of NFS mounts. These
settings enable the maximum number of NFS mounts for vSphere ESXi/ESX, listed in Table 1: ESX Advanced
Configuration Options, Limits per ESX Version.
To edit advanced configuration options, select the ESXi/ESX host in the Inventory Panel, then navigate to
Configuration > Software > Advanced Settings to launch the Settings window.
Set the following values:
1. The number of NFS datastores which can be mounted by the vSphere ESXi/ESX host
concurrently is limited. The default value is 8. 
Under NFS, Select NFS.MaxVolumes: Limits the number of NFS datastores which can be
mounted by the vSphere ESXi/ESX host concurrently.
2. When increasing the number of NFS datastores, increase the maximum amount of heap
memory as well.
Under Net, Select Net.TcpipHeapMax: The maximum amount of heap memory, measured in
megabytes, which can be allocated for managing VMkernel TCP/IP network connectivity.
3. When increasing the number of NFS datastores, increase the default amount of heap memory.
Under Net, Select Net.TcpipHeapSize: The amount of heap memory, measured in megabytes,
which is allocated for managing VMkernel TCP/IP network connectivity.

Table 1: ESX Advanced Configuration Options, Limits per ESX Version

Version NFS.MaxVolumes Net.TcpipHeapMax Net.TcpipHeapSize

ESXi/ESX 3.x 32 120 30

ESXi/ESX 4.x 64 128 32

ESXi 5.0/5.1 256 128 32

ESXi 5.5 256 512 32

ESXi 6.0 256 1536 32

Note: Changing Net.TcpipHeapSize and/or Net.TcpipHeapMax requires a host reboot.

28
Setting NFS Data Transport Mode to a Host in VMware
NFS Datastore Transport Mode with VMware is an alternative to iSCSI. NFS datastore enables simpler initial
setup and fast onboarding of VMs into Actifio VDP. It is enabled by default for new deployments. You can
set the NFS transport mode to a VM host to avoid HBA scans that may cause the VM host to crash.

Before You Begin

To set NFS datastore support on VM:
• The ESX hosts involved in the restore must have the NFS protocol enabled in the Security Profile
settings.
• The TCP ports for NFS between the Sky and ESX must be open.
To convert the data transport for mounting staging disks to a Connector-based Windows or Linux host
from iSCSI to NFS:

Note: Once the NFS datastore is mounted, you cannot unmount if any images exist.

1. In AGM, click the Manage tab and select Hosts from the drop-down menu. The Hosts page
opens.
2. Select Add Host. The upper portion is for network and other identification information. Below
that are dynamic sections for host connections and for organizations that the host belongs to.

3. Enter the host name and a friendly path for the host. The name of a host should start with a
letter, and can contain letters, digits (0-9), and an underscore ('_').
4. Enter the IP address of the host, then click +. You can enter an additional IP address in IP Address.
Click + to add each additional IP address for the host.
5. Optionally, add a description of this host.
6. In the Appliances section, select the AGM managed appliances that will serve this host. If the list
is long, you can use the Search box to find a specific appliance or group of appliances.

29
 7. Select the Host Type: vCenter, ESX Server, or Generic. Select Generic for hosts that are not one of
the four VM types. This includes Windows and Linux hosts and all physical hosts. Generic hosts
require an Actifio Connector of the type that matches their OS.
For vCenter or ESX Server selections, you also get the option to select a Transport Mode. You see
the Transport Mode option only during adding a host. This option can be edited after the host
has been added:
o NFS (default): Select NFS if you are in an NFS network. Transport will be Network Based in
the Application Manager image details and in the System Monitor Transport column.
o SAN (block storage): Select SAN if you are using Fibre Channel or iSCSI networking.
Transport will be SAN Based in the Application Manager image details and in the System
Monitor Transport column.

Note: As of v9.0, vCenter hosts on appliances default to the transport type NFS. This may be
incompatible with External Storage Pools (ESP) under certain circumstances. If you plan to use
ESP, change the transport type to SAN. For more information, see Transport Setting for External
Snapshot Pools in the AGM Online help.

8. If you must override the connection settings from the appliance, then click Connector Settings,
vCenter Settings, or ESX Settings as appropriate. For more information, refer to Connector
Settings Overrides in the AGM Online help.
9. Click Organizations. Select one or more organizations for the host to join. For details on
Organizations, see Viewing Organizations in the AGM Online help.
10. Click Submit to save the host information.
The Edit Host page opens where additional steps are required if you are adding a host that will
use NFS storage or Oracle database authentication. If the new host is defined on multiple
appliances and if the information is not identical for them all, then you will see the Host
Reconciliation page first. Refer to the AGM Online help for more information.

Specifying the NIC for NFS Mounts

Specify the NIC for an NFS mount at the ESX level:
udstask chhost -nfsoption server:serverip=1.1.1.1 <hostid>
The -nfsoption parameter is detailed in the Actifio CLI Reference.

30
6 Supporting Microsoft
Windows Server with Actifio
VDP
Windows Server hosts include Microsoft SQL Server, SharePoint, and Exchange hosts, as well as Active
Directory, CIFS, and other file systems.
This chapter includes:
Ensuring iSCSI Connectivity on a Windows Physical Host on page 32
Ensuring Fibre Channel Connectivity on a Windows Physical Host on page 33
Installing the Actifio Connector on Microsoft Windows Hosts on page 34
Restricting Windows Connector Communication to Specific Appliances on page 35
Notes on Discovering Specific Microsoft Application Types on page 37

Location of UDSAgent.log on Windows Server Hosts

On a Microsoft Windows Server host, logs are stored in C:\Program Files\Actifio\log.

Location of Scripts on Windows Hosts

You can create scripts to perform pre- and post- actions on applications on your Windows hosts. Create
a new folder in which to store all scripts: C:\Program Files\Actifio\scripts. For detailed instructions on how
use VDP scripting, see Chapter 18, APPID Pre- and Post-Scripts for Scheduled Data Protection Jobs and
Chapter 19, Super Scripts for Workflows and On-Demand Data Access Jobs.

Note: The Actifio Connector can be “firewalled” out if the host joins a domain after the Connector has
been installed. If this happens, uninstall and then re-install the Actifio Connector.

31
Ensuring iSCSI Connectivity on a Windows Physical Host
Windows Server hosts include Microsoft SQL Server, SharePoint, and Exchange hosts, as well as Active
Directory, CIFS, and other file systems.
When the Actifio Connector manages data movement over iSCSI, VDP uses a staging disk to create a
copy of application data during each Snapshot or Dedup Async job.
An Actifio-approved iSCSI initiator must be installed on the host. While it is possible to also present the
staging disk to a VM using an iSCSI initiator running in the VM, this is normally not necessary.

Learn the iSCSI Initiator Name from a Physical Windows Host via Server Manager
1. On Windows Server 2012, 2012 R2, or 2016, open up Server Manager.
2. Click Tools and select iSCSI Initiator to start the MSiSCSI Initiator Service.
3. The Microsoft iSCSI dialog will open indicating that the service is not running. Click Yes to start
the service and to set it to start automatically when the server reboots.

4. After the MSiSCSI Initiator Service has started the Properties dialog will be opened. Click the
Configuration tab to retrieve the iSCSI Qualified Name (IQN).
5. Write down or copy the Initiator Name.

Learn the iSCSI Initiator Name from a Physical Windows Host via the CLI
To learn the iSCSI initiator name from a physical Windows host, use the iscsicli command:
C:\Users\Administrator>iscsicli
Microsoft iSCSI Initiator Version 6.0 Build 6000
[iqn.1991-05.com.microsoft:winsql2016-1.sqa.actifio.com] Enter command or ^C to exit
You will need this value when you add the host to the Actifio Appliance.

32
Ensuring Fibre Channel Connectivity on a Windows Physical Host
When adding a new host that is accessed via Fibre Channel SAN, the new host must be zoned to the
Actifio Appliance using an Actifio-approved multipath driver by your storage administrator. The storage
administrator will need to know the host WWN; procedures to find WWN on three common Windows
servers are below.

Zoning for CDX Appliances

For best results, use single-initiator, single-target zoning for CDX appliances, their hosts, and their storage.

Multipathing
Define a total of four paths (this is both the recommended minimum and maximum) or at most eight
paths (absolute maximum) between the CDS Appliance and the Windows host.

Note: Proper multipathing is especially important for maintaining application-aware mounts over a
system restart. Multiple different multipathing systems on a single HBA can result in hard-to-identify
conflicts.

If the Windows host has two HBA ports (two WWPNs) and each is zoned to one port on Actifio Node 1 and
one port on Actifio Node 2, then that host has four paths; this is the recommended configuration. Do not
use more than eight paths. When you discover the WWPN, make a note of it. You will use it when you add
the host.

Connecting to a Windows Server 2003 Host over Fibre Channel SAN

To find the WWN of a Windows Server 2003 host, use Microsoft fcinfo (Fibre Channel Information Tool):
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=17530

Connecting to a Windows Server 2008 Host over Fibre Channel SAN

To find the WWN of a Windows Server 2008 host on a Fibre Channel SAN, use Windows Storage Explorer:

Using Windows Storage Explorer

Connecting to a Windows Server 2012 Host over Fibre Channel SAN

To find the WWN of a Windows Server 2012 host, use PowerShell to perform Get-InitiatorPort.

Installing IBM SDDDSM for In-Band Storage

If you are using in-band storage, then multipathing requires IBM SDDDSM. To install SDDDSM:
1. Get SDDDSM from http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S4000350.
2. From a command prompt with Administrative privileges, run setup.exe.
3. Restart the machine.
4. Verify SDDDSM is installed successfully by running datapath query version.

33
Installing the Actifio Connector on Microsoft Windows Hosts
The Actifio Connector for Microsoft Windows runs as a Windows service under the Local System account.
The Actifio Connector writes logs to a log file in its installation directory. On Microsoft Windows systems,
the installer comes as: connector-Win32-<version>.exe.
If you are managing multiple clustered Windows hosts, then install an Actifio Connector on each host.
The Actifio Connector for Windows is also used for Hyper-V data protection. It should be installed on each
Hyper-V server. If an SCVMM Server is in use, then it should also be installed on that server as well. The
Actifio Connector only needs to be installed into a VM (VMware, Hyper-V VM, or Hyper-V VM stored on CSV
disks) if you want to protect individual applications inside the VM rather than simply protect the entire VM.

VDP Change Tracking Driver Options for Windows Physical Hosts

When installing the Windows Actifio Connector you have the option of installing the VDP Change Tracking
Driver. If you intend to protect file systems and applications (SQL Server, Exchange, Sharepoint), install the
Actifio Connector with the Change Tracking Driver to enable efficient incremental backups.
Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Exchange, and Hyper-V VMs are supported on NTFS and ReFS volumes.
Hyper-V VMs are also supported on CSV disks. The Change Tracking Driver does not support CIFS volumes.

Installing the Actifio Connector on a Windows Host

To install the Actifio Connector on a Windows host:
1. Log on to the host as administrator and open a web browser to https://<Actifio Appliance
IP> to access the Actifio Resource Center.
2. Click the Windows Connector icon to download connector-win32-<version>.exe.
3. Launch connector-win32-<version>.exe.
4. Click Run and follow the setup wizard instructions. If you intend to protect SQL or Exchange
databases, perform a Full Installation to include the VDP Change Tracking Driver.
5. Click Finish. To verify that the Actifio Connector is running, run services.msc on the host.

Installing the Actifio Connector from the Windows Command Line

Windows 2012 Core doesn't have a UI, so you need to install it manually on the host command line: 
> connector-Win32-<version>.exe /SUPPRESSMSGBOXES /NORESTART /VERYSILENT /TYPE=FULL

Restarting the Actifio Connector on a Windows Host

To restart the Actifio Connector on a Windows host:
1. Open services.msc on the host.
2. Select Actifio UDS Host Agent and click Restart.

Uninstalling the Actifio Connector from a Windows Host

To uninstall the Actifio Connector from a Windows host:
1. Go to the c:\program files\Actifio folder created during the installation.
2. Select and double-click the uninstaller executable: unins000.exe.
3. Click Yes to confirm and then click OK to finish.
To uninstall via script:
C:\Program Files\Actifio\unins000.exe" /VERYSILENT /NORESTART /SUPPRESSMSGBOXES

Upgrading the Actifio Connector on a Windows Host

Use the Connector Management tool in the Actifio Desktop to auto upgrade the Actifio Connector on your
hosts when new versions are available. Refer to Maintaining Connectors on Hosts on page 24.

34
Restricting Windows Connector Communication to Specific
Appliances
If you have multiple Actifio Appliances and you want to restrict which appliance can communicate to the
connector of a specific host, copy the certificate file from the desired appliance to a specific location on
the host. The Actifio Connector on the host will only be able to communicate with the appliance that has
the matching certificate. This ensures that an unauthorized appliance cannot be used to create images
of application data on the host. In addition to restricting the connector to authorized appliances, this
procedure enables certificate verification in the connector, protecting it from man-in-the-middle
attacks form a device between the appliance and the connector host.
A single host connector can be restricted to any number of appliances using this method.
For this procedure, assume a host and two appliances: Host, AuthorizedAppliance, and
UnauthorizedAppliance.
1. On AuthorizedAppliance, open AGM to the Domain Manager, Appliance page.
2. Select the appliance and right click it. Select Configure Appliance.
3. The Appliance Configuration window opens. Click the gear icon in the lower left corner, then
select Download Certificate.

Downloading an Appliance Certificate

4. Save the file with meaningful unique name and with the extension .crt, such as
AuthorizedAppliance1.crt. The file name is not important.
5. Copy the certificate file to the host at C:\Program Files\Actifio\certs\trusted.
6. Stop and start the connector (UDSAgent) using services.msc.
7. Attempt application discovery from the AuthorizedAppliance in AGM. Discovery will succeed.

35
 8. Attempt application discovery from the UnauthorizedAppliance in AGM. Discovery fails:

To Unrestrict a Restricted Windows Connector

1. Delete the certificate file from the host at 
C:\Program Files\Actifio\certs\trusted\AuthorizedAppliance.crt
2. Stop and start the connector (UDSAgent) using services.msc.
3. Repeat the test in Restricting Windows Connector Communication to Specific Appliances on
page 35.

36
Notes on Discovering Specific Microsoft Application Types
The following information will be of use when discovering applications:

Discovering SQL Databases

• Actifio Appliances support Microsoft SQL Server on Windows Server 2003+.
• Discovery relies on SQL VSS Writer. For the discovery to work correctly, SQL VSS writer must be
installed and running on the host.
• Actifio Appliances can protect Microsoft SQL Servers and SQL availability groups. You can snap
VMs or applications.
• For a SQL Failover appliance, the discovery needs to be run on either the active node (or node
IP) or appliance node (or appliance IP). Otherwise, clustered databases will not be discovered.
• For SQL AlwaysOn Availability Groups:
o Install the Actifio Connector on each AAG member node. Make sure the Connector
installation includes the Connector and the AAM services.
o To discover AAG groups from the Listener IP, you need firewall rules to open port 5106
(TCP) from AAG member nodes and/or AAG Listener IP to Actifio appliance Cluster IP and
Node IP.

Discovering SharePoint Servers

• Only single tier SharePoint deployments can be discovered using Actifio Connector. If you have
a multi-tier deployment, discover and protect content databases separately.
• For the discovery to work correctly, SharePoint VSS writer must be installed and running on the
host.

Discovering Exchange Mailbox Databases

• All databases in a Microsoft Exchange Database Availability Group (DAG) can be discovered
from a single DAG node. Run discovery on a single node to discover all Exchange databases in
DAG.
• For the discovery to work correctly, Exchange VSS writer must be installed and running on the
host.
• No special permissions are required for backup or restore of Exchange databases, including
DAG databases. Local admin has sufficient privileges.

Discovering Mapped File Systems

Before you begin:
1. Log onto the target server as a user.
2. For all existing and new CIFS shares, use Windows Explorer to map the target CIFS share to a
local drive letter. Do not specify additional credentials when mapping the drive. Specify
Reconnect at logon.
When complete, ensure that the application has been added as a host in the AGM. In the Domain page,
enter the username and password for the host that you used in Step 1.

Note: In order to find the share, the username and password for the host server must be set to the user
that mapped the server. You can only find mapped shares for a user if an Actifio Appliance can
impersonate that user.

37
38
7 Supporting Microsoft Hyper-V
with Actifio VDP

Location of UDSAgent.log on Hyper-V Hosts

On a Hyper-V host, logs are stored in C:\Program Files\Actifio\log.

Location of Scripts on Hyper-V Hosts

You can create scripts to perform pre- and post- actions on applications on the host. Create a folder at
C:\Program Files\Actifio\scripts and store scripts there. Details on VDP scripting are in Chapter 18, APPID
Pre- and Post-Scripts for Scheduled Data Protection Jobs and Chapter 19, Super Scripts for Workflows and
On-Demand Data Access Jobs.

Installing the Actifio Connector on Hyper-V Hosts

On Hyper-V systems the Actifio Connector runs as a daemon process under the username root. It listens
on a TCP port 5106 and 56789 (legacy port) for communication from the Actifio Appliance.
The Actifio Connector writes to a log file in the installation directory (C:\Program Files\Actifio\log).
To install the Actifio Connector on a Hyper-V host:
1. Log on to the host as administrator and open a web browser to https://<any Actifio
Appliance IP> to access the Actifio Resource Center.
2. Click the Windows Connector icon to download connector-win32-latestversion.exe. Save the
file.
3. Launch connector-win32-latestversion.exe.
4. Click Run and follow the setup wizard instructions. If you intend to protect SQL or Exchange
databases, it is good practice to always perform a Full Installation to include the VDP Change
Tracking Driver.
5. Click Finish, then verify that the Actifio Connector is running correctly by running services.msc
on the host.

