README: maxView Storage Manager and ARCCONF Command Line Utility


Adaptec maxView Storage Manager
Adaptec Command Line Interface Utility (ARCCONF)

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Please check the product website for the newer versions of this file to ensure you are reviewing the latest information.

This file contains important information about issues and errata that were discovered after completion of 
the standard product documentation.

In the case of conflict between various parts of the documentation set, this file contains the most current information.
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Table of Contents

Chapter 1. Software Versions and Documentation

1.1. Utility Software
1.2. Documentation 
   1.2.1. SmartIOC Product Documentation

Chapter 2. Installation Notes

2.1. Installation and Setup
2.2. Supported Operating Systems
   2.2.1. Smart Family Controllers
2.3. Windows 8 Setup
2.4. Ubuntu Setup
2.5. XenServer Guest OS Setup
2.6. Bootable USB Image Security Warnings
2.7. maxView Plugin for VMware vSphere Web Client

Chapter 3. Known Limitations

 3.1. Email Notifications
 3.2. Browser Issues 
 3.3. Remote System Access on Linux and Windows 
 3.4. Locate Logical Drive Blink LED
 3.5. Enclosure Status Reporting
 3.6. Special Characters in Logical Device Names 
 3.7. Speaker Status on SuperMicro SAS2X28 Enclosures 
 3.8. Broadcasting Alerts About Status and Activity 
 3.9. User-Specified Archive Path 
 3.10. Clear Configuration Status After Re-Insertion 
 3.11. Configuration Changes in Device Manager 
 3.12. Online Help Issues 
 3.13. ATA Secure Erase
 3.14. Proxy/Firewall Connection Issues 
 3.15. SES Passthrough Commands to Expanders 
 3.16. Firmware Upgrade Issues 
 3.17. Mount Point Information with MPIO Support 
 3.18. Locate Physical Disk LED Behavior
 3.19. Firefox Browser Crashes While Uploading Firmware 
 3.20. Backspace Recognized As Input Character 
 3.21. maxView Login Page Not Displayed After maxView Repair 
 3.22. Browser Automatically Fills Username and Password Fields 
 3.23. Expanding the Logical Volume to the Current Size is not Allowed 
 3.24. maxView Requires a Manual Refresh 
 3.25. Update the GCC Library After FreeBSD Installation 
 3.26. maxView or ARCCONF Application Operations are Slow in the Linux Kernel While Sanitizing the Drive 
 3.27. System Environment Variable is not Reflected on the PowerShell/Command Windows 
 3.28. maxView GUI is not Available for Solaris 
 3.29. Installation is not Supported in Standalone Mode on XenServer 
 3.30. maxView Unable to Detect Controllers on Ubuntu 18.04 after Upgrading to the Latest maxView Package 
 3.31. Commands are Stalled During a Specific I/O Operation in Linux 
 3.32. Duplicate controller WWN in a domain.
 3.33. Unable to launch maxView when managing multiple remote systems	 
 3.34. maxView not listing the specific IP address in the Binding IP address list in dropdown.
 3.35. Unable to add or communicate with the ESXi Adaptec redfish service.
 3.36. Unable to add or communicate with the Redfish server.
 3.37. Operation fails with the message "Redfish service is busy updating the configuration, try after sometime."
 3.38. Application takes more time to delete an array with multiple logical devices.
 3.39. Sanitize Erase is failing on SED OPAL drive which is in Failed Locking Enabled state.
 3.40. maxView operations fail with reason "Redfish service is busy updating the configuration try after sometime".
 3.41. maxView GUI loses the connection with Redfish server due to network fluctuation.
 
