DynaCenter Release Notes Document

DynaCenter Release Notes
Release 6.0
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Publication Date
19 March 2015
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Racemi® DynaCenter Release Notes, Version 6.0
Introduction
These notes describe new features, changed features, and known issues
specific to the DynaCenter release.
Important: The DynaCenter Cloud API is an extension to the DynaCenter
API. If you are using the DynaCenter Cloud API, you should review the
DynaCenter Cloud API Release Notes to determine any possible impact to
your environment.
Supplemental Documentation

DynaCenter Cloud API Release Notes

DynaCenter Installation Guide

DynaCenter Administration Guide

DynaCenter OEM Integration Guide

DynaCenter Cloud Integration Guide
Racemi® DynaCenter Release Notes, Version 6.0
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Racemi® DynaCenter Release Notes, Version 6.0
New Features
DynaCenter 6.0.0
Red Hat 6.x 64-bit or CentOS 6.x 64-bit required for DynaCenter
DynaCenter now requires either a RedHat Enterprise Linux 6.x 64-bit edition
or CentOS 6.x 64-bit edition operating system on the Management
Workstation (MWS).
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Racemi® DynaCenter Release Notes, Version 6.0
Changed Features
Documentation Updates
You can find a list of changes to the documentation for this release in the
What’s New in This Guide section in Chapter 1 of the following guides:

DynaCenter Installation Guide

DynaCenter Administration Guide
The following documents were also updated:

DynaCenter OEM Integration Guide

DynaCenter Cloud Integration Guide
Racemi® DynaCenter Release Notes, Version 6.0
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Racemi® DynaCenter Release Notes, Version 6.0
Fixed Issues
DynaCenter 6.0.0
cloud-init Directories from Source Now Deployed to Target
Server
Fixed an issue where DynaCenter was removing both the /etc/cloud
directory and any corresponding startup files from the /etc/init.d
directory when deploying an image. DynaCenter will now deploy the
/etc/cloud directory to the target server and will deploy but turn off any
startup scripts in /etc/init.d.
Windows DynaCenter Agent Now Upgrades and Uninstalls
Correctly
Fixed an issue where the Windows DynaCenter agent would sometimes not
shutdown correctly, which could prevent the agent from upgrading or
uninstalling correctly.
DynaCenter Agent Now Successfully Processes Cancel Deploy
Requests
Fixed an issue where, under specific circumstances, the DynaCenter agent
would not always successfully process a request to cancel a deploy task.
Capture and Deploy Operations more Robust
Fixed a threading issue that could, under very specific circumstances, cause
a capture or deploy operation to hang during the chunking phase of the
operation.
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Racemi® DynaCenter Release Notes, Version 6.0
Known Issues
This section lists and describes known issues with this release.

When you deploy a Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 image to a
Hewlett Packard ProLiant BL490 Generation 6 (G6) Server Blade using
the driver collection, DynaCenter fails to install the correct Ethernet
drivers from the driver collection.
Workaround: Capture a Driverset from a server with the same
hardware configuration as the server the image was captured from and
then specify that Driverset in a profile when you deploy the image. See
“Create a Driverset” in the DynaCenter Administration Guide.

If, when you install a DynaCenter agent (DPAD), you specify the
mws_url setting using the http protocol, the agent will not be able to
communicate with DynaCenter.
Workaround 1: Reinstall the agent using the https protocol for the
mws_url setting.
Workaround 2: On the MWS in /opt/race/dws/, comment out the
SSLRequireSSL directives in the agent-package.conf file and the
dws-apache.conf file, reload Apache (service httpd reload),
and continue to use the http protocol when you install an agent and
specify the mws_url setting.

When deploying an image to a target server, the target server must have
a minimum of 768MB of RAM.

You should not install anti-virus software on the Management
Workstation (MWS).
During capture operations, anti-virus software might quarantine packets
associated with the capture. This leaves the captured image incomplete
and causes deploys of that image to fail.

If a server name contains any of the following special characters,
DynaCenter converts each instance to an underscore (_):
( or )
@
&
`
;
[ or ]
#
*
~
:
{ or }
$
'
|
?
< or >
%
"
\
,
!
^
Note: After this conversion it is possible that two or more servers might
have the same name and, as server names must be unique in
DynaCenter, this would leave some servers as unmanageable.

Deploying a Linux image with more than four partitions on a disk—with
or without a profile—will not succeed if any of the partitions are used as
logical volumes of a volume group. This limitation is unlikely to be an
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issue since the use of a logical volume manager obviates the need for
multiple partitions.

When running rpm --verify on the DynaCenter agent (DPAD)
racemi-blademgmt-linux-*.rpm, the output will indicate a change
to a symlink in the agent package located in /opt/race/bin/dpad
since the package was installed.
This result is expected and can be safely ignored.