Restarting the Actifio Connector on a Hyper-V Host

To restart the Actifio Connector on a Windows host:
1. Open services.msc on the host.
2. Select Actifio UDS Host Agent.
3. Click Restart.

Upgrading the Actifio Connector on a Hyper-V Host

Use the Connector Management tool in AGM to upgrade the Actifio Connector on your hosts when new
versions are available. Refer to Maintaining Connectors on Hosts on page 24.

39
Uninstalling the Actifio Connector from a Windows Host
To uninstall the Actifio Connector from a Windows host:
1. Go to the c:\program files\Actifio folder created during the installation.
2. Select and double-click the uninstaller executable: unins000.exe.
3. Click Yes to confirm and then click OK to finish.

40
8 Supporting Linux with
Actifio VDP

This chapter includes:

Ensuring iSCSI Connectivity on a Linux Host on page 41
Ensuring Fibre Channel Connectivity to a Linux Host on page 43
Ensuring NFS Connectivity on a Linux Host Connected to a Sky Appliance on page 47
Installing the Actifio Connector on a Linux Host on page 48
Upgrading or Uninstalling the Actifio Connector from a Host Using AGM on page 49

Location of UDSAgent.log on Linux Hosts

On a Linux host, logs are stored in /var/act/log.

Location of Scripts on Linux Hosts

You can create scripts to perform pre- and post- actions on applications on the Linux host. To use scripts,
create a folder called /act/scripts and store all scripts there. For detailed instructions on how use VDP
scripting, see Chapter 18, APPID Pre- and Post-Scripts for Scheduled Data Protection Jobs and Chapter 19,
Super Scripts for Workflows and On-Demand Data Access Jobs.

Ensuring iSCSI Connectivity on a Linux Host

When the Actifio Connector manages data movement over iSCSI, VDP uses a staging disk to create a
copy of application data during each Snapshot or Dedup Async job.

Learning iSCSI information from a Linux Host

An Actifio-approved iSCSI initiator must be installed on the host. To learn if the initiator is installed, use this
command:
[root@psa-611 ~]# grep -v ^# /etc/iscsi/initiatorname.iscsi | cut -d "=" -f 2
iqn.1994-05.com.redhat:6d11e98139fb
[root@psa-611 ~]# iscsiadm -m discovery
172.25.128.200:3260 via sendtargets

Installing the iSCSI Initiator on a Red Hat RHEL 6 or CentOS Linux Host
To install the iSCSI initiator on a Linux host:
Make sure you have the iscsiadm package installed. 
Run: # rpm -qa | grep iscsi
This should show something similar to: iscsi-initiator-utils-6.2.0.865-6.el5.x86_64.rpm
If you see nothing, then you must install the package: # yum install iscsi-initiator-utils

41
Installing the iSCSI Initiator on a SLES Linux Host
Use YaST to install the iSCSI initiator package.
Make sure you have the open-iscsi package installed. 
Run: # rpm -qa | grep iscsi
This should show something similar to: 
open-iscsi-x.x.x.x
yast2-iscsi-client-x.x.x.x
If you do not see both of these packages, then you must install open-iscsi:
1. # yast2 sw_single
2. In the search, enter iscsi
3. Select open-iscsi and click Accept.

Note: If Linux is running on a PowerPC system, then largesend must be enabled.

Table 1: Linux iSCSI Multipathing Requirements on Actifio CDX

Appliances

CentOS 6.x

devices {
device {
vendor "ACTIFIO"
product "LUN0|CDX"
path_selector "round-robin 0"
path_grouping_policy failover
path_checker tur
rr_min_io 100
failback immediate
no_path_retry "5"
dev_loss_tmo 180
}
}

42
Ensuring Fibre Channel Connectivity to a Linux Host
If an application is running on a physical server where Fibre Channel is used, then zoning must exist
between the appliance and the host, and an Actifio-approved multipath driver must be in use.

Zoning for CDX Appliances

For best results, use single-initiator, single-target zoning for all CDX appliances, their hosts, and their
storage.

Host Zoning
When adding a new host that is accessed via Fibre Channel SAN, the new host must be zoned to the
Actifio Appliance by your storage administrator. The storage administrator will need to know the host
WWN.
To find the WWN of a Linux host on a Fibre Channel SAN:
[root@cs003-u34 ~]# cat /sys/class/scsi_host/host*/device/fc_host/host*/node_name
0x200000e08b127a8e
0x200100e08b327a8e

Multipathing
Proper multipathing is especially important for maintaining application-aware mounts over a system
restart. These are the currently supported multipathing options:
• IBM System Storage Multipath Subsystem Device Driver (SDD)
• Symantec/Veritas Volume Manager 5.1, 6.0, 6.0.1, 6.1
• PVLinks for HP-UX (pre 11.31 v1), HP-UX native
• MPIO for Windows and IBM AIX
• MPxIO for Solaris
• Native VMware multipathing driver for VMware ESX 4.X and later
• Native multipathing drivers for OpenVMS and Linux(DM-MPIO)
If the Linux host has two HBA ports (two WWPNs) and each is zoned to one port on Actifio Node 1 and one
port on Actifio Node 2, then that host will have four paths; the recommended configuration. Don’t use
more than eight paths.
Linux systems employ a multipath.conf file at /etc/multipath.conf. For each Linux distribution and
releases within a distribution, refer to the default settings:
• Red Hat Linux: /usr/share/doc/device-mapper-multipath.*
• Novell SuSE Linux: /usr/share/doc/packages/multipath-tools
Include in /etc/multipath.conf the information in the tables below that corresponds to the Linux version
on the host that you are configuring. Ensure that the entries added to multipath.conf match the format
and syntax for the required Linux distribution. Use the multipath.conf only from your related distribution
and release. Do not copy the multipath.conf file from one distribution or release to another.
Table 2: Linux Multipathing Requirements on Actifio CDS Firmware 7.3.0 on page 44
Table 3: Linux Multipathing Requirements on Actifio CDS Firmware 7.8.1 on page 44
Table 4: Linux Multipathing Requirements for an Actifio CDX Appliance on page 46

43
 Table 2: Linux Multipathing Requirements on Actifio CDS Firmware 7.3.0

Red Hat Linux SuSE Linux

RHEL Versions 5.x, 6.0 and 6.1 SuSE Linux Versions 10.x, 11.0, and 11SP1

vendor "IBM" vendor "IBM"

product "2145" product "2145"
path_grouping_policy "group_by_prio" path_grouping_policy "group_by_prio"
path_selector "round-robin 0" path_selector "round-robin 0"
prio "alua" prio "alua"
path_checker "tur" path_checker "tur"
failback "immediate" failback "immediate"
no_path_retry 5 no_path_retry 5
rr_weight uniform rr_weight uniform
rr_min_io 1000 rr_min_io 1000
dev_loss_tmo 120 dev_loss_tmo 120

RHEL Versions 6.2 and higher and 7.x SUSE Linux versions 11SP.2 and higher

vendor "IBM" vendor "IBM"

product "2145" product "2145"
path_grouping_policy "group_by_prio" path_grouping_policy "group_by_prio"
path_selector "round-robin 0" path_selector "round-robin 0" # Used
# path_selector "service-time 0" # by SLES 11 SP2
Used by RedHat 7.x # path_selector "service-time 0" #
prio "alua" Used by SLES 11 SP3+
path_checker "tur" prio "alua"
failback "immediate" path_checker "tur"
no_path_retry 5 failback "immediate"
rr_weight uniform no_path_retry 5
rr_min_io_rq "1" rr_weight uniform
dev_loss_tmo 120 rr_min_io_rq "1"
dev_loss_tmo 120

Table 3: Linux Multipathing Requirements on Actifio CDS Firmware 7.8.1

Red Hat Linux SuSE Linux

RHEL Versions 5.x, 6.0 and 6.1 SUSE Linux Versions 10.x, 11.0, and 11SP1

vendor "IBM" vendor "IBM"

product "2145" product "2145"
path_grouping_policy path_grouping_policy "group_by_prio"
"group_by_prio" path_selector "round-robin 0"
path_selector "round-robin 0" prio "alua"
prio_callout "/sbin/ path_checker "tur"
mpath_prio_alua /dev/%n" #Used by failback "immediate"
Red Hat 5.x no_path_retry 5
prio "alua" rr_weight uniform
path_checker "tur" rr_min_io 1000
failback "immediate" dev_loss_tmo 120
no_path_retry 5
rr_weight uniform
rr_min_io 1000
dev_loss_tmo 120

44
 Table 3: Linux Multipathing Requirements on Actifio CDS Firmware 7.8.1

Red Hat Linux SuSE Linux

RHEL Versions 6.2 and higher SUSE Linux versions 11SP.2

vendor "IBM" vendor "IBM"

product "2145" product "2145"
path_grouping_policy path_grouping_policy "group_by_prio"
"group_by_prio" path_selector "round-robin 0" # Used by
path_selector "round-robin 0" # SLES 11 SP2
Used by Red Hat 6.2 prio "alua"
prio "alua" path_checker "tur"
path_checker "tur" failback "immediate"
failback "immediate" no_path_retry 5
no_path_retry 5 rr_weight uniform
rr_weight uniform rr_min_io_rq "1"
rr_min_io_rq "1" dev_loss_tmo 120
dev_loss_tmo 120

RHEL Versions 7.x SUSE Linux Versions 11SP3+

vendor "IBM" vendor "IBM"

product "2145" product "2145"
path_grouping_policy path_grouping_policy "group_by_prio"
"group_by_prio" path_selector "service-time 0" # Used by
path_selector "round-robin 0" SLES 11 SP3+
prio "alua" prio "alua"
path_checker "tur" path_checker "tur"
failback "immediate" failback "immediate"
no_path_retry 5 no_path_retry 5
rr_weight uniform rr_weight uniform
rr_min_io 1000 rr_min_io_rq "1"
dev_loss_tmo 120 dev_loss_tmo 120

45
 Table 4: Linux Multipathing Requirements for an Actifio CDX Appliance

Red Hat Linux

CentOS 6.x

devices {
device {
vendor "ACTIFIO"
product "LUN0"
path_grouping_policy group_by_prio
detect_prio yes
path_checker tur
failback immediate
no_path_retry "5"
dev_loss_tmo 180
}
device {
vendor "ACTIFIO"
product "CDX"
path_grouping_policy group_by_prio
features "1 queue_if_no_path"
detect_prio yes
hardware_handler "1 alua"
path_checker tur
failback immediate
dev_loss_tmo 180
}
}

CentOS 7.x

devices {
device {
vendor "ACTIFIO"
product "LUN0"
path_grouping_policy group_by_prio
detect_prio yes
path_checker tur
failback immediate
no_path_retry "5"
dev_loss_tmo 180
}
device {
vendor "ACTIFIO"
product "CDX"
path_grouping_policy group_by_prio
features "1 queue_if_no_path"
detect_prio yes
hardware_handler "1 alua"
path_checker tur
failback immediate
dev_loss_tmo 180
}
}

46
Ensuring NFS Connectivity on a Linux Host Connected to a Sky
Appliance
When VDP manages data movement over NFS, during each Snapshot, Dedup Async, or StreamSnap job,
VDP uses an NFS share created on the appliance and exports to the Linux host a copy of application data.

Using NFS protocol for Linux Hosts

To use NFS protocol for Linux physical hosts, in order to backup from or mount to a host over NFS, the nfs-
utils and nfs-utils-lib libraries must be installed on the hosts.
$ rpm -qa | grep -i nfs
libnfsidmap-0.25-19.el7.x86_64
nfs-utils-1.3.0-0.54.el7.x86_64
Use the AGM Manage > Hosts Edit section to set the Staging Disk Format to NFS. Setting this ensures that
the staging disk will be presented as an NFS share and the Actifio Connector will consume this share.
When mounting an image captured this way, you have the option to mount them as an NFS share.

Setting Staging Disk Format to NFS for a Linux VM

Setting the Staging Disk I/O Path

Linux VMs must also select a staging disk I/O path. You can assign either NFS or SAN (iSCSI) transport for
the data from the host to the staging disk. To configure staging disk I/O path:
1. From the AGM Manage > Hosts section, right-click the host to configure and select Edit.
2. In the Edit Host page, scroll down to the Staging Disk I/O Path section.
3. Select one of the following options:

Transport Actifio volumes are presented to the attached to VM as

NFS to Guest as NFS shares ESX server vmdk

NFS Transport over NFS data store ESX server raw device mapping

SAN to Guest to the iSCSI initiator Guest VM ESX is bypassed

SAN Transport to the iSCSI initiator or to Fibre Channel Guest VM ESX is bypassed

47
Installing the Actifio Connector on a Linux Host
The Actifio Connector for Linux runs as a daemon process under the username root. It listens on a TCP
port 5106 for communication from the Actifio Appliance. The Actifio Connector writes to a log file in the
installation directory (/var/act/log/UDSAgent.log) and posts significant events to the /var/log/
messages repository.
Use the rpm utility to install the Actifio Connector. The installer creates Init RC scripts to start and stop the
Actifio Connector that runs as a daemon. After the installation completes, use the RC script to start the
Actifio Connector for the first time.
To install the Actifio Connector on a Linux host:
1. Log on to the host as root.
2. Open a browser to https://<Actifio Appliance IP> to access the Actifio Resource Center.

3. Click the Linux Connector icon to download the Actifio Connector.

4. Click OK in the information dialog.

5. To check the RPM package before proceeding with installation, run rpm --checksig
<connector_filename>.rpm
6. To install the Actifio Connector, run:
rpm -ivh connector-Linux-<version>.rpm (for the 64-bit installation)
rpm -ivh connector-Linux_x86-<version>.rpm (for the 32-bit installation)
dpkg -i connector-linux_ubuntu_amd64-latestversion.deb (for the Ubuntu installation)
The Actifio Connector is always installed at '/opt/act'.
7. Verify that the Actifio Connector is running:
On non-systemd targets (SUSE Linux before 12.0 and RHEL before 7.0), run service udsagent
status. 
In the output, look for the line udsagent daemon is running:
root@centos65-mac /home/bomarc01/src/actifio/uds (trunk $%=)
# service udsagent status
udsagent daemon is running
On systemd targets (SUSE Linux 12.0+ and for RHEL 7.0+), run systemctl status udsagent.
In the output, look for the line Active: active:
[root@myrhel72 ~]# systemctl status udsagent
? udsagent.service - Actifio UDSAgent Service
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/udsagent.service; enabled; vendor preset:
disabled)
Active: active (exited) since Wed 2017-04-05 02:10:07 IST; 22h ago
Process: 29460 ExecStop=/act/initscripts/udsagent.init stop (code=exited, status=0/
SUCCESS)
Process: 29568 ExecStart=/act/initscripts/udsagent.init start (code=exited, status=0/
SUCCESS)
Main PID: 29568 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
CGroup: /system.slice/udsagent.service
+-29587 /opt/act/bin/udsagent start
+-29588 /opt/act/bin/udsagent start
Apr 05 02:10:07 myrhel72 udsagent.init[29568]: Starting /opt/act/bin/udsag...n
Apr 05 02:10:07 myrhel72 udsagent.init[29568]: Starting /opt/act/bin/udsag...n
On Ubuntu targets run cat /act/etc/key.txt

Restarting the Actifio Connector on a Linux Host

To restart the Actifio Connector on a Linux host, execute this command on the host:

48
 Non-systemd (SUSE Linux before 12.0 and RHEL before 7.0): /etc/init.d/udsagent restart
Systemd (SUSE Linux 12.0+ and for RHEL 7.0+): systemctl restart udsagent

Uninstalling the Actifio Connector from a Linux Host using the Command Line
To uninstall the Actifio Connector from a Linux host:
1. Stop the Actifio Connector by running /etc/init.d/udsagent stop.
2. Learn the currently installed Linux Connector RPM name:
[oregon@vq-oregon ~]$ rpm -qa udsagent
This returns the package name and version, such as: udsagent-7.1.0-62339.x86_64
3. Uninstall the package using rpm -e udsagent with the package name you obtained from the
query. For example:
rpm -e udsagent-7.1.0-62339.x86_64

Upgrading or Uninstalling the Actifio Connector from a Host Using

AGM
From the AGM Manage > Appliance page, right-click the appliance that supports the host and select
Configure Appliance. A new Appliance Configuration screen opens for that appliance. Use the Connector
Management tool to uninstall or upgrade the Actifio Connector on your hosts .

Connector Management

49
50
9 Supporting IBM AIX with
Actifio VDP

This chapter includes:

Supported IBM AIX Configurations on page 51
Ensuring NFS Connectivity on an IBM AIX Host Connected to a Sky Appliance on page 53
Installing the Actifio Connector on IBM AIX Hosts on page 54

Location of UDSAgent.log on AIX Hosts

On an IBM AIX host, logs are stored in /var/act/log.

Location of Scripts on AIX Hosts

You can create scripts to perform pre- and post- actions on applications on the AIX host. To use scripts,
create a folder called /act/scripts and store all scripts there. For detailed instructions on how use VDP
scripting, see Chapter 18, APPID Pre- and Post-Scripts for Scheduled Data Protection Jobs and Chapter 19,
Super Scripts for Workflows and On-Demand Data Access Jobs.