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Chapter 1. Software Versions and Documentation

1.1. Utility Software
*  Microchip Adaptec® maxView Storage Manager
*  Microchip Adaptec® ARCCONF Command Line Interface Utility

1.2. Documentation

1.2.1. SmartIOC Product Documentation
PDF:

*  maxView Storage Manager User's Guide for Microchip Smart-Family Controllers
*  Microchip SmartIOC 2000 Command Line Utility User's Guide

HTML and Text Format:

*  maxView Storage Manager for Microchip Smart-Family Controllers Online Help
*  maxView Storage Manager/ARCCONF README.TXT file
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Chapter 2. Installation Notes

2.1. Installation and Setup
Refer to your product documentation for the installation and setup details:
*  Your product Installation and User's Guide contains complete installation information for your product's drivers.
*  The maxView Storage Manager User's Guide for your product contains installation information for the maxView Storage Manager software.
*  The Command Line Utility User's Guide for your product contains complete installation information for ARCCONF.

2.2. Supported Operating Systems
Notes: 
*  maxView Storage Manager and ARCCONF Command Line Utility are supported on 64-bit operating systems only.
*  The Boot USB (offline or pre-boot) for ARCCONF and maxView Storage Manager is supported on Linux.

2.2.1. Smart Family Controllers
*  Microsoft® Windows® Server, Windows SBS, Windows 10, Windows 8.1
*  Red Hat® Enterprise Linux
*  SuSE Linux Enterprise Server
*  Ubuntu Linux
*  CentOS
*  Hypervisors:
   *  VMware vSphere, VMware ESXi
   *  Citrix XenServer
   *  Microsoft Hyper-V

2.3. Windows 8 Setup
To log in and use maxView Storage Manager on a Windows 8 system, you must create a local user account; 
you cannot use your MS Live account. To create a local user account, perform the following steps:
1. Log into your MS Live account.
2. Select Settings?Change PC Settings?Users?Switch to Local user.
3. Provide account details.
4. Start maxView Storage Manager and log in with your local user account credentials.

2.4. Ubuntu Setup
*  To avoid a maxView login failure on Ubuntu systems, you must ensure that the root user account is enabled. 
   (It is disabled by default on Ubuntu 14.04 and later because no password is set.)
   For example: sudo bash; sudo passwd root
*  When upgrading maxView Storage Manager on an existing Ubuntu Linux x64 installation, 
   you must enable the upgrade switch before installing the maxView .deb package:

   export maxView_Upgrade=true
   dpkg -i StorMan-*.deb

   To uninstall maxView after the upgrade:
 
   export maxView_Upgrade=false
   dpkg -r storman

2.5. XenServer Guest OS Setup
To avoid an operating problem with maxView Storage Manager or ARCCONF on a XenServer Guest OS, 
you must disable all LAN adapters in the Guest OS which are not connected to the network before 
installing the maxView or ARCCONF software.   

2.6. Bootable USB Image Security Warnings
*  When running maxView Storage Manager from the bootable USB image, you may be prompted with one or more with security warnings before maxView launches. 
   In each case, acknowledge the warning and continue.
*  The bootable USB needs root permission. To do this, execute the sudo -i command before executing ARCCONF commands from the terminal.

2.7. maxView Plugin for VMware vSphere Web Client
The maxView Plugin for VMware vSphere Web Client is supported on VMware 7.x and 8.x.

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Chapter 3. Known Limitations

3.1. Email Notifications
On Linux systems, we recommend adding the SMTP host name and the system IP address, to the /etc/hosts file. 
Doing so ensures that email notifications will succeed if you specify the email server in maxView Storage Manager by host name. 
Otherwise, email notifications (including test messages) may fail if the DNS is unable to resolve the host name.
WORKAROUND: Specify the email server in maxView Storage Manager by IP address.