When capturing the image of a server with NFS mounted file systems, be
aware of the following:

DynaCenter does not capture the data on any NFS mounted file
system

DynaCenter does capture the NFS mount point information.
When deploying an image of a server that had NFS mounted file
systems, be aware of the following:

When you deploy the image to a non-cloud environment the
deployed server will attempt to resolve the NFS mount points; this
can impact server performance.
Workaround 1: If you do not need the NFS mounted file system on
the deployed server, use a capture profile that excludes the file
system from the captured image (fs /nfs_mounted_
filesystem --exclude).
Workaround 2: If you need the NFS mounted file system on the
deployed server, configure the deployed server so that the NFS
mount point can resolve to the NFS mounted file system.

When you deploy the image to a cloud environment DynaCenter
does not configure the NFS mount points.

If you deploy a Windows image to a server with multiple drives, use a
deploy profile to specify how you want the image to be laid out on the
target server.

After you deploy a Windows image to a target server that is in a different
time zone than the server the image was captured from, confirm that the
time zone is set correctly on the target server.

When using Amazon S3 storage as your image depot, capture operations
will fail if the clock on the server being captured is not set correctly.
Workaround: To resolve this issue you can do either of the following:

Set the clock on the server that you want to capture to the correct
time.

Set the set_clock option in the DynaCenter oem.ini file to True.
When the set_clock option is set to True, DynaCenter passes the
UTC time to the DPAD installed on the server; the DPAD then
converts that time to the local time zone and sets the clock on the
server.
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Racemi® DynaCenter Release Notes, Version 6.0

For Windows images, DynaCenter only supports hostnames that use
ASCII characters.
Workaround: If the server where the image was captured from had a
hostname that contained non-ASCII characters, use a deploy profile to
specify a hostname that only has ASCII characters.

When you deploy an image to a system that has both local attached
storage and SAN storage, you must use a deploy profile to specify the
specific multipath device of the LUN group for the root/boot volume(s) if
the root/boot volume(s) are located on the SAN.

When DynaCenter captures an image of a server with bonded (teamed)
NICs, it captures the static IP address information of the bond but not
the individual IP addresses of the bonded NICs or the bond type
configured for the NICs. Because DynaCenter does not have the
information needed to configure the bond on the system that the image
is being deployed to, no bond exists between the NICs after the image is
deployed.
Workaround: After you deploy an image that contains teamed NICs,
you must use the configuration mechanism appropriate for the operating
system to configure the bond between the interfaces on the system.

When a hypervisor controller is overloaded, DynaCenter agent
assignment operations and deploy operations might fail because the
hypervisor takes too long to respond to the DynaCenter instruction to
power on the VM. For agent assignment operations, the agent image is
left associated with the VM. If you power on the VM manually, the agent
image will boot and can be used for the desired deploy or capture
operation. In the case of deploy operations, the VM is restored to its
original state.
For the most reliable operation, reduce the load on the hypervisor
controller.

When deploying an image of a Windows UCS server to a UCS
environment the UCS driver installation creates the following unresolved
registry entry:
RunDLL Error in qlco1006.dll
Missing entry: qlsavesysteminfo
Workaround: Reboot and then log back in to the system; the
unresolved registry entry is now resolved and the error message no
longer appears.
Operating System Issues
Ubuntu

DynaCenter does not currently support offline capture of Ubuntu images
that contain XFS file systems.

DynaCenter currently provides limited support for capture and deploy of
Ubuntu images that contain ReiserFS file systems:

Live capture is supported
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

Offline capture is not supported

Deploy is supported but you must use a deploy profile to change any
ReiserFS file systems to the ext3 or ext4 file system type
When deploying an Ubuntu image, DynaCenter will attempt to install any
packages required by the deployed server from the apt repository
specified in the etc/apt/sources.list file of the source server. If
DynaCenter cannot connect to the specified apt repository, the deploy
will not complete successfully.
Workaround 1: Edit the etc/apt/sources.list file on the source
server to point to an apt repository that can be reached from the target
server, recapture the server image, and then deploy the newly captured
image to the target server.
Workaround 2: Install the required packages on the source server,
recapture the server image, and then deploy the newly captured image
to the target server.

If your source server was not set up to use multipath, the packages
needed to use multipath are not installed on the server. If you capture
that server image and attempt to configure multipath on the target
server you deploy the image to, the multipath configuration cannot
complete successfully.
Workaround: After you migrate your source server, install the following
packages so that you can configure multipath for the target server:

multipath-tools

multipath-tools-boot

kpartx

kpartx-boot
Linux

When performing an offline capture of a Red Hat or CentOS server,
DynaCenter captures the configuration information for NICs named eth*,
em*, and p*p*. If your server uses any other NIC naming convention,
DynaCenter will not capture the configuration information for those NICs.
Workaround 1: When you deploy an image of a server that used a NIC
naming convention other than eth*, em*, or p*p*, use a deploy profile
to specify the NIC configuration information.
Workaround 2: Use the live capture mode when you capture a server
that uses a NIC naming convention other than eth*, em*, or p*p*.