Supported IBM AIX Configurations

These common AIX configurations can be protected by an Actifio Appliance.
Physical Machine: All hardware on the server is dedicated to a single LPAR and no virtualization
is involved. LUN presentation to this environment is directly to the HBAs in the physical machine
(assuming storage is presented via Fibre Channel).
VDP can protect and recover in-band physical machine configurations via Fibre Channel, iSCSI
or NFS including the rootvg of the host in a bootable state. This can be accomplished in both a
crash-consistent or application-consistent state.
LPAR with Dedicated FC HBAs: A physical server has multiple LPARs, each with dedicated
access to one or more physical HBAs while sharing other resources like CPU and memory with
other LPARs. This provides better use of your environment than physical machines with some
virtualization. LUN presentation within this environment is typically directly through a dedicated
HBA (assuming storage is presented via Fibre Channel).
VDP can manage in-band dedicated LPAR configurations via Fibre Channel, iSCSI or NFS in
crash-consistent or application-consistent state. VDP can protect rootvg in a bootable state.
LPAR with NPIV mapping: The LPAR has one or more dedicated virtual HBAs assigned to it
through a VIO server. The virtual HBAs have unique WWPNs through the mechanism of NPIV. With
this methodology, all resources are managed by the HMC, by the VIO server, or by both. Each
LPAR has a representation of WWPNs as if the host had physical HBAs.
VDP can protect and recover in-band NPIV environments including rootvg of an LPAR in a
bootable state. These hosts can be added as physical hosts, as detailed in Chapter 9,
Supporting IBM AIX with Actifio VDP. Storage ports must be configured for them.

51
 LPAR with vSCSI mapping: You can also add LPARs with vSCSI mapping on VIO servers. These
are described in Ensuring vSCSI Connectivity on an IBM HMC Host on page 56.

52
Ensuring NFS Connectivity on an IBM AIX Host Connected to a Sky
Appliance
When Actifio VDP manages data movement over NFS, during each Snapshot or Dedup Async or
StreamSnap job, VDP uses an NFS share created on the appliance and exports to the Linux host a copy of
application data.

Using NFS protocol for AIX Hosts

In order to backup from or mount to a host over NFS, the NFS client must be installed on the hosts.
root@nstlpar19:/>lslpp -l | grep -i nfs
bos.net.nfs.client 7.2.3.15 COMMITTED Network File System Client
bos.net.nfs.client 7.2.3.15 COMMITTED Network File System Client
Use the AGM Manage > Hosts Edit section to set the Staging Disk Format to NFS. When mounting an image
captured this way, you have the option to mount them as an NFS share.

Setting Staging Disk Format to NFS for a Linux VM

Setting the Staging Disk I/O Path

Linux VMs must also select a staging disk I/O path. You can assign either NFS or SAN (iSCSI) transport for
the data from the host to the staging disk. To configure staging disk I/O path:
1. From the AGM Manage > Hosts section, right-click the host to configure and select Edit.
2. In the Edit Host page, scroll down to the Staging Disk I/O Path section.
3. Select one of the following options:

Transport Actifio volumes are presented to the attached to VM as

NFS to Guest as NFS shares ESX server vmdk

NFS Transport over NFS data store ESX server raw device mapping

SAN to Guest to the iSCSI initiator Guest VM ESX is bypassed

SAN Transport to the iSCSI initiator or to Fibre Channel Guest VM ESX is bypassed

53
Installing the Actifio Connector on IBM AIX Hosts
On AIX systems, including those using the NPIV protocol, the Actifio Connector runs as a daemon process
under the username root. It listens on TCP port 5106 and 56789 (legacy port) for communication from the
Actifio Appliance. The Actifio Connector writes to a log file in the installation directory (/var/act/log/
UDSAgent.log).

Note: IBM AIX 6.1 pSeries platform introduced a bug that may cause backups to fail. TL7 fixed the bug.

Installing the Actifio Connector on an AIX Host

On AIX systems, the installer is a .bff package: connector-AIX-<version>.bff. To install the Actifio Connector:
1. Open a browser to https://<Actifio Appliance IP> to access the Actifio Resource Center and
click the AIX Connector icon to download the AIX install package.
2. Install the Actifio Connector by running installp -aXgd connector-AIX-<version>.bff all.

Task Command option

Verify the successful installation of the Actifio Connector lslpp -L | grep udsagent

Verify the status of the Connector /etc/udsagent status

Manually stop the Connector service /etc/udsagent stop

Manually start the Connector service /etc/udsagent start

View the Connector log /var/act/log/UDSAgent.log

Manually Uninstalling the Actifio Connector from an AIX Host

To uninstall the Actifio Connector from a AIX host, run: installp -u udsagent. You can also use the AGM to
uninstall many connectors simultaneously; see Upgrading or Uninstalling the Actifio Connector on an AIX
Host on page 54.

Upgrading or Uninstalling the Actifio Connector on an AIX Host

From the AGM Manage > Appliance page, right-click the appliance that supports the host and select
Configure Appliance. Then use the Connector Management tool to uninstall or upgrade the Actifio
Connector on your hosts when new versions are available. For details, refer to the AGM online help.

54
10 Supporting IBM HMC with
Actifio VDP

This chapter includes:

Ensuring vSCSI Connectivity on an IBM HMC Host on page 56
Installing, Upgrading, or Uninstalling the Actifio Connector on an IBM HMC Host on page 56

Physical Machines, Dedicated LPARs, and LPARs with NPIV Mapping

Typically these hosts have Fibre Channel connectivity configured for the best performance. iSCSI
connectivity is an option for these hosts, but vSCSI is not. These configurations are detailed in Chapter 9,
Supporting IBM AIX with Actifio VDP.

Location of UDSAgent.log on IBM HMC Hosts

On an IBM HMC host, logs are stored in /var/act/log.

Location of Scripts on IBM HMC Hosts

You can create scripts to perform pre- and post- actions on applications on the HMC host. To use scripts,
create a folder called /act/scripts and store all scripts there.

Opening Network Ports

Make sure port TCP-5106 is open for Actifio Connector traffic.

Limitations
IBM HMC hosts can be added to a Sky Appliance for LPAR discovery, but Sky Appliances do not support
Fibre Channel connectivity, so the LPARs must be presented to their staging disks over an iSCSI
connection.

55
Ensuring vSCSI Connectivity on an IBM HMC Host
Limitations
IBM HMC hosts can be added to an Actifio Sky Appliance for LPAR discovery, but Sky Appliances do not
support Fibre Channel connectivity, so the LPARs must be presented to their staging disks over an iSCSI
connection.

Ensuring Connectivity
LPAR hosts with vSCSI mapping are virtual hosts that rely on VIO servers for vSCSI connectivity. They do not
have direct FC connectivity and FC is not an option for them. If they are discovered as regular physical
hosts, then the only option to back them up is using iSCSI, which is inferior to vSCSI. For enabling vSCSI
connectivity with this class of LPARs:
• They must be discovered indirectly through HMC discovery, not directly as regular physical
hosts.
• The Actifio Appliance should have Fibre Channel connectivity to VIO servers catering storage to
these LPARs.
If either of these two conditions are not met, the appliance will use iSCSI connectivity.
Resources such as RAM and CPU are still managed by the HMC but I/O such as network and fibre are
managed through the VIO server. This is more scalable than earlier technologies. LUN presentation is
done through the HBA cards on the VIO server(s). The VIO server presents the LUNs in a virtual SCSI
mapping manner to the LPAR or vhost.
Because the Actifio Connector has direct ties with the HMC of the environment, VDP can protect and
recover vSCSI VIO mapped LPARS from an environment including the rootvg in a bootable state.
When the Actifio Connector manages data movement over vSCSI, VDP uses a staging disk to create a
copy of application data during each Snapshot or Dedup Async job.
To discover a vSCSI LPAR host, see Notes for HMC Hosts on page 70.

Installing, Upgrading, or Uninstalling the Actifio Connector on an IBM

HMC Host
From the AGM Manage > Appliances page, right-click the appliance that supports the host and select Edit.
A new Appliance Configuration screen opens for that appliance. Use the Connector Management tool to
uninstall or upgrade the Actifio Connector on your hosts when new versions are available. For details,
refer to the AGM online help.

56
11 Supporting Oracle Solaris with
Actifio VDP

This chapter includes:

Installing the Actifio Connector on Solaris Hosts on page 58
Ensuring iSCSI Connectivity on an Oracle Sun Solaris Host on page 59
Ensuring Connectivity on a Solaris Host over Fibre Channel SAN on page 59
Ensuring NFS Connectivity on a Solaris Host on page 60

Location of UDSAgent.log on Solaris Hosts

On a Solaris host, logs are stored in /var/act/log.

Location of Scripts on Solaris Hosts

You can create scripts to perform pre- and post- actions on applications on the host. To use scripts,
create a folder called /act/scripts and store all scripts there. For more on VDP scripting, see Chapter 18,
APPID Pre- and Post-Scripts for Scheduled Data Protection Jobs and Chapter 19, Super Scripts for
Workflows and On-Demand Data Access Jobs.

Limitations
The Sky Appliance does support iSCSI on Solaris V11 systems after applying Solaris patch 11.3.21.5.0. 
The CDS Appliance does not support iSCSI for Solaris SPARC hosts. 
The CDX Appliance does not support Solaris hosts.

Using NFS protocol for Solaris LDOM and Solaris Zones hosts in AGM
To use NFS protocol for Solaris LDOM and Zones hosts, use the AGM Manager Hosts Edit section to set the
Staging Disk Format to NFS. The staging disk will be presented as an NFS share and Actifio Connector will
consume it. When mounting an image captured this way, you can mount them as NFS shares.

Setting Staging Disk Format to NFS

57
Installing the Actifio Connector on Solaris Hosts
On Sun Solaris systems, the installer takes the form of a package file. On Solaris systems, the Actifio
Connector runs as a daemon process under the user name root. It listens on TCP port 5106 and 56789
(legacy port) for communication from the Actifio Appliance. The Actifio Connector writes to a log file in
the installation directory (/var/act/log/UDSAgent.log).
To install the Actifio Connector on a Solaris host:
1. Open a browser to https://<Actifio Appliance IP> to access the Actifio Resource Center.
2. Click the appropriate Solaris Connector install package icon to download the Actifio
Connector.
3. To install the Actifio Connector, run:
o SPARC: pkgadd -d /tmp/connector-Solaris_SPARC-<version>.pkg all
o Solaris x86: pkgadd -d /tmp/connector-Solaris_x86-<version>.pkg all

Tasks and Available Command Options

Task Command option

Verify the successful installation of the Actifio Connector pkginfo -l udsagent

Verify the status of Connector /etc/udsagent status

Manually stop the Connector service /etc/udsagent stop

Manually start the Connector service /etc/udsagent start

See the Connector logs /var/act/log/UDSAgent.log

Manually Uninstalling the Actifio Connector from a Solaris Host

To uninstall the Actifio Connector from a Solaris host, run: pkgrm udsagent.

Note: You can also uninstall the Actifio Connector on many hosts simultaneously; see Maintaining
Connectors on Hosts on page 24

Using the Connector Management Tool to Upgrade or Uninstall the Actifio Connector
on a Solaris Host
Use the Connector Management tool in the AGM Domain Manager service to upgrade or uninstall the
Actifio Connector on your hosts when new versions are available. Refer to Maintaining Connectors on
Hosts on page 24.

58
Ensuring iSCSI Connectivity on an Oracle Sun Solaris Host
The Actifio Appliance must be able to communicate with the Actifio Connector running on the new host
over a Fibre Channel or iSCSI network.

Note: The Actifio CDS Appliance does not support iSCSI for Solaris SPARC hosts but the Actifio Sky
Appliance does support it.

When the Actifio Connector manages data movement over iSCSI, VDP uses a staging disk to create a
copy of application data during each Snapshot or Dedup Async job.

Connecting to Solaris x86 Hosts over iSCSI

To learn the iSCSI initiator Name from a Solaris x86 Host, use this command:
root@solaris5531:~# iscsiadm list initiator-node | grep -i "Initiator node name" | cut -d ":" -
f 2,3
iqn.2015-02.com.actifio:solaris5531
Make sure you have the iSCSI package installed:
# pkginfo |grep SUNWiscsi
system SUNWiscsir Sun iSCSI Device Driver (root)
system SUNWiscsiu Sun iSCSI Management Utilities (usr)

Installing the pkg File

To install the iSCSI Initiator package on a Solaris Host:
# pkgadd -d <path_to_pkg_file> all

Solaris iSCSI Initiator Limitations

Here are the current limitations or restrictions of using the Solaris iSCSI initiator software:
• Support for iSCSI devices that use SLP is not currently available.
• Boot support for iSCSI devices is not currently available.
• iSCSI targets cannot be configured as dump devices.
• iSCSI supports multiple connections per session, but the current Solaris implementation only
supports a single connection per session. For more information, see RFC 3720.
• Transferring large amounts of data over your existing network can impact performance.

Ensuring Connectivity on a Solaris Host over Fibre Channel SAN

Define a total of four paths (this is both the recommended minimum and maximum) or at most eight
paths (absolute maximum) between the CDS Appliance and the Solaris host. If the Solaris host has two
HBA ports (two WWNs) each zoned to one port on Actifio Node 1 and one port on Actifio Node 2, then that
host will have four paths; this is the recommended configuration. Do not use more than eight paths.
When adding a new host that is accessed via Fibre Channel SAN, the new host must be zoned to the
Actifio Appliance by your storage administrator. The storage administrator will need to know the host
WWN.
To find the WWN of a Solaris host on a Fibre Channel SAN:
-bash-4.1# fcinfo hba-port | grep HBA
HBA Port WWN: 2100001b328179fe
HBA Port WWN: 2101001b32a179fe

Note: Proper multipathing is critical for maintaining application-aware mounts over a system restart.

59
Ensuring NFS Connectivity on a Solaris Host
This section includes:
Limitations on page 57
Using NFS protocol for Solaris LDOM and Solaris Zones hosts in AGM on page 57
When the Actifio Connector manages data movement over NFS, the Actifio sky appliance uses an NFS
share created on it and exports to the Solaris host to create a copy of application data during each
Snapshot or Dedup Async or StreamSnap job.

Limitations
• Only NFSv3 is supported.
• System state captured with staging disk format NFS are ineligible for Actifio Cloud Mobility.
• Cross platform presentation of Oracle images captured over NFS is not supported. For example,
Oracle data captured from a Solaris system cannot be presented on a Linux system.
• Oracle databases captured as ASM Disk over NFS cannot be mounted as Standalone ASM or as
ASM RAC.

Before You Begin

Actifio supports NFS protocol to present a staging disk as a NFS share to a Linux or Solaris host. The staging
disk is presented directly to the production host. These firewall ports must be open on the client:

Required Ports for NFS

Port Used For

111 Portmapper/rpcbind

2049 nfsd

4001 Mountd

4045 lockd

756 statd

Ensuring NFS Connectivity in an Oracle Sun Solaris Environment

The Actifio Appliance must be able to communicate with the Actifio Connector on the host over an IP
network.
These two packages must be installed on each host:
• nfs-utils
• nfs-utils-lib
For Oracle Databases in a Solaris Environment, Local Zones, the Actifio Connector and an NFS client must
be running in the Local Zones, and the local zone IP must be added as a physical host (Generic) to the
appliance in the AGM Domain Manager.
Use the staging disk format NFS from AGM, or set this using udstask chhost -diskpref "NFS" <hostid>
from the CLI. NFS staging disks get mounted on the appliance and exported as an NFS share to the Host/
Zones.
For more information, refer to the Oracle DBA’s Guide to Actifio Copy Data Management.

60
12 Supporting HP-UX with
Actifio VDP

This chapter includes:

Ensuring iSCSI Connectivity on an HP-UX Host (Actifio Sky only) on page 61
Ensuring Fibre Channel Connectivity on an HP-UX Host on page 61
Ensuring NFS Connectivity on an HP-UX Host Connected to a Sky Appliance on page 63
Installing the Actifio Connector on HP-UX Hosts on page 64

Location of UDSAgent.log on HP-UX Hosts

On an HP-UX host, logs are stored in /var/act/log.

Location of Scripts on HP-UX Hosts

You can create scripts to perform pre- and post- actions on applications on the HP-UX host. To use
scripts, create a folder called /act/scripts and store all scripts there. For detailed instructions on how use
VDP scripting, see Chapter 18, APPID Pre- and Post-Scripts for Scheduled Data Protection Jobs and
Chapter 19, Super Scripts for Workflows and On-Demand Data Access Jobs.

Note: Only Fibre Channel connectivity to CDS Appliances is supported. For Sky Appliances, iSCSI
connectivity is supported. CDX Appliances do not support HP-UX.

Ensuring iSCSI Connectivity on an HP-UX Host (Actifio Sky only)

When the Actifio Connector manages data movement over iSCSI, VDP uses a staging disk to create a
copy of application data during each Snapshot or Dedup Async job.
If iSCSI is used, then an Actifio-approved iSCSI initiator must be installed on the host. It is also possible to
present the staging disk to a VM using an iSCSI initiator running in the VM; this is normally not necessary.

Note: After the iSCSI initiator is configured, the HP-UX native multipathing is statically linked with the
kernel, so no setup is required to use the multipathing support.

Ensuring Fibre Channel Connectivity on an HP-UX Host

When adding a host that is accessed via Fibre Channel SAN, the new host must be zoned to the Actifio
Appliance by your storage administrator. The storage administrator will need to know the host WWPN.
Define a total of four paths (this is both the minimum and recommended number) or at most eight paths
(absolute maximum) between the CDS Appliance and the AIX host.