3.2. Browser Issues

*  To run maxView Storage Manager on the supported browsers, Javascript must be enabled.
*  With Linux, some versions of the default Firefox shows alignment problems in some parts of the maxView GUI.
   WORKAROUND: Upgrade to latest Firefox.
*  After maxView upgrade, you may see the alignment issues in maxView
   WORKAROUND: Clear the browser cache and re-login to maxView.
*  Due to a certificate bug in Firefox 31.x, maxView login may fail on RHEL systems with a "Secure Connection" error. 
   (Firefox 31.1 is the default browser on RHEL 6.6; on RHEL 7.1, it is 31.4.)
   WORKAROUND: Upgrade to the latest Firefox version.
*  With the default Security setting in Microsoft Internet Explorer and Edge browsers, you may be unable to login to maxView Storage Manager 
   or experience certain GUI display issues in the maxView online Help system.
   WORKAROUND: Change the default Security setting from High (or Medium-High) to Medium. 
   Alternative: add the GUI IP address to the trusted sites list.
*  With Google Chrome, the scrollbar resets itself to the top after selecting a drive in the Logical Drive wizard. 
   To select another drive, you must scroll back down to the drive location.
*  We do not recommend using multiple browsers simultaneously on the same maxView instance. 
   Doing so may cause display issues or freezes; to restore maxView, refresh the display by pressing F5.

3.3. Remote System Access on Linux and Windows
To avoid remote system access failures from Linux and Windows clients running maxView Storage Manager, 
check and update one or all of the following system and network settings:

*  Ensure that the DNS server information is properly configured.
*  Ensure that the system is configured with the IP address.
*  Ensure that the OS hostname is according to the standard.
*  Ensure that the hostname to IP address mapping is updated in the DNS. At the minimum, ensure that the hostname to IP mapping is entered in /etc/hosts file.
*  Ensure that firewall is enabled or network is configured to allow the connection to withstand for 5 minutes

3.4. Locate Logical Drive Blink LED
In maxView Storage Manager, Locate Logical Drive continues to blink the LED for 
a pulled physical drive in the array after the locate action is stopped. 
(For unpulled drives, the blinking stops.) This issue is not seen with ARCCONF.

3.5. Enclosure Status Reporting
In maxView Storage Manager, the enclosure status is event-driven. As a result, 
enclosures can have a "Degraded" status even if related resources (fan, temperature, power) 
are performing normally (Optimal status). For instance, the Enclosure status changes 
to "Degraded" if the system reports an "Enclosure device not responding ..." event, even if other sensor values are normal.

3.6. Special Characters in Logical Device Names
Special characters are permitted in logical device names in maxView Storage Manager, 
the BIOS, and ARCCONF. However, with Linux ARCCONF (create, setname), 
special characters must be "escaped" to ensure proper interpretation. For example:
ARCCONF SETNAME 1 LOGICALDRIVE 1 arc_ldrive%\$12\&amp;

3.7. Speaker Status on SuperMicro SAS2X28 Enclosures
SuperMicro SAS2X28 enclosures do not propagate the speaker status to maxView Storage Manager. 
As a result, maxView always displays the speaker status as Off.

3.8. Broadcasting Alerts About Status and Activity
This feature is not supported by the maxView Storage Manager or 
ARCCONF and has been removed from the product documentation.

3.9. User-Specified Archive Path
While executing the savesupportarchive command where a user-specified path exists, 
ARCCONF will instead place the logs under the /var/log/ directory.

3.10. Clear Configuration Status After Re-Insertion
After removing a RAID member and then clearing the controller configuration, m
axView Storage Manager recovers the configuration for all RAID volumes and physical drives when the offline drive is re-inserted 
and the OS restarted. By design, RAID members store metadata about all other virtual devices. 
This allows the controller to recover the configuration from the re-inserted drive, even though the configuration was previously cleared.

3.11. Configuration Changes in Device Manager
After disabling/enabling the Microchip Adaptec controller in the Device Manager, 
it can take up to 10 minutes for maxView Storage Manager to detect the configuration change.
WORKAROUND: Use the Refresh link in the maxView GUI to update the configuration.

3.12. Online Help Issues
*  Contrary to the online help topics, SMR drives are not supported for RAID volumes 
   or hot spares on Smart-Family controllers.
*  When opening the maxView Storage Manager help from a remote Linux system (e.g., over a VPN), 
   the help window may fail to open with a "can't establish connection to server" message.
   WORKAROUND: Replace 127.0.0.1:8443 in the URL with <system_ip_address>:8443

3.13. ATA Secure Erase
In ARCCONF, the ATA Secure Erase operation cannot be aborted. 
Once started, it continues to completion.
In maxView Storage Manager, the drive is locked during ATA Secure Erase. 
To recover, use the ARCCONF ATAPASSWORD CLEAR <passwd> command; the default password is 'pmc-sierra'.
NOTE: ATA Secure Erase is also available in the Ctrl-A BIOS.

