In preparation for some NetApp training that I’ll be attending next month, I downloaded the NetApp ONTAP Simulator. The ONTAP Simulator runs on top of Linux (a few different distributions are supported) and allows you to simulate a NetApp Filer. This is pretty cool for a couple of reasons, not the least of which is that it allows you to perform testing of NAS and iSCSI operations without having an actual Filer. Unfortunately, I had some problems getting the ONTAP Simulator working in a virtual machine on VMware ESX Server.
To setup the ONTAP Simulator, I created a Linux virtual machine on ESX Server 2.5.3 and installed Red Hat Linux 9.0. Red Hat 9.0 is a supported distribution for the ONTAP Simulator as well as a fully supported guest OS on ESX Server, and so I didn’t expect any issues. However, after installing and configuring the simulator, I couldn’t get any network connectivity whatsoever. I had full connectivity to the guest OS, but not to the simulator.
Finally, after digging around in the documentation for the simulator, I came across a statement indicating that the network interface that was being used by the simulator had to be in promiscuous mode. That rang a bell: ESX Server, by default, doesn’t allow NICs in guest operating systems to be in promiscuous mode.
The fix is this:
echo PromiscuousAllowed yes > /proc/vmware/net/vmnic0/config
Replace “vmnic0†in this command with whatever virtual switch or NIC team the virtual machine in question is using. Once I did this (from the Service Console on the ESX Server) and rebooted the virtual machine running the ONTAP Simulator, it worked like a champ.
(Note: You must be a current NetApp customer or partner in order to use the ONTAP Simulator.)
Tags: ESX, Hardware, Interoperability, Linux, NAS, NetApp, Networking, ONTAP, Storage, Virtualization
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http://blog.scottlowe.org/2006/06/27/netapp-ontap-simulator-and-esx-server/trackback/
Monday, February 12, 2007 at 3:33 pm
Trackback from Nerhood Weblog - NetApp Simulator Disk Fix
Thursday, September 14, 2006 at 4:45 am
Paul Rowley
Hi! I’m trying to get the Netapp Simulator working in a Vmware Workstation running RHEL 3 on a Windows XP host. I get a whole load of messages when executing runsim.sh :
“Disk v4.40 Shelf ? Bay ? [NETAPP VD-1000MB-FZ-520 0042] S/N [18084922] has no valid labels. It will be taken out of service to prevent possible data loss.”
Later when I try to aggregate the disks I get a message indicating that there are no disks available, so I guess this is a result of the runsim.sh failures.
Have you seen this before? I’m lost for ideas!
Thanks - Paul.
Thursday, September 14, 2006 at 10:58 am
slowe
Have you zeroed the disks yet? I’ll check in with a NetApp guru within the company and see if I can find anything else out.
Friday, September 15, 2006 at 6:38 am
slowe
Paul,
Others who have seen the same error with the Simulator have told me that they just end up rebuilding the Simulator when they see those errors. You may be able to get away with just creating more disks (use the makedisks.sh script; view the source of the script first so that you can create disks that are large enough for you) and then place those disks into a new aggregate.
Monday, December 11, 2006 at 6:22 pm
honey_bee
I get the same problem. I ended up rebuiling the Simulator but I again faced the same issue. Is something different needs to be done when we are installing in a VM as compared to installing on a physical workstation ?
Thanks in advance.
-N
Monday, December 11, 2006 at 10:34 pm
slowe
Honey_Bee,
I have yet to find a definitive answer as to why this occurs, or why it seems to occur more frequently in a VM. In all the instances in which I’ve found someone that ran into this issue (with the disk has no valid labels), the user ends up rebuilding the Simulator. If I find more information, I’ll post it here.
Scott
Thursday, January 4, 2007 at 5:36 pm
sdodson
I’ve gotten the following to work, I’ve then zero’d the disks.
>priv set diag
*>disk unfail -s v1.19
Friday, January 5, 2007 at 5:11 pm
slowe
Sdodson,
Excellent! Thanks for the tip.
Scott
Monday, January 22, 2007 at 11:09 am
sdodson
Is there an easy way to make the promiscuous mode setting permanent other than tweaking with init scripts on the vmware host?
Monday, January 22, 2007 at 11:15 am
slowe
In ESX 3, you can set promiscuous mode on the vSwitch to which the simulator will be attached, and you should be OK. In ESX 2.x, tweaking init scripts is the only method of which I know. Of course, that is not to say that there isn’t an easier way.