61
If the HP-UX host has two HBA ports (two WWPNs) and each is zoned to one port on Actifio Node 1 and one
port on Actifio Node 2, then the host will have four paths; this is the recommended configuration.

62
Ensuring NFS Connectivity on an HP-UX Host Connected to a Sky
Appliance
When Actifio VDP manages data movement over NFS, during each Snapshot or Dedup Async or
StreamSnap job, VDP uses an NFS share created on the appliance and exports to the Linux host a copy of
application data.

Using NFS protocol for HP-UX Hosts

Use the AGM Manage > Hosts Edit section to set the Staging Disk Format to NFS. When mounting an image
captured this way, you have the option to mount them as an NFS share.

Setting Staging Disk Format to NFS for an HP-UX Host

Setting the Staging Disk I/O Path

HP-UX VMs must also select a staging disk I/O path. You can assign either NFS or SAN (iSCSI) transport for
the data from the host to the staging disk. To configure staging disk I/O path:
1. From the AGM Manage > Hosts section, right-click the host to configure and select Edit.
2. In the Edit Host page, scroll down to the Staging Disk I/O Path section.
3. Select one of the following options:

Transport Actifio volumes are presented to the attached to VM as

NFS to Guest as NFS shares ESX server vmdk

NFS Transport over NFS data store ESX server raw device mapping

SAN to Guest to the iSCSI initiator Guest VM ESX is bypassed

SAN Transport to the iSCSI initiator or to Fibre Channel Guest VM ESX is bypassed

63
Installing the Actifio Connector on HP-UX Hosts
For HP-UX, the installer comes as the file: connector-HPUX-<version>.depot. It runs as a daemon process
under the user name root. The connector writes to a log file in the installation directory (/var/act/log/
UDSAgent.log).
To install the Actifio Connector on a HP-UX host:
1. Open a browser to https://<Actifio Appliance IP> to access the Actifio Resource Center.
2. Click the HP UX Connector icon to download the HP-UX install package.
3. Install the Actifio Connector by running swinstall –s /<connector_filename>.depot \*

Note: Enter the \* included at the end of the swinstall command as shown above. It instructs
swinstall to install only the software it finds in the depot (the Actifio Connector). If you
accidentally enter /* you will receive a number of spurious error messages regarding software
packages that could not be found.

Manually Uninstalling the Actifio Connector from an HP-UX Host

To uninstall the Actifio Connector from an HP-UX host, run: swremove udsagent.
You can also remove connectors from many hosts simultaneously from AGM; see Maintaining
Connectors on Hosts on page 24.

Upgrading the Actifio Connector on an HP-UX Host

Use the Connector Management tool in AGM to upgrade the Actifio Connector on your hosts. Refer to
Maintaining Connectors on Hosts on page 24.

Table 1: HP-UX Connector Commands

Task Command option

Verify the successful installation of the Actifio Connector swlist |grep udsagent

Verify the status of the Connector /etc/udsagent status

Manually stop the Connector service /etc/udsagent stop

Manually start the Connector service /etc/udsagent start

See the Connector logs /var/act/log/UDSAgent.log

64
13 Adding Your Hosts to an Actifio
Appliance

These are the steps to connecting a non-VMware host to your VDP system. The first two are operating
system-specific, the third applies only to hosts that will use VDP in-band storage (CDS Appliance only).

Table 1: The Two OS-Specific Steps for Connecting Non-VMware Hosts

Host Install the Connector Add the Host

Windows Server, or Installing the Actifio Connector on Microsoft Chapter 15, Adding Windows
Hyper-V or SCVMM Windows Hosts on page 34 Server and Hyper-V Hosts to AGM

Linux Installing the Actifio Connector on a Linux

Host on page 48

IBM AIX Installing the Actifio Connector on IBM AIX

Hosts on page 54
Adding Unix Hosts to AGM on
IBM HMC The Connector is not required for IBM HMC hosts. page 69

Sun Solaris Installing the Actifio Connector on Solaris

Hosts on page 58

HP-UX Installing the Actifio Connector on HP-UX

Hosts on page 64

VMware VMs A VMware Administrator’s Guide to Actifio Copy Data Management

After performing the OS-specific steps in the table above, the next steps are the same for all host types:
1. Assigning VDisks for the Host Copy Data (In-Band CDS Appliance only) on page 66.
2. Configuring Hosts to Auto-Discover their Applications on page 67.
3. Reconciling Inconsistent Host Information across Multiple Appliances on page 68
If you no longer want to protect the applications or VMs on a host, you can delete it from VDP
management; see Deleting Hosts Using the AGM on page 68. 
You can have pre- and post-scripts run on your applications and VMs when they are triggered by a VDP
job. Scripting is detailed in Chapter 18, APPID Pre- and Post-Scripts for Scheduled Data Protection Jobs and
in Chapter 19, Super Scripts for Workflows and On-Demand Data Access Jobs.

Note: You don’t add a vCenter or an ESXi Cluster, you discover it; see A VMware Administrator’s Guide
to Actifio Copy Data Management.

65
Assigning VDisks for the Host Copy Data (In-Band CDS Appliance
only)
Hosts that use Actifio-provided in-band storage must have VDisks assigned (mapped) to them.
To assign a virtual disk to a host:
1. Open AGM to Manage > Appliances.
2. Right-click the and select Configure Appliance.
3. In the navigation pane under Hosts, select the host and the All VDisks tab.
4. Select one or more virtual disks and click Map. A confirmation dialog appears.
5. Enter the SCSI ID for the VDisk. The SCSI ID is auto-generated if it is left blank.
6. Click Map VDisk.

Mapping a VDisk to an In-Band Host

Confirmation of VDisk Mapping

66
Configuring Hosts to Auto-Discover their Applications
You can enable your appliances to auto-discover new applications on a configured host. This does not
protect the new applications, it only discovers them. You can only enable this feature after the host has
been added.
1. Open the AGM to the Manage > Hosts page.
2. Right-click the host to enable auto-discovery on, and select Edit.
3. Side the Enable Auto Discovery button to the right and click Save in the lower right corner.

Enabling Application Auto Discovery for a vCenter Host

67
Reconciling Inconsistent Host Information across Multiple
Appliances
A host can be defined on multiple appliances, either intentionally or unintentionally. This is common with
VMware VMs. If the host is managed by two VDP appliances, then the name is preceded by a
multiple-appliances icon and the entry in the Appliance column shows a link to the other appliance.
When records of the same host reside on multiple VDP appliances, the host information can be slightly
different from one appliance to another. In that case, when you edit the host record, you will see a Host
Reconciliation section at the top of the host record. Review the information in the table, and select the
host record that has the most up-to-date information. Then click Submit. All other host records in the
table will be reset to match the selected host record. After this, you see the Edit Host page detailed in
Editing Host Properties.

Security Software on Hosts

Security software, including antivirus and other disk monitoring software, can interfere with mounting,
cloning, LiveCloning, or restoring any non-VM application to a host. Consider exempting the target disk
from the interfering software for the duration of the operation. For more information, see The Connector
and the Network Environment on page 22.

Deleting Hosts Using the AGM

You can delete Hosts. To delete a host:
1. Open the AGM to the Manage > Hosts page.
2. Right-click the host to enable auto-discovery on, and select Delete.
3. In the Delete Host window, click OK.

Deleting a Host from AGM

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14 Adding Unix Hosts to AGM

Unix hosts include Linux, AIX, IBM HMC, Solaris, and HP-UX hosts. To add a Unix host to your VDP system:
1. Open the AGM to Manage > Hosts.
2. In the upper right corner, select + Add Host.
3. In the Add Host form, enter the name and an optional friendly name. The name of a host should
start with a letter, and can contain letters and digits (0-9).

Note: Underscore ('_') characters are not valid in host names.

4. Enter the IP address of the host in IP Address. Click + to add multiple IP addresses.
5. In the Appliances section, select the AGM managed appliances that will serve this host. If the list
is long, you can use the Search box to find a specific appliance or group of appliances.
6. In Host Type, select Generic.

Adding a New Host

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 7. Enter Application Discovery Credentials as needed to discover and protect the applications
on the host.
8. In Connector Settings, use 5106 for Connector Port unless you have changed from the default
value. You can also use 56789. Do not use any other port unless instructed by Actifio Support.
Enter the user name and password of the Actifio Connector on the host if you intend to run pre-
and post-scripts on the host.
9. In Organizations, select one or more Actifio organizations for the host to be a member of.
Organizations are explained in the AGM online help.
10. Click Add.
The next step is Assigning VDisks for the Host Copy Data (In-Band CDS Appliance only) on page 66.

Notes for HMC Hosts

The Actifio Appliance discovers all VIOs and LPARs on the IBM HMC host.
When an IBM HMC host is added, LPARs in an active state (rmc_state is ACTIVE) on that HMC are also
discovered. If an LPAR host is created or deleted after the IBM HMC was discovered, use re-discover to
update the known LPARs.
To activate the rmc state of an LPAR, run:
/usr/sbin/rsct/install/bin/recfgct
/usr/sbin/rsct/bin/rmcctrl -p
(CDS Appliance only) If any VIO servers were discovered after adding the HMC host, then manually define
any FC HBAs in use on those VIO Servers that are also zoned to the Actifio Appliance. To do this go to the
Ports tab of each VIO Server and use the 'Add Port' Button. If the VIO Server WWPNs do not appear, use the
Custom option to add them manually. Failure to do this may result in LPARs that use vSCSI automatically
configuring the iSCSI initiator in the LPAR, rather than use FC staging disks presented to and then passed
through the VIO server to the LPAR using vSCSI.

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15 Adding Windows Server and
Hyper-V Hosts to AGM

To add a new Windows Server or Hyper-V host to AGM:

1. Open the AGM to Manage > Hosts.
2. In the upper right corner, select + Add Host.
3. In the Add Host form, enter the name and an optional friendly name. The name of a host should
start with a letter, and can contain letters and digits (0-9). Underscore ('_') characters are not
valid in host names.
4. Enter the IP address of the host in IP Address. Click + to add multiple IP addresses.
5. In the Appliances section, select the AGM managed appliances that will serve this host. If the list
is long, you can use the Search box to find a specific appliance or group of appliances.
6. In Host Type, the type you pick depends on what you're using the Windows host for. These are
detailed in Table 1: Host Types and Connector Settings Overrides on page 71.
If you select vCenter or ESX Server, then you must also select the data transport mode, NFS or
SAN. NFS is the default setting.
If you select vCenter or ESX Server, you will also see a new section appear for vCenter Settings or
ESX Settings. Enter and test the port, username, and password to connect to the host.

Table 1: Host Types and Connector Settings Overrides

To Protect Select Host Type Connection Type

CIFS file systems, SQL Server, Generic The default connector port for Generic hosts, SCVMM
SharePoint, Exchange and Hyper-V VMs is 5106. If you use a different port, then
enter it here.
Hyper-V managed by SCVMM If the Connector username and password have
Microsoft SCVMM changed, then change them here.
If you do not need to override the default settings, then
Standalone Hyper-V on Hyper-V Server enter nothing here.
Windows server

ESXi standalone ESX Server The default ESX Server management port is 902. If you
use a different port, then enter it here.
If the ESX server username and password have
changed, then change them here.
If you do not need to override the default settings, then
enter nothing here.

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 Table 1: Host Types and Connector Settings Overrides

To Protect Select Host Type Connection Type

vCenter with ESXi VMs vCenter A vCenter can have both vCenter Settings and
Connector Settings, because a vCenter might also have
the Actifio Connector installed on it.
The default vCenter management port is 443. If you use
a different port, then enter it here.
If the vCenter username and password have changed,
then change them here.
If you do not need to override the default settings, then
enter nothing here.

7. Enter Application Discovery Credentials to discover and protect the applications on the host.
8. In Connector Settings, use 5106 for Connector Port unless you have changed from the default
value. You can also use 56789. Enter the user name and password of the Actifio Connector on
the host if you intend to run pre- and post-scripts on the host.
9. In Organizations, select one or more Actifio organizations for the host to be a member of.
Organizations are explained in the AGM online help.
10. Click Add.

Adding a New Host

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16 Configuring External Snapshot
Pools on IBM Storewize and
Pure Storage FlashArray
This chapter details:
Prerequisites for an External Snapshot Pool Deployment on page 74
Adding an External Storage Array on page 75
Adding an External Snapshot Pool on page 76
Adding New Hosts on page 76

About External Snapshot Pools

Actifio Sky appliances can use storage pools on IBM Storwize and Pure Storage FlashArray storage arrays,
to store Snapshot images instead of within a Sky appliance’s Snapshot pool. External Snapshot Pools (ESP)
enable the Sky appliance to implement very high speed backup since ESPs leverage snapshot
capabilities of modern arrays, especially flash-based arrays, which can handle a very large number of
snapshots with high performance and very low operational overhead. VDP can work with any host that
can connect to a supported Fibre Channel and iSCSI connected external storage array. This enables the
hosts to have Fibre Channel connectivity to the storage array with Sky support, which then presents a
number of options for storing the backups. The Sky appliance itself connects to the external storage array
using an iSCSI connection.
Backed up data can be stored in the Dedup pool of the Sky appliance or in a remote Actifio appliance
where data is sent using StreamSnap or Dedup-Async replication policies and stored in a regular or
external snapshot pool. You can also send the data to an OnVault pool for object storage either on
premise or in a Cloud.
When the production data is not on the same array as the ESP, use the Actifio Connector to perform a full
copy, and subsequently, incremental forever copies of the changed production data. The copied data is
sent to the storage array and the array manages snapshots of the copied data. The Actifio Connector on
the host reads data from the production array and writes changed blocks to the ESP.
There is substantial savings in storage footprint if the production data can be in the same array as the
ESP (Actifio recommends you keep a separate full copy backup). This configuration enables the fastest
backup of data; the storage array takes only incremental snapshots and the snapshots are faster since
no unchanged blocks are copied.
The backed up data can be recovered either locally or remotely. You can, for example, instantly mount
images from storage array snapshots. You can also mount local and remote dedup images via the
storage array, clone OnVault images to the storage array and then mount them, and mount OnVault
images directly from the Sky appliance.
In addition, data can be available to Test and Dev environments with high performance and availability
of mounted images, and SmartCopy backups perform better.

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Prerequisites for an External Snapshot Pool Deployment
External Snapshot pools are used to store snapshot images in IBM Storwize and Pure Storage FlashArray
storage arrays instead of within a Sky appliance’s Snapshot pool.

For IBM Storwize Storage Arrays

Here are the pre-requisites for a successful IBM Storwize External Snapshot Pool deployment:
• An iSCSI port configured on the SVC that can be reachable from the Sky VM.
• A dedicated empty mdiskgrp. This can be a child mdiskgrp, but it must have no VDisks in it at the
time you start using it.
• A Flashcopy license on the array/SVC.
• A log-in as a privileged (admin) user with a password.
• All hosts must be Fibre Channel enabled and able to connect to Storwize. The connectivity can
actually be either FC or iSCSI. For FC, this means all host (source and target) must be able to be
FC zoned to Storwize.
• Actifio VDP needs to connect to both Storwize cluster IP and iSCSI IP. The VDP to Storwize
connection requires iSCSI because VDP is on VMware.
• The VDP connector must be installed in all host source and target.
• Hosts you intend to protect should be defined and connected as Hosts to the Storage Array.

For Pure Storage FlashArray Storage Arrays

Here are the pre-requisites for a successful Pure External Snapshot Pool deployment:
• An iSCSI port configured on the SVC that can be reachable from the Sky VM.
• A log-in as a privileged (admin) user with a password.
• System clocks on the Pure storage array and the Sky appliance should be in sync. If there is
more than twenty five (25) minutes discrepancy between the two, connections from the Sky
appliance to the Pure storage array may fail. For existing connections, jobs may fail with errors.
• The VDP connector must be installed in all host source and target.

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Adding an External Storage Array
Before you add an external storage array:
• AGM must be managing at least one Sky appliance. CDS appliances are not supported.
• You need administrator credentials for the storage array and the IP Address or FQDN (fully
qualified domain name) of the storage array.
• For an IBM Storwize (v3700, v5000, v7000, SVC) storage array:
o The storage array administrator has provisioned an empty mdiskpool for use by the Sky
appliance.
o VDP needs to connect to both Storwize cluster IP and iSCSI IP
To add an external storage array:
1. In the AGM Domain Manager, click Storage Arrays. The Storage Array page opens.
2. Click Add Storage Array.
3. In Name, add a descriptive name for the external storage array. This name will be used on both
the AGM and the Sky appliances. It does not need to match any name on the storage array.
4. In IP/FQDN, add the IP address or the fully qualified domain name (array.thiscompany.com) of
the external storage array.
5. From the Storage Array Type drop-down, select either Pure Storage FlashArray or IBM Storwize.
6. In Username and Password, enter login credentials of the administrator account on the
storage array.

Note: The Pound Sterling character (£) is not supported for passwords.

7. In the Select Appliance section, select one or more Sky appliances.

8. Click Test Connectivity to check connection to the appliance(s). If the test succeeds but the
pool is not created, see If Test Connectivity succeeds but no pool is created below.
9. Expand the Organizations menu and select the Users/Groups/Organizations to associate with
this array. The Users/Groups/Organizations that you do not select cannot use the array.
If you do not select any specific Users/Groups/Organizations, the storage array and its
associated pools will be available to all AGM users.
10. Click Save to create the array.
The newly created array will be listed in the Storage Array page with the array name and other properties.