3.14. Proxy/Firewall Connection Issues
maxView uses WebSocket and server side event for notifying the logged in users instantaneously about the 
changes in the configuration. Occasionally, the proxy/firewall does not allow a connection to stay inactive 
for a longer period of time, and the connection usually gets closed automatically by the proxy.
SYMPTOMS: Event and changes for the operation performed through ARCCONF do not reflect in maxView GUI.
WORKAROUND:
*  Configure the proxy/firewall to allow inactive connection to stay for up to 5 minutes.
*  Use the refresh link provided in maxView GUI to get the updated configuration.

3.15. SES Passthrough Commands to Expanders
SES passthrough commands to expanders fail.

3.16. Firmware Upgrade Issues
For systems using Adaptec HBA 1000 with an Adaptec SAS Expander 82885T card, 
where the ARCCONF utility is used to upgrade the expander firmware, ARCCONF may crash if 64-bit chunk sizes are used.
WORKAROUND: Use 32-bit chunk sizes to upgrade/downgrade the expander firmware.

3.17. Mount Point Information with MPIO Support
When Multipath I/O (MPIO) is enabled in Windows, mount point information is not available in maxView or ARCCONF.

3.18. Locate Physical Disk LED Behavior
Since the locate commands are executed at the physical device level, the LED that is used to locate 
physical disks in an array when using ARCCONF/maxView will continue to blink the physical device(s) even after deleting the array.

3.19. Firefox Browser Crashes While Uploading Firmware
Uploading the firmware build (SmartFWx100.bin) file while using Firefox version 52.xxx can cause the browser to crash.
WORKAROUND: Upgrade to Firefox version 55.0.3 to resolve this issue.

3.20. Backspace Recognized As Input Character
In Linux operating system, the backspace and delete keys are considered input characters when the user tries 
to input maxCrypto crypto/user password using the prompt option.
WORKAROUND: Ensure that password string does not contain backspaces or other special characters 
like delete, escape, function, page up, page down, or home keys.

3.21. maxView Login Page Not Displayed After maxView Repair
The maxView login page does not load after a maxView repair. 
The maxView installer repair option cannot repair when the configuration files are missing.

3.22. Browser Automatically Fills Username and Password Fields
Browsers can automatically fill the username and password fields.
WORKAROUND: Disable the password manager and autofill forms in the browser settings.

3.23. Expanding the Logical Volume to the Current Size is not Allowed
maxView or ARCCONF allows to expand the logical volume to that of a same size, but firmware does not initiate the expansion. 
When you create a logical device of a specific size (for example, 100 GB), a few MB of space is used for metadata. 
Therefore, you cannot expand the logical device to the requested size (100 GB).

3.24. maxView Requires a Manual Refresh
Issue: Whenever you remove and insert Microchips's Linux driver module from\to kernel, 
it does not reflect the changes in maxView.
WORKAROUND: Perform a manual refresh to reflect changes in the maxView application.

3.25. Update the GCC Library After FreeBSD Installation
Issue: ARCCONF does not run in FreeBSD after installation.
WORKAROUND: To open ARCCONF in FreeBSD, you have to update the GCC library after OS installation. 
Run the following command before opening the ARCCONF application. This is a one-time activity.
pkg install lang/gcc

3.26. maxView or ARCCONF Application Operations are Slow in the Linux Kernel While Sanitizing the Drive
Due to limitation in the Linux kernel while sanitizing the drive, maxView operations and updates are slow, 
when you reboot the server while the 'Sanitize Erase' task is in progress on a hard drive.
WORKAROUND: Use ARCCONF commands with the nodiskinfo arguments until the 'Sanitize Erase' tasks are complete.

Note: maxView does resume operations with normal speed after the sanitization tasks are complete.