DynaCenter does not support deploying a RedHat 6.0 or CentOS 6.0
image that was captured in PV mode to a XenServer VM that is
configured for HVM mode.

DynaCenter currently provides limited multipath support for Red Hat
Enterprise Linux 6.x and CentOS 6.x:

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Live capture is supported
Racemi® DynaCenter Release Notes, Version 6.0

Deploy to servers that do not have multipath configurations (for
example virtual servers) is supported

When moving a Linux image from one server to another, the X Window
System configuration might be invalidated and require reconfiguration.
For the SLES Linux distribution, this may delay the boot process until the
reconfiguration is completed.

When deploying an image that has SELinux enabled, DynaCenter will
disable the SELinux feature. DynaCenter will save the
/etc/selinux/config file, which contains the SELinux settings, as
/etc/selinux/config.save, so that you can re-enable the feature if
necessary (by naming the file back to config and rebooting the
system); however, note that re-enabling SELinux on a system where a
DPAD is installed can result in the DPAD not operating correctly.

When deploying a Red Hat 5.x or CentOS 5.x image, the IDE driver
might load before the SATA driver; this can cause the SATA drives to be
found as /dev/hdx instead of /dev/sdx.
Workaround: Change the SATA controller BIOS setting from ‘native’
mode to ‘SATA’ mode.
Windows

DynaCenter currently only supports live capture mode when capturing
servers that are running Windows Server 2012.

DynaCenter does not currently support capture of server images that
contain any Resilient File System (ReFS) local file systems.
Workaround: Exclude any ReFS file systems from being captured either
by detaching the drive before you capture the server or by using a
DynaCenter capture profile.

When performing a live capture of a Windows server, DynaCenter will
not capture any EFS encrypted files on the server. To ensure that
encrypted files from the source server are available on the target server
you can do either of the following:

Unencrypt the files before you begin the capture operation then reencrypt the files after the image is deployed to the target server.

Manually move the encrypted files to the target server after the
DynaCenter deploy completes.

When a deploy profile is used to set the gateway IP for a server, the
gateway address is set in the IP routing table and not on the NIC. If you
look at the GUI Properties for the NIC, the Default Gateway setting will
be empty. You can confirm that the gateway was set correctly by
reviewing the Persistent Routes section of the IP routing table, which
you can see by running the route print command from the command
prompt.

When DynaCenter deploys an image to a system, it removes the
hardware configuration of the source system from the image. When the
system restarts after the deploy operation completes, Server
management tools might fail to start because the original hardware
configuration was removed. If you uninstall the server management
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applications associated with the source system and install the desired
server management applications associated with the target system, you
will no longer see any "Service Control Manager" message boxes that
complain about server management services that did not start. This
uninstall/install process may be required even when the source and
target systems are the same make and model.

DynaCenter does not support capture of servers or deploy of images
with dynamic disk configurations.

DynaCenter has limited support for capture and deploy operations of
storage that is mounted as a path:

When performing a live capture, DynaCenter will capture multiple
volumes into one source.

When deploying an image of a system that had multiple volumes,
DynaCenter will deploy the volumes as one volume.

DynaCenter does not support offline capture of storage that is
mounted as a path.
Vendor Support Issues
Microsoft

The Microsoft Hyper-V guest tools do not contain a legacy NIC driver for
Windows Server 2003 64-bit. This means that after a Windows Server
2003 64-bit image is deployed to Hyper-V, the deployed image won't be
able to communicate with DynaCenter to signal that the deploy is
complete.
Workaround: Log on to the server to see if the image deployed
successfully. If the image deployed successfully, the server will be
operational and you will be able to perform deploy and offline capture
operations.

When provisioning a Microsoft Windows image to a Microsoft Hyper-V
system you must activate the image before you can use the system.
Citrix

Citrix XenServer version 6.x has a prerequisite for Microsoft .NET
Framework Version 4.0 or later when running a Windows server on a
virtual machine. If the Windows image you want to deploy to a
XenServer does not contain Microsoft .NET Framework Version 4.0 or
later, DynaCenter will be unable to install the XenServer guest tools and
the deployed image will not function optimally.
Workaround: Before you capture the server image you want to deploy
to the XenServer VM, do one of the following:
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
Windows Server 2008: Ensure that .NET Framework Version 4.0 or
later is installed.

Windows Server 2003: Ensure that Windows Imaging Component
and .NET Framework Version 4.0 or later are installed.
Racemi® DynaCenter Release Notes, Version 6.0