Note: Future pool expansion on a Storwize ESP pool must be done on the Storwize array. VDP will detect
this expansion automatically.

Note: For an IBM Storwize storage array you will see a newly created username for each Sky appliance
to use with the array. These have the pattern 'act' followed by a 10-digit number (for example:
act1415066080). Manipulations of snapshots and images on the array by Sky will appear in the Storwize
Audit Log using this act-<number> username.

If Test Connectivity succeeds but no pool is created

If Test Connectivity succeeds, but fails to create the storage pool for Pure Storage FlashArray, or fails to create either
the storage array or the external snapshot pools for IBM Storwize, then check the iSCSI network connection between
the Sky appliance and the storage array. Test Connectivity checks only the connectivity with the management IPs of
the array and not the iSCSI network, which may be on a separate network.

75
Adding an External Snapshot Pool
Once you have created an external storage array, it is necessary to specify which pool on that array will
be used as an External Snapshot Pool for an Sky appliance.

Adding an External Snapshot Pool to an IBM Storwize array

The pool on the IBM Storwize array must be empty. Each pool should be used with only one appliance. If
you have more than one appliance using an IBM Storwize array, each appliance should have its own pool.
To add an External Snapshot pool to an IBM Storwize array:
1. In the AGM Manager > Appliances, right-click the selected appliance to open the Appliance
Configuration page, then click Storage Pools. The Storage Pool page opens listing all storage
pools on different appliances managed by AGM.
2. Click Add External Snapshot Pool. The Add External Pool page opens. This is visible only after you
have created at least one IBM Storwize array.
3. From the Choose Storage Array drop-down, select an array. Only IBM Storwize arrays are listed
in this drop-down.
4. In Pool Name, add a descriptive name for the External Snapshot Pool.
5. From the Choose Appliance drop-down, select the appliances that should use the External
Snapshot Pool.
6. In the Choose IBM Storwize Pool section, select a pool. You can use the search box to look for a
specific pool by name. (The pools listed in this section are empty pools.)
7. In the Threshold Monitor section:
o Use the slider to set the Warning level. The default Warning level is 80%. When this level is
exceeded, you see warnings.
o Use the slider to set Safe Mode to an appropriate level of usage. The default value is 90%.
When this value is exceeded, the Sky appliance stops writing to storage and jobs fail.
8. Expand the Organizations menu and select the Users/Groups/Organizations to associate with
this pool. If you do not select any Users/Groups/Organizations, the pool will be available to all
AGM users.
9. Click Save to create the External Snapshot Pool. The newly created pool will be listed in the
Storage Pools page with Type Ext Snapshot.

Configuring an External Snapshot Pool on a Pure Storage FlashArray

The Pure Storage FlashArray doesn't have a Pool virtualization concept. Sky supports this by displaying the
used and available space on the entire PureStorage Flasharray as it is presented to the Storage
Administrator on the array itself. There is no need to provision a distinct pool within the array for use.
In the Threshold Monitor section:
o Use the slider to set the Warning level. The default Warning level is 80%. When this level is
exceeded, you see warnings.
o Use the slider to set Safe Mode to an appropriate level of usage. The default value is 90%.
When this value is exceeded, the Sky appliance stops writing to storage.

Adding New Hosts

If you create a host on the storage array after configuring the storage array as an ESP, the new hosts cannot
complete snapshots until the next scan for new host data is complete.
Scanning the array for the host data is triggered:
• When the array is added to the appliance
• When a host is created on the appliance
• Daily, at midnight.

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17 Configuring LDAP and Role-
Based Access

This chapter details:

LDAP Authentication on page 77
SAML Authentication on page 83
Managing Web Certificates on page 84

LDAP Authentication
You can use a single existing LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) server for AGM user
authentication and to map LDAP groups to AGM roles. Active Directory provides authentication, directory,
policy, and other services in a Windows environment, and LDAP is an application protocol for querying
and modifying items in directory service providers such as Active Directory.
This section includes:
Things to Consider when AGM Is Configured for LDAP Authentication on page 77
Configuring LDAP Settings on page 78
Mapping LDAP Groups to Roles and Organizations on page 79
Viewing LDAP Groups on page 81
Deleting an LDAP Group on page 82

Things to Consider when AGM Is Configured for LDAP Authentication

When AGM connects to the LDAP server for authentication it updates users with credentials cached from
the LDAP server. When AGM is configured for LDAP to authenticate users:
• LDAP users who need to access AGM can have a user created the first time they successfully log
into AGM if the Auto Create User parameter is enabled (see Configuring LDAP Settings).
• LDAP users can also be created in AGM by administrators. These new users can have their
passwords left blank. User accounts with empty passwords will be “locked” until the user logs in
with LDAP once to set their cached credential.
• The login process is transparent to users; username and password are the same as their LDAP
credentials. Users receive no feedback on the reason for a failed login attempt. The reason is
logged for administrative use but for security purposes the user is only informed that login
failed. Users receive no information about which authentication method is in use.
• The hash value of each user credential is cached in the AGM database.
• If AGM is not able to reach the LDAP server and if AGM is configured to use database fallback
(not selected by default), then each user will be authenticated against their cached credential
hash value stored in the AGM database.
• Cached credential hash values are refreshed upon establishing connection with configured
LDAP servers.

77
 • The default “admin” account will always be authenticated against internal credentials stored in
the AGM database.
• LDAP configuration is not shared between AGM and managed Actifio appliances.

Configuring LDAP Settings

You can use a single existing LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) server for AGM user
authentication and to map LDAP groups to AGM roles. Active Directory is a database-based system that
provides authentication, directory, policy, and other services in a Windows environment, and LDAP is an
application protocol for querying and modifying items in directory service providers such as Active
Directory.
To configure LDAP server authentication:
1. Click the Manage tab and select Authentication from the drop-down menu. The Authentication
page opens.
2. Click LDAP from the drop-down menu to open the Configure LAP page.
Click image to expand.
3. In the LDAP Settings page, (default option), enter the following information:
o Server IP/DNS: The server IP address or host name of the server where LDAP is hosted to
authenticate AGM users. If you specify a host name, make sure that it can be resolved.
o Port #: TCP/IP port number on which the server is processing LDAP requests. We
recommend that you leave this setting at the default of port 389. If you plan to use SSL for
the connection, specify port 636.
o Use TLS: Specifies that the connection uses TLS to connect with the LDAP server.

Note: In the case of Microsoft Active Directory, for the SSL/TLS connection to properly connect to
the LDAP server, the server must have Certificate services installed on it so that it can answer on
port 636. You can confirm that the connection is working properly by looking in the event viewer
of the LDAPSERVER under Windows Logs -> System. Look for event 36886 by source Schannel. If
your output shows a connection and no disconnect, then that means that was a successful
connection and LDAP is communicating properly.

o Privileged User DN: The full DN (distinguished name) of the user that is to perform user
lookups in the LDAP server. This field creates the user within AGM that matches the LDAP
server account properties.
o Password: Password for the lookup user.
o Search by Base DN: The base distinguished name (DN) subtree that is used by AGM to
search for user and group entries.
o Search by Username Attribute: The LDAP attribute to use to match against the supplied
login name.
o Use Cached Credentials When Directory is Unavailable: Specifies to use the cached
credentials in the AGM database for verification when the LDAP server is offline or
unavailable. When enabled, all previously cached LDAP users can login using their
credentials.
o Auto Create User: Specifies to store the username and the hash value of the user
credentials in the AGM database when that user logs in through the LDAP server.
4. Optionally, you can use the Test button to confirm that the LDAP server access information is
accurate and that authentication has been accepted by the LDAP server. The Test Credentials
dialog opens. 
Enter your login credentials, then press Test. You should receive a Success message. Click OK to
return to the LDAP Settings page.

78
 Note: If you receive an Error While Testing message, double-check that you entered the login
credentials correctly. If the login credentials are correct, confirm that the LDAP server settings
are correct as described in step 5.

5. Click Save.
6. You can now set up group mapping by choosing an LDAP Group and associating it with a role.

Mapping LDAP Groups to Roles and Organizations

After your have configured your LDAP settings, you can set up group mapping. You can create a mapping
by associating an LDAP Group with a role.
Before you begin:
• You must have the Administrative role to perform LDAP group mapping. If are not an
Administrator, you will see this error: User does not have sufficient rights to perform this Action.
• During LDAP user authentication, if the group mapping information is not found then the user is
assigned with the previously assigned roles/organizations.
• For the LDAP server, the Domain Users group is not supported and will not appear in the list of
mappings.
To set up a group mapping:
1. Click the Manage tab and select Authentication from the drop-down menu. The Authentication
page opens.
2. Click LDAP to open the Configure LDAP page.
3. Click LDAP Group Mapping to open the LDAP Groups Mapping table.

4. Depending on whether you want to edit an existing LDAP group or create a new LDAP group:
o To modify an existing LDAP group, select the LDAP group from the list and then select Edit
(bottom right-hand corner of the window).
o To create a new LDAP group, click New Group Mapping.

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 The LDAP Group Mapping page appears. The LDAP Group Mapping page has three panels:
o Mapped LDAP Group
o Role
o Organizations
LDAP groups that appear after a query is performed
o AGM roles
o AGM organizations

5. Use the Groups search field to perform a lookup for a specific group from the LDAP server. You
can view the full path of each LDAP group found in a search query through the use of the
Verbose Name slider. Verbose Name toggles the display of all found LDAP groups by their full
distinguished name (DN).

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 6. Select the desired LDAP group from the left list and then select:
o The roles in the Roles list to map the LDAP group to the specific role(s).
o The organizations in the Organizations list that will use this resource. This action creates a
relationship between the resource (an LDAP group in this case) and one or more
organizations.

Note: For details on roles and organizations see Organizations, Users, Roles and Rights, below.

7. Click the following when you are done:

o Update, if modifying an existing LDAP group
o Map, if creating a new LDAP group
8. Repeat this process for each group that requires mapping.

Organizations, Users, Roles and Rights

Organizations and roles work together to enforce rules set up by AGM administrators for users.
Organization membership governs which users can access/manage which resources within AGM. Roles
govern what actions users can take on the resources under their control. Organizations can be defined in
a hierarchical fashion to match your organizational structure.
After you add an Actifio appliance to AGM, all of the imported organizations, users, and roles associated
with each appliance are replicated into the AGM as part of the import process. These objects become
AGM-level objects and are added to the AGM database. Imported organizations, users, and roles become
available for use in AGM (within organization limits). You can modify the imported organizations, users,
and roles from AGM.

Note: Modifications to imported organizations, users, and roles are not synchronized back to the
appliance from which they were originally imported. Once imported, you cannot make changes to
these objects on the appliance; all changes must be made in AGM. This includes subsequent resource
assignments (or reassignments) to existing organizations.

Organizations, Users, Roles and Rights are detailed in the AGM Online Help.

Viewing LDAP Groups

The LDAP Group Mapping window lists all of the LDAP groups created in AGM. You can see information
such as mapped LDAP group name, assigned role(s), and assigned organization(s).
1. Click the Manage tab and select Authentication from the drop-down menu. The Authentication
page opens.
2. Click LDAP to open the Configure LDAP page.
3. Click LDAP Group Mapping to access the mapped LDAP groups list.
4. To modify the display, you can:

Note: Filters of type text, list, and date, persist across different AGM sessions for the same user.

o Adjust Fields: To modify the fields that appear in the table, right-click within the table
header row and click the check boxes for the fields you want displayed (or those fields
you do not want to view).
o Sort Content: To sort the content listed in a table column by alphanumeric order, select a
column header and then click the Up or Down arrow to change the order.

81
 o Adjust Column Width: To adjust the width of a table column to show more content in the
table, drag the column divider in a column header to the left or right to resize the column
width. Column dividers are marked by a pair of thin gray lines.
o Filter By: To filter the list, enter one or more filter criteria. (If you do not see the Filter By
area, click Show Filter). To clear a filter, click the x to the right of the applied filter.

Note: Filters of type text, list, and date, persist across different AGM sessions for the same user.

5. To export the LDAP groups list click the export icon. You can export in CVS or PDF format.

Deleting an LDAP Group

You can delete an LDAP group that is no longer needed.
To remove an LDAP group:
1. Click the Manage tab and select Authentication from the drop-down menu. The Authentication
page opens.
2. Click LDAP to open the Configure LDAP page.
3. Click LDAP Group Mapping to access the mapped LDAP groups list
4. Select the LDAP group from the list and then select Delete (bottom right-hand corner of the
window).

Note: You can also right-click on the LDAP group in the list and select Delete from the menu.

5. Click Confirm in the confirmation dialog.

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SAML Authentication
You can use Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) for AGM user authentication. SAML is an open
standard for exchanging authentication and authorization data, in particular between an identity
provider and a service provider. To configure SAML authentication, you need the IDP metadata. The IDP
metadata defines the attributes/behavior of SAML IDP. This metadata must be registered with AGM SAML
SP before SAML single sign on (SSO) can work.
Terms:
• AGM SAML SP (Service Provider): Part of AGM, it serves SAML SSO/SLO requests and responses.
• SAML IDP (Identity Provider): Is the enterprise authentication and authorization server that AGM
SAML SP relies on for login decisions.

Login and Logout User Experience when using SAML Authentication

During AGM login, the SAML user is redirected to the SAML SSO login page instead of the AGM login page.
During logout, the SAML user is logged out of AGM and any other websites they were logged in using SSO.

Configuring SAML Settings

To configure SAML authentication:
1. From the AGM top navigation, click Manage > Authentication. The Authentication page opens.
2. Click Choose Authentication drop-down and select SAML. The Configure SAML page opens.

3. In the text box, copy and paste the IDP metadata. 

If you need to make modifications and begin again, click Clear.
4. Click Upload and Enable SAML when you are ready to upload the file. AGM will not force you to
log out of your off current session. The next time you log into AGM, you will be directed to the to
SAML SSO login page.

Downloading SP Metadata
If AGM is configured to use SAML authentication, you can download and review the IDP metadata.
To download IDP metadata:
1. Click the Manage tab and select Authentication from the drop-down menu. The Authentication
page opens. The Current Authentication Mode should be SAML.
2. Click the Download SP metadata option.
3. Browse to the Downloads folder and open the IDP file to view it.

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Managing Web Certificates
Out of the box, AGM uses self-signed TLS web service certificate. Some companies may require replacing
the TLS certificates with those that are in compliance with their security model. AGM users with
administrator rights can:
• Upload PKCS12 File on page 84
• Reset and Generate New Web Certificate on page 85

Note: Non-administrator AGM users cannot see the Web Certificate drop-down menu option from the
Manage tab and cannot upload a PKCS file or replace a self signed TLS certificate.

Upload PKCS12 File

Companies can require replacing the out of the box TLS Certificate to comply with their security model.
You can upload a PKCS file to replace a TLS certificate using the instructions below.
Requirements:
• A valid PKCS file generated for use
• Valid passphrase to use when uploading the PKCS file

Uploading the PKCS File

To upload a PKCS file to replace a TLS certificate:
1. Click the Manage tab and select Web Certificate from the drop-down menu. The Web
Certificates management page opens listing options to upload a PKCS file (default) or generate
and replace a self-signed certificate.

2. Verify the Replace Web Certificate with New PKCS12 option is selected and click Upload. Browse
to the location where you have saved the PKCS file and select it.
3. In Passphrase, enter the password for the PKCS file.

84
 4. Click Replace Web Certificate. You will see the following message containing useful information.

5. Click Okay to begin uploading the file. In case the PKCS file is invalid or the passphrase is
incorrect, you will see the message: Error 10040 Web certificate installation fails due to invalid
PKCS12.
6. Upload a valid PKCS file using instructions in steps 3 to 6. The certificate is replaced and the web
service restarts within one hundred and twenty (120) seconds.
7. Refresh your browser and continue using AGM. You will not need to login to a new session.

Reset and Generate New Web Certificate

You can generate a new TLS certificate and replace the existing certificate. 
To generate and replace a self signed TLS certificate:
1. Click the Manage tab and select Web Certificate from the drop-down menu. The Web
Certificates management page opens listing options to upload a PKCS file (default) or generate
and replace a self-signed certificate.

85
 2. Select the Reset/Regenerate Web Certificate option and click Reset Web Certificate. You will see
this message.

3. Click Okay to begin regenerate the new certificate and replace the existing certificate file. 
If you try to generate a new certificate before the generation and replacement of the in process
finishes, you see the message: Error 10040 Another web certificate management operation is in
progress.
The certificate is replaced and the web service restarts within one hundred and twenty (120)
seconds.
4. Refresh your browser and continue using AGM. You will not need to login to a new session.

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18 APPID Pre- and Post-Scripts for
Scheduled Data Protection
Jobs
You can create application-specific pre-scripts and post-scripts to perform operations on a host before
and after a VDP capture operation. APPID scripts must follow these guidelines:
• The script name must begin with appid.<appid>. To learn the appid for an application, hold the
mouse cursor over the application name in the Actifio Desktop.
• On a Windows host, the script location must be: C:\Program Files\Actifio\scripts. Scripts run
on Windows hosts must be .bat or .vbs files.
• On a non-Windows host, the script location must be: /act/scripts. Scripts run on non-Windows
hosts must have execute permissions.

Note: You can use root credentials or a local username/password. Without valid stored credentials, the
scripts will fail to execute. The scripts run as root unless the script itself calls something like 'sudo'.

Setting Description Default Range

Timeout

Init The init script is invoked with an init parameter when the 60 seconds N/A
backup is about to start.