Scott
Wednesday, April 11, 2007 at 4:26 pm
flingster
Have you tried installing the Netapp Simulator onto your macbook pro
1) native osx +simulator
2) vmware +linux +simulator
3) Parallels +linuix +simulator
I’d love to know as the vmware simulator for mac is still in beta and runs slow because its also debugging so was wondering if you’d tried it with parallels at all?
cheers
fling
Wednesday, April 11, 2007 at 9:35 pm
slowe
Flingster,
Actually, I did run it on my MacBook Pro under Beta 1 of VMware Fusion, and it worked fine. I haven’t tried it since then, but I don’t expect that it would be any different (just faster).
BTW, Beta 3 of Fusion allows for debugging to be turned off, so you can really get a feel for how fast Fusion is under OS X.
I have not tried it with Parallels. In fact, I haven’t even tried Parallels itself–I’ve stuck exclusively with VMware Fusion. I’ve heard too many horror stories about system instability with Parallels.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007 at 8:59 pm
Jacek
TIP!
After you create extra disks for your simulator.
execuute these steps to get rid of disk fail messages:
>priv set diag
*>disk unfail -s v4.19 (where v4.19 is your disk)
Repeat for each disk to recover it. When they are all unfailed, follow with:
*>disk zero spares
Friday, August 10, 2007 at 9:25 pm
Chad Sakac
FYI - in ESX server 3.0 you can just enable promiscous mode in the Virtual Infrastructure Client, under the vswitch properties,security. This is handy, because I’m sure folks use the ONTAP sim and the Celerra simulators the way I do, with vswitches with no NICs (internal only).
Saturday, August 11, 2007 at 1:02 pm
slowe
Good point, Chad! Thanks for pointing that out…I guess I should upate this article for ESX Server 3.x!
Monday, January 7, 2008 at 9:10 am
Wes
I have been building this on a host-only network under Workstation 6.02 for Linux, so it’ll be completely portable. So far, I have an AD 2003 DC (vm) serving up all the centralized services on the host-only network, a Centos 5.1 VM running the NetApp OnTap Simulator v7.23 providing multiprotocol CIFS/NFS for unified home directories while using AD/Kerberos for authentication and LDAP for user/group storage, and a couple of client VM’s (WinXP and Centos 5.1). Can’t get write permissions on the home export using autofs, so the users get “/” as home. Anyone have any ideas how I might implement this? I’d be thankful…
Tuesday, March 11, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Athreya VC
Hi,
I am Newbie for ESX serevr. I have a 7.2.3 netapp simulator. I created a iSCSI lun on the netapp. I then detect it from the ESX server and created the VM on the LUN. I then try to suspend the VM on the LUN . It fails with an error saying “General system error occured Can not suspend the VM” I then copy the VM to local disk on the ESX server and suspend happens succesfully. Am I doing some wrong setting on the LUN ? LUN protocol is set to “VMWARE”
I wouldbe thankful if you can help me on the same.
Regards,
Athreya
Monday, May 5, 2008 at 6:35 pm
Eman Wahabai
am running Unbutu Linux. Here is the output from ifconfig -a
eth0:avahi Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:0c:29:1d:47:16
inet addr:172.12.70.158 Bcast:172.12.70.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
UP BROADCAST RUNNING PROMISC MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
Interrupt:16 Base address:0×1400
Every time I try to run runsim.sh the error is
PANIC: pf: write error
version: NetApp Release 7.2.4: Thu Nov 15 23:05:40 PST 2007
cc flags: L
dumpcore: pf: write error
This failure was probably caused by having your network interface down or an invalid interface. Re-run setup.sh and choose a different interface or fix the one you have chosen.
root@simulator-host1:/# /sim/runsim.sh
Please help here.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008 at 3:38 pm
Eman Wahabai
Just a follow up question.
Do you need to have 2 physical nic cards in order to run the simulator. I have on my ESX server 1 nic and 1 vswitch with multiple Virtual Machine groups. I assume that should be fine. Let me know what am i missing
Monday, June 2, 2008 at 12:35 pm
Joe Gregory
Hi,
Is there a way to increase the size of the disks on the ontap simulator?
Thanks
Thursday, June 5, 2008 at 9:36 am
slowe
Joe,
AFAIK, there is no way to increase the size of the disks beyond the maximum size allowed in the script supplied with the simulator.
Thursday, July 3, 2008 at 11:20 pm
kc
can anyone of expert here share the simulator with me please…. i’m not d netapp customer or partner. Thanks in advanced.
Thursday, July 3, 2008 at 11:45 pm
slowe
KC,
Technically, only NetApp customers or partners are authorized to use the simulator. I’d suggest contacting your local NetApp sales representative and see if he or she can work something out for you.