by Just a quick heads up for anyone running vSphere 5.0/5.1 with the Isilon NAS-VAAI plugin for vSphere/OneFS 7.0.
If you are planning to upgrade to vSphere 5.5, there are a couple things to know. The plugin does not work in 5.5 (new or upgraded) installations.
I built a new vSphere 5.5 installation, and the plugin loaded fine. But… When attempting to configure the credentials for the OneFS 7.0 cluster you are connecting to, the authorization tool fails to operate properly.
In a new vSphere 5.1 installation, the error is not present.
I upgraded a vSphere 5.1 host to 5.5 to determine if I would retain functionality. Maybe the authorization piece (auth_gen) was the only part affected. On this host that had successfully used the plugin, it no longer worked after the upgrade to 5.5.
In vSphere 5.5, the libssl.so shared library is libssl.so.1.0.1, while in vSphere 5.1, it is libssl.so.0.9.8.
I reached out to the team responsible for the plugin, and have confirmed they are aware of the issue, and working on a resolution.
Jase,
I was able to get auth_gen to run yesterday on 5.5 using the following from a server. I still have no idea if the plug-in is working, but will do some clone testing later today…
(I installed the standalone bundle using VUM to three 5.5 hosts in a cluster).
Host 1
# cd /lib
# ln -s libssl.so.1.0.1 libssl.so.0.9.8
# ln -s libcrypto.so.1.0.1 libcrypto.so.0.9.8
# /usr/lib/vmware/nas_plugins/isi_plugin_credentials/auth_gen
host: some.isilon.local
User: root
Pass: pass
pass: pass
THis was an old Linux workaround back in the Openssl upgrade days. IIRC, there weren’t huge FUNCTIONAL changes in Openssl between 0.98 and 1.01 and the import tables for the shared objects were compatible. That said, I still haven’t OBSERVED the plugin working.
Hope this helps someone…
Skippy
P.S. The fix should be as simple as EMC support re-compiling the driver and linking against updated Openssl, of course that introduces version dependencies and forces them to maintain a separate plugin chain for 5.5…
I tested it today; the links (obviously) do not persist through reboot, but VM copies before and after recreation of the links is significantly different.
On an 7 node X200 cluster without SSD, I was seeing ~400M on the “cluster throughput” tab through a 10G link during a clone operation; after recreating the links to libssl and libcrypto, cluster throughput to a clone thick provisioned eager zero’d 60G VM were hitting ~5G.
Try it, test, see what your results are. If I’m right, a recompile of the VAAI vib by EMC with either a statically linked OpenSSL or dynamically linking against 1.0.1 will solve the issues with 5.5.
-Skip
Skippy,
Great info. I believe they are working on a newer build already.
I’ll ask, and be sure to report what I find.
Thanks,
Jase
Any more info around this?
Nope, I pinged them the other day… Haven’t heard back.
ok, I will stay tuned and open a request to have it fixed internally.
Today I’ve got this new Info from EMC Support:
—
The plugin has been successfully re-compiled by Isilon and is now in the process of being certified by VMWare engineering department thus delaying the release.
We are still in the process to obtain an ETA from VMWare to know when the plugin can be released.
We got a feedback from VMWare engineering department who as mentioned below is in charge of certifying the plugin.
They told us it should be released within 6 to 8 weeks.
—
So in November 2014 the 5.5 able plugin should be available…
Good to hear!
Okay, so EMC has been aware of this issue for almost a year now (note original date of this post and that today is Sep 24, 2014) and evidently still hasn’t fixed this. Has EMC abandoned the VAAI plugin because it seem unbelievable that they wouldn’t resolve this rather basic issue.
I’ve come to find out that the certification process is now in VMware’s camp.
I can’t help but wonder why it took a year to do that. Really? The only thing that comes to mind is there isn’t much of a demand for VAAI functionality for the Isilon on ESXi 5.5, otherwise surely this would have not taken that long. 🙁
@Skippy
hi, i tried this and everything appears to be working… but under storage it does not show hardware acceleration supported. Any idea what could be the issue?
Currently the Isilon VAS VAAI Plugin is not compatible with vSphere 5.5.
I understand there is an updated build that is being validated now for use with vSphere 5.5.
Hopefully it will be available soon.
Excellent information
Thank you Jase and Steffen 🙂
Bad news so far.
The newly compiled Plugin is still not available for download.
I’ve contacted the Isilon-Support again today.
—
My old SR, where it all was discussed is #xxxxxxx
My new SR today is #xxxxxxx
—
Maybe some of you would be so kind to make also an ServiceRequest at EMC/Isilon and refer to this two RequestNumbers?!
Maybe this helps a litte bit to put some pressure on this topic.
sorry, missed the emc dowload…
it IS available, but only from emc support page, not from vmware SRA page.
That’s correct, the download is from the EMC Support site.