Freeze The freeze script is invoked with a freeze parameter when 60 seconds 1 - 86400
the backup operation is just about to freeze the application. seconds

Unfreeze The thaw script is invoked with a thaw parameter when the 60 seconds 1 - 86400
backup operation is just finished unreeling the application. seconds

Finish The fini script is invoked with a fini parameter when the 60 seconds 1 - 86400
backup operation is about to complete. This phase is seconds
applicable only for the Actifio Connector.

Abort The abort script is invoked with an abort parameter if the N/A N/A
backup is aborted for any reason.

87
Troubleshooting APPID Scripts
A successfully executed script includes two lines in the UDSAgent.log file:
PrepareForSnapshot: Executing init script
Launched script with arguments [0]=/act/scripts/appid.22448 [1]=init pid 6914
If you only see the first line, that means the script did not execute. The most common reasons are:
• Invalid credentials or no credentials. Validate them by logging in over RDP or using "run-as" from
the shell.
• The script may not be readable or executable. Ensure that you can execute the script manually.

Sample APPID Script for Windows Sample APPID Script for Linux

@echo oFF #!/bin/sh

if /i %1 equ init goto :handle_init if [ $1 = "freeze" ]; then
if /i %1 equ fini goto :handle_fini echo freeze > /tmp/pretime.txt
if /i %1 equ freeze goto :handle_freeze echo $1 >> /tmp/pretime.txt
if /i %1 equ thaw goto :handle_thaw sleep 10
if /i %1 equ abort goto :handle_abort echo date >>/tmp/pretime.txt
echo Unknown command %1 exit 0
goto :eof fi
:handle_init
echo Got an init command if [ $1 = "thaw" ]; then
ping -n 5 google.com echo thaw > /tmp/posttime.txt
echo %time% >C:\inittime.txt echo $1 >> /tmp/posttime.txt
whoami >> C:\inittime.txt sleep 5
goto :end echo date >>/tmp/posttime.txt
:handle_fini exit 0
echo Got a fini command fi
ping -n 5 google.com
echo %time% >C:\Finishtime.txt if [ $1 = "abort" ]; then
whoami >> C:\Finishtime.txt echo abort > /tmp/aborttime.txt
goto :end echo $1 >> /tmp/aborttime.txt
:handle_freeze sleep 5
echo Got a freeze command echo date >> /tmp/aborttime.txt
ping -n 10 google.com exit 0
echo %time% >C:\pretime.txt fi
whoami >> C:\pretime.txt
goto :end if [ $1 = "init" ]; then
:handle_thaw echo init > /tmp/inittime.txt
echo Got a thaw command echo $1 >> /tmp/inittime.txt
ping -n 5 google.com sleep 5
echo %time% >C:\posttime.txt echo date >>/tmp/inittime.txt
whoami >> C:\posttime.txt exit 0
goto :end fi
:handle_abort
echo Got an abort command if [ $1 = "fini" ]; then
ping -n 5 google.com echo fini > /tmp/finishtime.txt
echo %time% >C:\aborttime.txt echo $1 >> /tmp/finishtime.txt
whoami >> C:\aborttime.txt sleep 5
goto :end echo date >> /tmp/finishtime.txt
:end exit 0
echo Done processing commands fi

88
19 Super Scripts for Workflows
and On-Demand Data Access
Jobs
You can develop scripts to be called by the scripting engine during initialization, pre, post, and final
phases of backup or restore jobs. Scripts are executed only on hosts on which the Actifio Connector is
installed. Individual script names and arguments for each phase can be specified separately. The
scripting engine uses environment variables to provide job information to the scripts.
The VDP host-side super scripts are invoked for on-demand jobs that are triggered by the CLI with the -
scripts argument. Supported CLI jobs are listed in the CLI Commands Supported in Super Scripts on page
92.
Scripts can be defined and executed for all on demand backup and restore jobs that invoke the host
connector.

Note: Super scripts are not supported for Dedup Async jobs on in-band applications.

This chapter contains the following topics:

Super Script Phases on page 90
Super Script Arguments on page 90
Super Script Timeouts on page 90
Super Script Environment Variables on page 91
CLI Commands Supported in Super Scripts on page 92
Sample Super Scripts on page 93

Super Script Naming Conventions and Location

A super script can have any valid filename for the OS.
• For Microsoft Windows platforms: Supported interpreters are batch files (cmd.exe) and visual
basic scripts.
Scripts must be located in the scripts directory under C:\Program Files\Actifio\scripts
• For Linux, AIX, HP-UX, and Solaris platforms: Any installed interpreters must be visible to /bin/sh
shell. 
The script should declare the interpreter by shebang line (e.g. #!/bin/bash). 
Scripts must be located in the scripts directory under /act/scripts

89
Super Script Phases
INIT: The early initialization phase. It starts when the Actifio Appliance connects to the
Connector, the job is initialized, and the credentials are verified.
PRE: This phase starts just before the major operation of the job. For snapshots and direct-to-
Dedup, this starts before the application is frozen. For mount type jobs, this is after devices are
mapped to the host but before connector based operations like rescan, import and mounting
of file systems is started.
POST: This phase starts immediately after the major operation of the job is completed. For
backup type jobs, this is after the application is unfrozen. For mount type jobs, this is after all
import/mounting/bringing applications on-line is completed.
FINAL: This phase is end of the job. The operation is essentially complete, however, this script still
has the opportunity to return a non-zero code and fail the job.
ABORT: This phase is the abort handling part of the job, when it has failed due to some reason.
Any of the script failures are also considered as job failure, hence this phase will be triggered.

Super Script Arguments

A user or administrator can define per-script arguments that are passed to script during invocation. The
first argument to the script is always the current phase followed by user-defined arguments.

Example
This example demonstrates a database handler on a Unix platform:
(script: /act/scripts/init.sh with args arg1 & arg2)
#!/bin/bash
if [[ $1 != "init" ]];
then
echo "Called outside connector. Exiting…” >>/act/log/scripts.log
exit -1
fi
DB_DIR=$2 # arg1 in this example
if [[ ! -d $DB_DIR ]];
then
echo "Error: DB Directory empty." >>/act/log/scripts.log
echo "Aborting the job..." >>/act/log/scripts.log
fi
# Put the database in read-only mode…

Script Returns and Failures

A job-in-progress will be terminated if the script:
• Cannot be executed (e.g. no execute permission or file not found)
• Failed (e.g. interpreter finds a script error and aborts)
• Returns an error code (a non zero value)
If specified, the abort script will be called in the above mentioned scenarios. The failure of an abort script
is ignored.

Super Script Timeouts

Each super script may be specified with individual timeout values in seconds. If a script for a given phase
runs beyond the timeout, the script is marked as failed and the job-in progress is aborted. The default
value is 60 seconds: Example: (script: /act/scripts/init.sh <appid> <argument> timeout = 120)
Refer to the CLI Commands Supported in Super Scripts on page 92 for CLI usage examples.

90
Super Script Environment Variables
The Connector portion of an on-demand script is invoked with environment variables set to job-specific
values. Not all environment variables are applicable to all jobs. Only the variables applicable to the
current jobs are exported to scripts. All environment variables exported by the Connector to the scripts
are prefixed with “ACT_”.
For example:
Current phase (PHASE) is exported as ACT_PHASE
Current VDP job name (JOBNAME) is exported as ACT_JOBNAME
The following is a list of environment variables with sample values in parentheses.
• ACT_APPID: The database ID of the application (e.g. 4186)
• ACT_APPNAME: Name of the application (e.g. My-DB)
• ACT_HOSTNAME: The name of the host which is the target of this job (e.g. Jupiter)
• ACT_JOBNAME: The name of the job (e.g. Job_0123456)
• ACT_JOBTYPE: a text version of the job class (e.g. mount
• ACT_LOGSMART_TYPE: db is the only valid value. This must be present for database logs to be
captured.
• ACT_MULTI_END: After mount, if True, recover database into open state (default). If False, the
database is left in the mounted (Oracle) or restoring (SQL Server) state.
• ACT_MULTI_OPNAME: the name of the operation currently running for a job that consists of
multiple operations. Reprovision and Restore jobs involve an unmount operation followed by a
mount operation. Operations include:
o mount
o unmount
o refresh
o restore
o reprovision
o scrub-mount
o scrub-unmount
o migrate
o clone
• ACT_OPTIONS: Policy options that apply to this job
• ACT_PHASE: A text string that describes the job phase (e.g. init)
• ACT_POLICY: Name of the policy related to this job (e.g. Daily4Hr)
• ACT_PROFILE: The name of the profile (e.g. Standard)
• ACT_SCRIPT_TMOUT: Superscripting timeout. If response is not received within timeout value
(default 60 seconds), then the script will fail.
• ACT_SOURCEHOST: The name of the host that was the source for this application (e.g. Saturn)
• ACT_TEMPLATE: Name of the template related to the job (e.g. Standard)
• ACT_TIMEOUT: Define the duration of the script, how long the script is allowed to run
• ACT_VOLUMES: For generic applications, list of volumes that are configured for backup

91
CLI Commands Supported in Super Scripts
The following CLI commands are supported for on-demand super scripting:
• udstask backup
• udstask restoreimage
• udstask cloneimage
• udstask mountimage
• udstask mountimage
• udstask testfailover
• udstask failover
• udstask deletefailover
• udstask createliveclone
• udstask refreshliveclone
• udstask prepmount
• udstask prepunmount
With all of these commands, there will be an option to specify scripts to run at four phases of the job:
init: when the job is just started
pre: just before “the main operation” of the job
post: just after “the main operation” of the job
final: towards the very end of the job, but not after it is finished
The script, script parameters, and settings are specified using this CLI syntax:
-script
name=<scriptname>:phase={INIT|PRE|POST|FINAL}[:timeout=value][:args=<arg1,arg2>];[:name=<scrip
tname>:phase={INIT|PRE|POST|FINAL}...]

Note: The phase names are case-insensitive.

The script name and phase are required. Timeout and arguments are optional. There are name value
pairs, separated by colons. The arguments are a set of values separated by commas. Special characters
like colons, spaces and commas are not supported.
A command invocation with a pre script might look like this:
udstask backup -app $MYAPP -policy $MYPOLICY \
-script "name=MYSCRIPT.sh:phase=PRE:timeout=60:args=ARG1,ARG2"

92
Sample Super Scripts
Here are two sample super scripts to illustrate VDP super scripting.

Sample Super Script for Windows

At: \<InstallDir>\scripts
Example: C:\Program Files\Actifio\scripts\wrapper_script.bat
echo ........ Running %ACT_PHASE% hook ........ >> c:\act_script.log
echo %time% >> c:\act_script.log
echo Args: %0 %1 %2 >> c:\act_script.log
echo Current phase is %1 >> c:\act_script.log
set >> c:\act_script.log
echo ........ End %ACT_PHASE% hook ........ >> c:\act_script.log

Sample Super Script for Linux and other Unix Platforms

For Linux: /act/scripts
Example: /act/scripts/wrapper_script.sh
#!/bin/bash

LOG_FILE="/tmp/act_script.log"

# Redirect STDOUT & STDERR to $LOG_FILE file

exec 1<&-
exec 2<&-
exec 1>>$LOG_FILE
exec 2>&1

echo
echo "........ Running $ACT_PHASE hook ........"
printenv | grep "ACT_" |sort
echo "Current time is: `date`"
echo "Running script as `whoami`"
echo "CLI Args are: $0 $*"
echo "........ End $ACT_PHASE hook ........"
echo

93
94
20 Actifio Event Notifications

An Actifio Appliance generates notifications for hundreds of system events ranging from critical
hardware failures to informational network messages. This chapter describes Actifio event notifications,
and then the following two chapters list all known event notifications for the CDS, AOS, and Platform
components.
Event notifications can be sent as emails and they can also be routed to a trap receiver.
This section describes:
Types of Actifio Events on page 96
Example of Automating Corrective Action Based Upon an Event Notification on page 96
Events that Go from Information or Warning to Error on page 97
Alert Methods Supported by Actifio Appliances on page 98

Glossary of Event-Related Terms

These terms have specific meanings with regard to event notifications:
Component: Actifio appliance, Actifio Optimized Storage (AOS), and some IBM storage
(Platform).
Error: The most serious level of Event Notification, more serious than both Information and
Warning.
Error Message: The human-readable explanatory component of an Event Notification.
Event: Any change reported by the system or by some of the resources it relies on, including
network and storage.
Event ID: The unique identifier for an Event Notification.
Event Notification: A set of information about a job or other system event that can be
communicated via SMTP, SNMP, and in the AGM Events Monitor.
Information: The least serious level of Event Notification severity, less serious than Warning and
Error.
MIB: The Management Information Base, a collection of event notification information
consumable by a trap receiver via SNMP.
Trap: An event notification received by a trap server over SNMP.
Trap Receiver: A device that receives event notifications via SNMP and responds according to
user-configured rules.
Warning: The middle level of Event Notification severity, more serious than Information but not
as serious as an Error.

95
Types of Actifio Events
The Actifio appliance sends notifications for these components of your Actifio System:

CDS system events

CDS system events come from the execution of Actifio copy data management jobs. This includes job
failures or delays, missed SLAs, and other events not related to storage or underlying hardware.
CDS system events often include additional detailed information about job IDs, affected hosts or
appliances, and more in the Error Message part of the event notification. In addition, if there is more
information available from a subsystem, then that is concatenated to the error message.
Some job failure CDS events are initially reported as warnings, and later become errors. If a job fails
during a period in which it can be retried, the event is a warning. If the retry attempts fail, the event finally
becomes an error.
CDS events are listed in Actifio Event IDs and Error Codes, available on ActifioNOW.

AOS Events, Main System Chassis Events, and Platform Events

AOS events are from Actifio Optimized Storage (storage that the Actifio appliance integrates with via IBM
APIs). You get these from IBM Storwize V3700, IBM System Storage DS3512, and NetApp E2700 storage
arrays. These are documented by IBM in the IBM Knowledge Center at: https://www.ibm.com/support/
knowledgecenter/.
Main System Chassis events are from the Actifio CDX appliance hardware.
Platform events relate to the physical hardware and network connections on which an Actifio CDS
appliance is installed. Platform events come from Actifio CDS appliances only; Sky appliances do not
send platform events.

Clearable Events
Some platform and AOS events are clearable. Clearable events that are not cleared trigger repeated
event notifications every 25 hours until cleared.

Example of Automating Corrective Action Based Upon an Event

Notification
Suppose a snapshot job fails while a datastore is pending consolidation. You see in the System Monitor:
Event ID 43901
Error Code 937
Error Message Failing the job since disk consolidation is pending on VM
You want to perform the consolidation and resubmit the job right away, unless the datastore is so large
that consolidation might impact production hosts. If you are using monitoring software like SolarWinds or
Control M, then:
1. The job failure is reported by the Actifio appliance.
2. The monitoring software catches the failure, noting the error code for consolidation required.
3. Then the software makes a vSphere API call reportsnaps to query the size of the datastore.
o If the datastore is small enough to consolidate without impacting production hosts, the
monitoring software sends an Actifio CLI or API call to enable consolidation for that policy
and application, then runs the job from the CLI using udstask mkpolicyoption and
udstask backup. The appliance responds with Success Job_<Job number>. The job number
is captured and tracked. Upon completion of the job the auto consolidate feature is
disabled via udstask rmpolicyoption.
o If the datastore is so large that consolidation might impact production hosts, the
monitoring software crafts a ticket for the VMware team to manually consolidate that
datastore at a more appropriate time.

96
Events that Go from Information or Warning to Error
Actifio VDP employs three notification types: info, warning, and error. Some UDP events experience all
three error notification types. This is because some jobs may not succeed on their first execution due to
an event that is later resolved. For example, a snapshot job may encounter a timeout event of type
Warning due to network traffic. If there is still time within the SLA job window, the job may be retried
several times; that job gets Retried status in the Jobs Monitor.
If the job ultimately fails (the SLA time window elapses before success) then that job gets Failed status in
the System Monitor. At this time, a timeout event of type Error is posted.
For complete information on job statuses, see the AGM online help.

This Job was Retried Until it Failed

Right-Click to View Job Details

Job Details, with a Link to the Actifio Knowledge Base

97
Alert Methods Supported by Actifio Appliances
The Actifio appliance actively monitors event notifications. Specifically:
• You can monitor job successes and failures directly in the System Monitor as described in
Chapter 21, Monitoring Alerts in the AGM Events Monitor.
• You can send event notifications from Actifio appliances by email or HTTPS as described in
Chapter 22, Sending Alerts from an Actifio Appliance by Email.
• You can send event notifications as SNMP traps from Actifio appliances to a trap receiver. This is
detailed in Chapter 23, Sending Traps from the Actifio Appliance to a Trap Receiver.
• You can collect alerts from some storage and switches onto the Actifio appliance, as detailed in
Chapter 24, Collecting Alerts from Storage and Switches (CDS only)

Overview of Alert Options

98
21 Monitoring Alerts in the AGM
Events Monitor

You can learn about the context of an event in the Events Monitor. Events are information/warning/error
notifications raised by an Actifio appliance. You can view events in the Events Monitor by:
• Viewing events based on date or severity
• Filtering events based on columns displayed in the Events window
See the AGM online help for details.

Viewing All Events of the Past 24 Hours

Right-click the event to select View Details of a selected event. To interpret the information in the event,
see Interpreting Event Details in the Events Monitor on page 100.

99
Interpreting Event Details in the Events Monitor

Item Meaning

ID Error sequence number.

Event ID Event identifier. CDS events are listed in Actifio Event IDs and Error Codes.

Appliance Name The name of the Actifio appliance that processed the job.

Component CDS, AOS, or Platform, described in Types of Actifio Events on page 96.

Application Name The name of the application as it appears in the App Manager.

Application Type The type of application in the App Manager.

Job Name The job name as it appears in the System Monitor Jobs tab.

Error Code Event identifier. Error codes are listed in Actifio Event IDs and Error Codes.

Error Message Descriptive text, often with an additional error message appended to it.

Requires Clearing Some events are clearable. Clearable events that are not cleared trigger repeated event
notifications every 25 hours until cleared.

Event Date A timestamp for the event.

Object Type and Object The CDS/Sky component that encountered the event:
ID 1. PSRV 2. UDP 3. OMD 4. Dedup

Notification Type Severity: information, warning, or error.

Note: Not all fields are shown for all events. A field is shown only if it is relevant to the event.

An Event in the Events Monitor: ERROR MESSAGE includes both the Event 43918 “Failed dedupasync
<job> for <app> on <host>” and specific Error Code 15 “Could not connect to backup host”

100
22 Configuring the Call Home
Feature

You can configure notifications to be sent to Actifio Support via email or HTTPS when an event of severity
warning or error is raised by the Actifio appliance. Call Home is disabled by default on all Actifio
Appliances. You enable Call Home on individual appliances.
This chapter details:
Sending Alerts from an Actifio Appliance by HTTPS on page 101
Sending Alerts from an Actifio Appliance by Email on page 103
Interpreting Notifications on page 106

Example Notification

Sending Alerts from an Actifio Appliance by HTTPS

To enable Call Home via HTTPS on an Actifio Appliance:
1. Open the AGM to the Manage, Appliances list. Right-click the appliance to configure and select
Configure Appliance.

Configuring the Appliance for Call Home

2. Log into the Appliance Configuration page, to System > Configuration > Notification. Select the
Email tab and the Call Home subtab. Call Home is disabled by default.

101
 Enabling Call Home

3. Select Enabled, and under Call Home Method select HTTPS.

Configuring Call Home to Use HTTPS

Options:
o Try SMTP if failure: If this is set, then if the HTTPS communication fails, the appliance will
try to send an email notification instead. This must be configured; see Sending Alerts
from an Actifio Appliance by Email on page 103
o Enable proxy server: Fill in the necessary HTTP or SOCKS5 proxy server information,
including credentials if your proxy server requires them.
4. Click Test Connection to verify the connection.
5. Click Save.
6. Repeat for any other Actifio Appliances that you want to send notifications.

102
Sending Alerts from an Actifio Appliance by Email
You can configure notifications to be sent to Actifio Support or to anyone via email when an event of
severity warning or error is raised by the Actifio appliance. This involves:
Configuring an Actifio Appliance to Communicate with an SMTP Server on page 103
Setting Up Automatic Emails of Events on page 104

Example Emailed Notification

Configuring an Actifio Appliance to Communicate with an SMTP Server

To configure an Actifio Appliance to communicate with an email server:
1. In AGM, under Manage, Appliances, right-click the appliance and select Configure Appliance.
2. Under System > Configuration > Notification, select the EMAIL tab and the SMTP Server subtab.
3. Enter the SMTP server name or IP address (IPv4) in Server Name/IP.
4. Enter the SMTP or SMTPS port number in Port. Select Use SSL to send emails securely using SSL.
5. (Optional) Enter a From Email Address. This entry is the address that will appear in the From
field of each email. Use your company name for better support from Actifio Call Home.
6. At Email, enter [email protected] for support from Actifio Call Home.
7. Enter a mail server password.
8. Enter the maximum size of the email to be sent in Message Limit. When an email exceeds this
size, the attachment is split into two or more emails.
9. Click Test Email to send a test mail to an address that you will enter in a pop-up window.
10. Click Save.

SMTP Server Settings

After the email server has been configured, you can configure automated emails for events as described
in Setting Up Automatic Emails of Events on page 104.

103
Setting Up Automatic Emails of Events
Before configuring the levels of events that trigger email notifications or the addresses to receive the
emails, you must configure an email server as described in Configuring an Actifio Appliance to
Communicate with an SMTP Server on page 103.
The Actifio appliance can send an email notification when an event of the severity Warning or Error is
raised. Emails about critical events are sent immediately.
To enable Call Home on an Actifio Appliance:
1. Open the AGM to the Manage, Appliances list. Right-click the appliance to configure and select
Configure Appliance.

Configuring the Appliance for Call Home

2. Log into the Appliance Configuration page, to System > Configuration > Notification. Select the
Email tab and the Call Home subtab. Call Home is disabled by default.

Configuring Event Notifications via Email

3. Select Enabled and under Call Home Method, select SMTP.

4. Click Test Connection to verify the connection.
5. Click Save.
6. Next, select the severity level of notifications to send. Select the Event Notification subtab.

104
7. Check Warning, Error, or both checkboxes from Filter(s) to Include to send those events to the
email recipients listed in Email Recipients (below). In most cases you should check both
Warning and Error.
8. Enter the desired time interval in Interval. Emails about critical events are sent immediately.
This value is the minimum time between when emails for all other events are sent, so it may be
almost 30 minutes from the time that an event occurs until the time the next email is sent. The
default value of 30 minutes is appropriate for most sites.
9. In Email Recipients, enter a comma separated list of email addresses of persons who are to
receive email notifications. If Call Home is enabled, then [email protected] is
included by default.

Configuring Event Severity for Notifications via Email

10. Click Save.

11. Repeat for any other Actifio Appliances that you want to send notifications.

105
Interpreting Notifications

Table 1: Elements of an Event Notification

Item Meaning

Cluster Id A unique identifier of the Actifio appliance that processed the job.

Cluster Name The name of the Actifio appliance that processed the job.

CDS IP Address The IP address of a Sky appliance, or the cluster IP address of a CDS appliance.

Customer The name of the customer site where the event occurred, used by service providers.

Hostname The host name of the host where the event originated.

date A timestamp for the event.

component CDS, AOS, or Platform, described in Types of Actifio Events on page 96.

type Notification severity: error, warning, or information

eventid Event identifier. Events are listed in Actifio Event IDs and Error Codes, available on
ActifioNOW.

appname The name of the application as it appears in the Application Manager.

apptype The type of application in the Application Manager.

jobname The job name as it appears in the System Monitor Jobs tab.

message Error Message text, sometimes with an additional error message appended to it.

A Sample Emailed Event

106
23 Sending Traps from the Actifio
Appliance to a Trap Receiver

This section includes:

Configuring an Actifio Appliance to Forward Traps to a Trap Receiver on page 107
Configuring the SNMP Agent to Support SNMP GET Operations on page 109
Using the Actifio MIB on page 111
Interpreting Traps on page 113

Configuring an Actifio Appliance to Forward Traps to a Trap Receiver

The Actifio appliance supports sending SNMP traps to a SNMP trap receiver. The Actifio trap handler
(receiver and forwarder) uses SNMP4J. It runs within the Actifio "psrv" process, the status of which can be
displayed by running "Monit Summary" at the command line of the primary node. It supports SNMPv1 and
SNMPv2. To add an SNMP trap receiver:
1. In AGM, at Manage, select Appliances. Right-click an appliance and select Configure Appliance.
2. Under System > Configuration > Notification, select the SNMP tab to see the SNMP Configuration.
3. Enter the SNMP trap receiver name in Server Name. To send the traps to an SNMP trap receiver
that server requires a different community string, you can set the string as shown in Setting the
Community String for Forwarding Traps to a non-Actifio SNMP Trap Receiver on page 108.
4. Enter the IP address of the trap receiver in IP Address. The IP address should be an IPv4 address.
5. Enter the remote port number in Port. Normally the port is 162, but check to be sure. The port
number must be between 1 and 65535. Traps are sent over UDP and not by TCP/IP.
6. Select the type of traps to forward: Info, Warning, and Error. Error is the most serious level of
event. The Actifio appliance MIB will send these traps to the SNMP trap receiver. Click Save.

Adding an SNMP Trap Receiver

107
You can add multiple trap receivers and you can specify different types of events to be sent to each. The
Actifio MIB is available from the Actifio Resource Center to help analyze these traps. See Accessing the
Actifio MIB on page 110.

Setting the Community String for Forwarding Traps to a non-Actifio SNMP Trap
Receiver
If you want to send the traps to another SNMP trap receiver, and that server requires a different
community string, you can set the string from the SNMP Configuration window.
To set the community string:
1. In AGM, at Manage, select Appliances. Right-click an appliance and select Configure Appliance.
2. Under System > Configuration > Notification, select the SNMP tab to see the SNMP Configuration.
3. Enter the SNMP community string in SNMP Community.
4. Click Save.

Configuring SNMP Community String

108
Configuring the SNMP Agent to Support SNMP GET Operations
If you are using an SNMP-based monitoring and management system to pull data on-demand, you can
extend SNMPv2 support for the SNMP GET request process to the Actifio appliance through the activation
of an SNMP agent in the appliance. By using the Actifio MIB file, SNMP GET requests pull specific objects to
monitor and Actifio appliance configurations, system statistics and performance, and so on.

Introduction to SNMP GET Operations

Note: Actifio appliances do not support SNMP SET operations.

The Actifio SNMP Agent

Actifio appliances extend SNMPv2 support to the SNMP GET request process through the activation of an
SNMP agent (a wrapper over the SNMP4j Agent) in the Actifio appliance to register all corresponding
Actifio MIB classes to support the PULL/GET mechanism. The management system (the client) “pulls” data
from the SNMP agent in the Actifio appliance.
The Actifio SNMP agent runs on an Actifio appliance as part of the PSRV service on port UDP-161. It serves all
requests sent by any SNMP client or management system to monitor and manage Actifio appliance
configurations, system statistics and performance, and so on. The SNMP agent integrates monitoring and
management extensions into the Actifio appliance, and uses SNMPv2 GET requests to allow data to be
pulled on-demand. You can integrate the SNMP GET operations with your existing management system.

Actifio SNMP GET Request

An SNMP GET request reads the value of SNMP objects and performs network monitoring through a set of
predefined Object Identifiers (OIDs). OIDs uniquely identify managed objects in the MIB hierarchy. By using
the Actifio MIB, SNMP GET pulls information to monitor Actifio appliance configurations, system statistics,
and performance.
To activate the SNMP agent in an Actifio appliance to support SNMP GET requests from an external
management system, see Activating the SNMP Agent in an Actifio Appliance on page 109.

The Actifio MIB

The Actifio MIB file includes all of the object identifiers, notification types, object types, and notification
groups used by the Actifio appliance. The Actifio MIB is available for download from the Actifio Resource
Center. For more, see Accessing the Actifio MIB on page 110.
This section includes:
Activating the SNMP Agent in an Actifio Appliance on page 109
Supported CLI Commands and their Mapped OIDs for SNMP GET Requests on page 111
System MIB Variables on page 112

Activating the SNMP Agent in an Actifio Appliance

Use the udstask configsnmpagent CLI command to enable the SNMP agent in an Actifio appliance and,
optionally to specify a community string for SNMP authentication by the SNMP agent and the management system.
Here is the syntax for the udstask configsnmpagent command.
>>- udstask -- -- configsnmpagent -- ----------------------------->
>--+---------------------------+-- --+--------------------------+-><
'- -communitystring -- key -' '- -enable --+- true --+-- -'
+- false -+

109
 Table 1: configsnmpagent Parameters

Parameter Description

-enable true | false Optional. This value enables or disables the SNMP agent. Supported settings are:
• true: Enables the SNMP agent in the Actifio appliance
• false: Disables the SNMP agent in the Actifio appliance

-communitystring key Optional. Sets the SNMPV2 community string for performing SNMP GET requests by
the Actifio appliance. Enter an authentication pass phrase for connecting to the
SNMP agent as the key.

To enable the SNMP agent and specify Test_password_1 as the community string to connect to the SNMP
agent:
$ udstask configsnmpagent -communitystring Test_password_1 -enable true

Accessing the Actifio MIB

An SNMP trap receiver can listen to the SNMP traps that are being sent by an Actifio appliance in the
network. To receive alerts from the Actifio appliance for purposes of translating the object identifiers
(OIDs) used by the Actifio appliance, you can import the Actifio MIB file to your SNMP trap receiver. The
Actifio MIB file includes all object identifiers, notification types, object types, and notification groups used
by the Actifio appliance.
You can access the Actifio MIB file from the Actifio Resource Center:
1. Open a web browser to http://<Actifio_appliance_IP_address>.
2. The Actifio Resource Center page opens. Right-click the MIB link under SNMP Resources and
save the MIB file to a convenient location.

The Actifio Resource Center at http://<Appliance IP Address>

110
Using the Actifio MIB
Supported CLI Commands and their Mapped OIDs for SNMP GET Requests
This table lists the mapped OID assignments for each of the supported udsinfo and usvcinfo CLI
commands:
This section lists the udsinfo and usvcinfo CLI commands supported for SNMP GET requests:
Table 2: Mapped OIDs

Actifio Base OID 1.3.6.1.4.1.35795

Traps OID 1.3.6.1.4.1.35795 .1

CDS OID 1.3.6.1.4.1.35795 .2

USVCINFO commands 1.3.6.1.4.1.35795 .2.1

UDSINFO commands 1.3.6.1.4.1.35795 .2.2

Table 3: udsinfo and usvcinfo CLI Commands and their

Mapped OIDs

Command OID Assignment

usvcinfo lssystemstats 1.3.6.1.4.1.35795.2.1.1

udsinfo lsversion 1.3.6.1.4.1.35795.2.2.2

udsinfo lscluster 1.3.6.1.4.1.35795.2.2.3

udsinfo lssnmpevent 1.3.6.1.4.1.35795.2.2.4

udsinfo lssnmpconfig 1.3.6.1.4.1.35795.2.2.5

udsinfo lsdiskpoolstat 1.3.6.1.4.1.35795.2.2.6

udsinfo lspolicy 1.3.6.1.4.1.35795.2.2.7

udsinfo lsavailableconnector 1.3.6.1.4.1.35795.2.2.8

udsinfo lsuser 1.3.6.1.4.1.35795.2.2.9

udsinfo lsjob 1.3.6.1.4.1.35795.2.2.10

udsinfo getsysteminfo 1.3.6.1.4.1.35795.2.2.11

udsinfo lsdiskpool 1.3.6.1.4.1.35795.2.2.12

111
System MIB Variables
This section lists the System MIB variables and their mapped OIDs:

Table 4: System MIB variables and Their Mapped OIDs

System MIB variable Set By mapped OIDs

sysDescr SNMP Agent 1.3.6.1.2.1.1.1

sysObjectID SNMP Agent 1.3.6.1.2.1.1.2

sysUpTime SNMP Agent 1.3.6.1.2.1.1.3

sysContact User, via setparameter 1.3.6.1.2.1.1.4

sysName SNMP Agent 1.3.6.1.2.1.1.5

sysLocation User, via setparameter 1.3.6.1.2.1.1.6

sysServices SNMP Agent 1.3.6.1.2.1.1.7

sysORLastChange SNMP Agent 1.3.6.1.2.1.1.8

Note: The SysUptime value is the time since the SNMP agent was started.

Setting System Variables with setparameter

Values for sysDescr, sysName, sysObjectID and sysUptime system OIDs are defined by the SNMP agent.
You define the system parameter values for the sysContact and sysLocation OIDs in the SNMP agent
using the setparameter command.
• Set the sysContact OID value using the systemcontact parameter.
• Set the sysLocation OID value using the systemlocation parameter.
For example:
$ udstask setparameter -param systemcontact -value admin
$ udstask setparameter -param systemlocation -value Boston

Limiting the Number of Records Sent by the SNMP Agent with setparameter
You can use the setparameter CLI command to limit the number of records sent by the SNMP agent in the Actifio
appliance to the management system (the client). When you set the snmptablesize parameter, the SNMP agent
retrieves only the specified number of records and send those records to the respective SNMP clients. The range is 100
to 5000 records (default of 500).
To configure the SNMP agent to retrieve only 400 records and send those records to the SNMP client:

$ udstask setparameter -param snmptablesize -value 400

See the Actifio CLI Reference in the Actifio Documentation Library for details on CLI commands and parameters.

112
Interpreting Traps
Table 5: Contents of a CDS Trap Event

Term OID  Description

1.3.6.1.4.1.35795.x

Error ID 1.4.1.0 Event identifier. CDS events are listed in Actifio Event IDs
and Error Codes, available on ActifioNOW.

Error Code 1.4.2.0 Error code. Error codes are listed in Actifio Event IDs and
Error Codes, available on ActifioNOW.

Cluster Name 1.4.3.0 The Actifio appliance that processed the job.

Error Sequence Number 1.4.4.0 Error sequence number.

Timestamp 1.4.5.0 Timestamp for the event: Day Mon dd hh:mm:ss yyyy

Object Type 1.4.6.0 The object type that encountered the event:
1. PSRV 2. UDP 3. OMD 4. Dedup
Object Id 1.4.7.0 5. NetApp 6. NetApp Connector 7.

Application name 1.4.8.0 The name of the application in the Application Manager.

Application Type 1.4.9.0 The type of application in the Application Manager.

Job name 1.4.10.0 The job name in the System Monitor Jobs tab.

A Sample Event in the Events Monitor

113
114
24 Collecting Alerts from Storage
and Switches (CDS only)

You can configure your Actifio CDS appliance to collect AOS event notifications from storage arrays and
platform events from Fibre Channel switches. The Actifio CDS appliance can collect alerts in two ways:
Polling Storage Arrays: Actifio CDS appliances can actively poll some storage arrays. See
Polling Alerts from IBM V3700, IBM DS 3512, and NetApp E2700 Storage Arrays on page 115.
Receiving Forwarded Alerts from Switches: You can configure an IBM System Storage SAN24B-
4 Express Fibre Channel Switch to forward alerts to the Actifio CDS appliance. See Forwarding
Alerts from an IBM System Storage SAN24B-4 Express Switch to an Actifio CDS Appliance on
page 116.

Polling Alerts from IBM V3700, IBM DS 3512, and NetApp E2700 Storage
Arrays
To monitor SNMP notifications generated by attached storage systems and switches known to the Actifio
appliance, configure them in the Switches & Storage subtab. To configure the storage and switches:
1. In AGM, at Manage, select Appliances. Right-click an appliance and select Configure Appliance.
2. Under System > Configuration > Notification, select the EMAIL tab and the Switches & Storage
subtab. This subtab is absent on Sky appliances.
3. Provide the IP address details in the Switch IP Addresses box:
o Click Add to open the IP Address dialog. Enter a label and switch address and click Save.
o Repeat to add the second Fibre Channel switch.
4. Repeat the process in the Optimized Storage IP Address box, adding two storage arrays and
another ping address. You can use Edit to modify and Delete to remove an existing IP address.
5. Click Save.

Configuring Automatic Notification of Storage and Switch System Events

115
Forwarding Alerts from an IBM System Storage SAN24B-4 Express
Switch to an Actifio CDS Appliance
To access the SNMP configuration on an IBM System Storage SAN24B-4 Express Fibre Channel switch:
1. Open Internet Explorer (only) to the IP address of the Fibre Channel switch.
2. Select Switch Admin from the upper left hand menu list.
3. In the upper right hand corner of the window, click Show Advanced.
4. Select the SNMP tab.
5. In the SNMPv3 Inform / Trap Recipient section:
o Select the username of the switch administrator account.
o Enter the IP address of the Actifio CDS appliance to receive the traps.
o Ignore Port Number (leave it at 162).
o Select the level of traps to send to the appliance.
6. Click Apply and Close.
7. Repeat for each Fibre Channel switch.

Setting SNMP Trap Destinations in the Fibre Channel Switch

116
Checking Fibre Channel Connectivity from a CDS Appliance to
Storage
To check the Fibre Channel connectivity to storage:
1. Use the Actifio SARG reportfabric command to ensure the appliance sees switches and target
ports.
2. Use the Actifio SARG reportmdiskspace command to check that the appliance sees LUNs.

Note: The SARG User Guide is in your Actifio Documentation Library and online at ActifioNOW.

117
118
25 Actifio Remote Support

Actifio offers two optional remote support features:

Call Home remote event notification: When you enable the Call Home feature, your Actifio
Appliance sends alerts and other diagnostic data to Actifio. Actifio Customer Support engineers
monitor system alerts and conduct impact assessments. Based upon the alert level, the system
may even initiate a problem resolution case and an associated escalation plan for you. 
Actifio Call Home is detailed in Actifio Call Home Remote Event Notification.
SecureConnect remote service access: When you enable SecureConnect, Actifio Customer
Support engineers can access your system remotely on an as-needed basis. As a situation
requires, they can manage major upgrades and service pack updates and hotfixes, phase out
failing hardware, collect log data on history of failures, restart data and I/O modules, change
the configuration of ports, and more. All actions are documented in the VDP audit log and in the
Actifio installation/problem reporting databases for further review. 
Actifio SecureConnect is detailed in Actifio SecureConnect on page 121.

Call Home and SecureConnect

119
Actifio Call Home Remote Event Notification
Actifio Call Home sends a notification (email or HTTPS) to Actifio Customer Support every six hours. In the
event of a problem, Actifio Support can refer to this information to minimize time to recovery. The
notification includes these statistics:
• VDP version information
• Uptime of the Actifio Appliance
• Status check of services
• Process summary
• Logs of various processes
• Failed jobs and total jobs
• Storage pool and deduplication statistics
Actifio Customer Support engineers monitor system alerts and conduct impact assessments. Based
upon the alert level, the system may even initiate a problem resolution case and an associated
escalation plan for you.

Can I Enable Call Home Without Enabling SecureConnect?

Yes. Call Home provides data, and SecureConnect provides access. Enabling Call Home without enabling
SecureConnect ensures that Actifio Customer Support has excellent monitoring, alerting, and analytics
data, without the access that might be needed to perform further diagnostics or remediation. The data
lets Actifio Customer Support know when a problem has occurred and prepare a response if needed, but
investigation and troubleshooting has to be performed via WebEx or conference call.
Most investigations require additional data to be gathered from the appliance, and without
SecureConnect, the cycle of gather-analyze-followup-analyze can become cumbersome.

Call-Home Network Requirements

Actifio Call Home uses HTTPS or SMTP. The port numbers for these configurations will depend on your own
network setup. The default port numbers are: 25 for SMTP, 443 for HTTPS.

Note: Access to the Call Home web site https://callhome.actifio.net should never be blocked by your
firewall.

An Actifio Administrator must configure the Actifio Appliance to communicate with an SMTP/HTTPS/proxy
server as detailed in Chapter 20, Actifio Event Notifications.

Configuring Actifio Call Home

To send Actifio Appliance statistics to Actifio Support every 6 hours, refer to Chapter 20, Actifio Event
Notifications.

120
Actifio SecureConnect
Actifio SecureConnect is a secure method for remote support that employs dedicated ports and
encrypted data. These built-in security features greatly reduce the risks associated with a connection to
an external network. The SecureConnect protocol allows Actifio Customer Support engineers to access
your system on an as-needed basis to manage cases and updates while meeting your SLA requirements.
Your Actifio account team is kept up to date on a repair status as the case progresses. If hardware
replacement is required, parts & local support are shipped to the site and an Actifio Services engineer is
dispatched to handle the installation. When the incident is resolved to your satisfaction, the Actifio
Customer Support engineer logs out of your Actifio Appliance, disconnects from the remote access line,
and creates a summary report of problem root cause and repair actions that is delivered to your
account team and to you.
Advantages to using Actifio SecureConnect include:
• Accelerated problem solving: By leveraging Actifio follow-the-sun support, you can resolve
problems without extending the wait time that invariably gets generated by relying on log files,
dumps, and traces being transmitted across the globe.
• Fine-grained monitoring and collaboration: You can monitor remote support activities and
join in conference calls with Actifio Customer Support engineers as the problem determination
process proceeds.
• Real-time learning: Remote Actifio Customer Support engineers provide you with ongoing
assistance in the setup, configuration, and management of your Actifio Appliances.
Without SecureConnect enabled, you can still contact Actifio Customer Support. Actifio support
engineers can work with you via WebEx and other remote support tools for log file gathering and other
forensics to help resolve the issue.

Can I Enable SecureConnect Without Enabling Call Home?

Yes. Call Home provides data, and SecureConnect provides access. Enabling SecureConnect without
enabling Call Home allows Actifio Customer Support engineers to respond and investigate issues after
you tell us a problem exists. Without Call Home, Actifio Customer Support has no way to know of problems
with your system. There is no proactive data collection associated with activating SecureConnect.

How SecureConnect Works

SecureConnect uses client/server architecture. The SecureConnect client comes built into your Actifio
Appliances, to be enabled and disabled by you.
After you enable the connection through the Actifio Appliance, your Actifio Appliance establishes a
secure point-to-point connection to a secure server at the Actifio Global Support Center, enabling
remote access from the Actifio Global Support Center to your Actifio Appliance. You must configure a
firewall rule to allow the Actifio Appliance to connect over UDP on port 1194.
As a client connection, SecureConnect does not bridge networks or perform any form of routing.
Connections initiated at the Actifio Global Support Center communicate with your Actifio Appliance and
no other systems on your network.

121
How Secure Is Actifio SecureConnect?
SecureConnect utilizes 2048-bit RSA cryptography for strong mutual authentication and encryption, 256-
bit AES for encryption of data in flight, and Diffie-Hellman for Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) key exchange.
Each connection is a point-to-point link and none of your equipment can access another endpoint.
Intrusion detection software continually monitors the connection for any anomalous activity.
Authentication records are replicated in real-time to off-site locations. The SecureConnect servers are
routinely monitored for emerging threats and vulnerabilities.
Only select users within the support and engineering organizations are authorized with this level of
access. Actifio employees who have a business need to access your systems must pass a third-party
background check and sign a security, compliance, and confidentiality agreement. Access is reviewed
annually and terminated immediately in the event of separation or role change. Authorized employees
authenticate to SecureConnect with a 2048-bit X.509 certificate stamped with the identity of the user. A
two-factor challenge is required after cryptographic authentication in the form of a smart phone push or
code-generating token. The certificate must be renewed annually. Issuance is logged to an audit log, and
all activities on a system while logged in using the certificate are logged along with the identity of the
user. The VPN connection is protected using NIST-approved strong cryptography including AES-256 data
encryption.

No Access to Your Business Data

Appliance service credentials are completely independent from SecureConnect and are generated on
entirely separate systems. To gain access to a customer system, an Actifio Support staff member
generates a time-limited, passphrase-protected authentication token which is locked specifically to the
machine they have been granted access to log into. The system generating these tokens is on a secure
network separate from the SecureConnect network and itself authenticates against a robust corporate
directory. The ability to generate authentication tokens is limited to Actifio Support staff members who
have been approved by a rigorous screening process.

Actifio SecureConnect Network Requirements

Actifio SecureConnect is a strong 2048-bit RSA mutually authenticated service not subject to redirection
or man-in-the-middle attacks. SecureConnect requires a UDP connection over port 1194 from the Actifio
Appliance IP address to secureconnect2.actifio.com and a setting of “any” IP address. If you cannot use
‘any’, then contact Actifio Support.
Actifio Appliance IP Address depends on the type of appliance:
Actifio Sky Appliance: the Actifio Appliance IP is the IP address of the Sky Appliance.
Actifio CDX Appliance: the Actifio Appliance IP must include the IP addresses for Node 0 and
Node 1.
Actifio CDS Appliance: the Actifio Appliance IP must include the IP addresses for the CDS node.

Enabling Actifio SecureConnect

To enable SecureConnect mode, refer to the AGM online help, reachable from the ? icon in the top right
corner of the AGM.

122
Index

Symbols C
_ 69, 71 Call Home remote event notification
£ 75 configuring 101, 120
contrasted with SecureConnect 120
A overview 119
Actifio Change Tracking Driver 34 CentOS Linux 41
Actifio Connector installer file, downloading 23 CIFS file systems 71
Actifio Connector, and encrypted network traffic 22 clearable events 96, 100
Actifio MIB CLI commands 111
accessing 110 community string
mapped OID assignments 111 for forwarding traps 108
SNMP GET requests 109 SNMPv2 community string 110
System MIB variables 112 connecting a host, overview 65
Actifio Optimized Storage, defined 96 contact information, Actifio Support ii
Actifio Remote Support 119 copyright ii
Actifio Resiliency Director, network ports used 20 custom configuration (legacy mode) 7
Actifio SNMP agent 109 custom route, see static route
AIX connector
installing 54 D
uninstalling 54 data transport mode, NFS or SAN 71
AIX host deleting hosts 68
installing/modifying Actifio Connector 39, 54 Diffie-Hellman
supported configurations 51 (PFS) key exchange 122
alerts 115 data in flight encryption 15
collecting 115 DNS domain, configuring 2
forwarding from Fibre Channel switches 116 downloading the Actifio Connector installer file 23
methods support by an Actifio appliance 98
monitoring by System Monitor 99 E
polling 115 email for Call Home
polling from Actifio Optimized Storage and Switches [email protected] 105
115 email notification of events, automatic 104
receiving forwarded alerts 115 email server, configuring appliance communications to
sending by email 101, 103 103
sending by HTTPS 101 ESXi cluster 71
sending to SNMP trap receiver 107 etc/hosts editor 9
AOS events 96 event notifications, see notifications
assigning VDisks to a host 66 Exchange 71
autodiscover applications on a host 67 External Snapshot Pools (ESP) 73

B F
backup and restore jobs 89 Fibre Channel
batch files 89 HP-UX host 61
Linux host 43
Solaris host 59
Windows Server host 33
Fibre Channel switches, forwarding alerts from 116

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Filter Driver, see Actifio Change Tracking Driver local management and service and backup traffic 16
firewall ports 15 local storage management, ports required for 19
logs
G on a Linux host 41
GetRequest, SNMP 15 on a Solaris host 57
on a Windows Server host 31
H on an HP-UX host 61
HBA ports 62 on an IBM AIX host 39, 51
HMC host, see IBM HMC host on an IBM HMC host 55
host names, invalid characters in 69, 71 LPAR hosts, see IBM HMC hosts
Host Resolution 9 LPAR with NPIV mapping 51
host type LPARs, discovering 70
Windows Server 71
hosts M
adding IBM HMC 70 MIB
adding Linux, AIX, HMC, Solaris, HP-UX 69, 71 about 109
adding Windows Server 71 accessing 110
HP-UX host mapped OID assignments 111
Fibre Channel connectivity 61 SNMP GET requests 109
installing/modifying Actifio Connector 64 System MIB variables 112
iSCSI connectivity (Sky only) 61 Microsoft SCVMM 71
multipathing 61 multipathing 33, 43
HTTPS communication of events 102
Hyper-V VMs 71 N
network ports 15
I new applications, auto-discovering on host 67
IBM HMC host NFS protocol 47, 53, 57
adding 70 NFSv3 60
vSCSI connectivity 56 notifications
IBM Storwize storage arrays 73, 74 automatic email, setting up 104
in-band storage 66 email notifications of events 101, 103
installer files, Connector, downloading 23 event context information displayed in the Actifio
invalid PKCS12 85 Desktop 99
IP addresses, configuring 3 HTTPS notifications of events 101
IP route get, troubleshooting via 8 polling from Actifio Optimized Storage 115
iSCSI initiator SMTP server, communicating with 103
HP-UX hosts 61 UDP trap protocol 107
Linux host 41 NTP server, configuring Actifio appliance connection to
Solaris x86 host 59 2
Windows Server host 32 number of records sent by the SNMP agent, limiting 112
iSCSI sessions
increasing number of on Sky appliance 4 O
supported number of 25 OID assignments 111
operations on a host before and after capture 87
L Oracle Databases in a Solaris Environment, with NFS 60
LDAP 77 Outbound Policies 6
legal matter ii
limiting number of records sent 112 P
limiting the number of records sent by the SNMP agent Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) 15
112 ping, troubleshooting via 8
Linux connector PKCS12 84
installing 48 platform events 96
uninstalling 48 polling alerts from Actifio Optimized Storage and
Linux host Switches 115
Fibre Channel connectivity 43 ports, firewall 15
finding WWN 43 Pound Sterling character (£) 75
installing/modifying the Actifio Connector 48 PowerPC 42
iSCSI connectivity 41 pre- and post- actions on applications 87

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pre-scripts and post-scripts 87 SQL Server 71
Pure Storage FlashArray storage arrays 73, 74 SQL VSS Writer 37
SSN for cloud 10
R static route, setting 6
Red Hat RHEL 6 41 STONITH 17
reference architectures 11 storage, assigning to in-band hosts 66
remote network, rules for reaching over network 6 System Monitor, monitoring alerts 99
Report Manager 19
restore jobs 89 T
role-based access (RBAC) 77 TCP Connection Test, troubleshooting via 9
rootvg, bootable, AIX non-HMC 51 TLS web service certificate 84
rootvg, bootable, for vSCSI-mapped LPARs 56 tracepath, see traceroute
RSA public keys 15 Traceroute, troubleshooting via 8
trademarks ii
S trap receiver, sending traps to 107
SAML authentication 83 traps and informs, see notifications
SAN switch, network ports used 19
scripts U
on a Linux host 41 Ubuntu connector installation 48
on a Solaris host 57 UDSAgent 22
on a Windows Server host 31 Unix hosts 69
on an HP-UX host 61
on an IBM AIX host 39, 51 V
on an IBM HMC host 55 vCenter server 72
SCVMM 71 VDisk, mapping to a host 66
SecureConnect remote service access VIOs, discovering 70
enabling 122 VMware SRM integration 17
how it works 121 vSCSI connectivity for IBM HMC hosts 56
overview 119 vSCSI VIO mapped LPARS 56
security features 122
security, network 15 W
self-service network configuration 1 warranty ii
SetRequest, SNMP 15 WBEM 17
SharePoint 71 web service certificate 84
SMTP server, communicating with 103 whitelisted IP addresses 15
SNMP 15 Windows host
Actifio SNMP agent 109, 112 adding to appliance 71
CLI commands supported for SNMP GET requests 111 Fibre Channel connectivity 33
community string, setting 108 finding WWN 33
configuration on Fibre Channel switches 116 installing/modifying Actifio Connector 34
notifications 115 iSCSI connectivity 32
SNMP agent, activating from CLI 109 logs and scripts 31
SNMP GET request 109
SNMPv2 community string 110 Y
SNMPv2 support 109 YaST, to install the iSCSI initiator 42
Trap receiver 109
trap receiver 107
traps 98, 109, 116
SNMP agent
about 109
enabling 109
SNMP v1 and v2 15
SOCKS5 102
Solaris host
Fibre Channel connectivity 59
finding WWN 59
installing/modifying the Actifio Connector 58
iSCSI connectivity 59

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