3.27. System Environment Variable is not Reflected on the PowerShell/Command Windows
After maxView installation, the exported %PATH% system environment variable does not get reflected 
in the newly opened PowerShell or Command windows. Therefore, you cannot run ARCCONF command 
from any directory location until you restart the windows.
WORKAROUND: You must run the ARCCONF command by changing the installation directory location.

3.28. maxView GUI is not Available for Solaris
The maxView GUI is not available for Solaris. Use the ARCCONF CLI tool for configuration and management.

3.29. Installation is not Supported in Standalone Mode on XenServer
The standalone mode installation is not supported on XenServer.

3.30. maxView Unable to Detect Controllers on Ubuntu 18.04 after Upgrading to the Latest maxView Package
After upgrading to the latest maxView package, maxView is unable to detect controllers on Ubuntu 18.04. 
This issue happens because the configuration files are not removed by Ubuntu OS during the previous maxView uninstallation.
WORKAROUND: After uninstalling maxView, execute the following command to remove the old configuration files if any.
dpkg --purge StorMan

3.31. Commands are Stalled During a Specific I/O Operation in Linux
Issue: As part of acquiring configuration in Linux, SDK library sends a call to the exposed OS volumes 
to identify the mount point and disk information. The call to open the device handle with the O_RDWR flag 
gets blocked in the kernel, resulting in any ARCCONF command getting stalled when a specific I/O operation is in progress on the device.
WORKAROUND: Send an optional command line argument NODISKINFO with ARCCONF to disable the discovery of mount point and disk information.

3.32. Duplicate controller WWN in a domain. 
maxView uses the controller WWN to uniquely identify the controller within the storage domain. Operations may fail in maxView If there are controllers with duplicate WWN in a domain.
WORKAROUND: Reach out to the customer support to resolve the controllers having duplicate WWN

3.33. Unable to launch maxView when managing multiple remote systems
	3.33.1  When the remotely managed Redfish/ESXi target system is changed with different operating system with the same IP address, maxView's communication may have problem and it may not launch. Make sure to remove the remote system from maxView before changing the operating system.
	WORKAROUND: Remove the /usr/StorMan/apache-tomcat/bin/RaidMSys.ser on Linux or C:\ProgramData\Adaptec\maxView Storage Manager\ RaidMSys.ser on Windows and restart the stor_tomcat/maxView web server.

3.34. maxView not listing the specific IP address in the Binding IP address list in dropdown.
Issue: In some operating system, maxView may not be able to list all IP address in the system. In such scenrio user need to bind the IP address by following the below workaround.
WORKAROUND: 1. Stop the maxView webserver service.
			2. Open <Installation Directory>/apache-tomcat/conf/server.xml 
			3. Find the property "address" and update the value to prefered binding IP address.
			4. Start the maxView webserver service.
			
3.35. Unable to add or communicate with the ESXi Adaptec redfish service.
Issue: In some scenarios after the ESXi hypervisor reboot or under operations, maxView GUI may not be able to add or communicate with the ESXi 
Adaptec redfish service. There is a known limitation in the Adaptec redfish daemon service integration layer which is blocking any incoming HTTPS request to the Adaptec redfish service layer.
WORKAROUND: Restart the Adaptec redfish service to resume the communication

3.36. Unable to add or communicate with the Redfish server.
Issue: In some scenarios maxView GUI may not be able to add or communicate Redfish server service.There is a known limitation where MSCC Redfish Server is unable to retrieve the partition information of the physical device.
WORKAROUND: Restart the MSCC Redfish Server service to resume the communication.

3.37. Operation fails with the message "Redfish service is busy updating the configuration, try after sometime."
WORKAROUND: When operation fails with the message "Redfish service is busy updating the configuration, try after sometime.", user shall re-try the operation after sometime. If the operations fails continuously, restart the redfish server

3.38. Application takes more time to delete an array with multiple logical devices.
Issue: In a high configuration controller where there are multiple encrypted logical devices exist, delete array operation may take several minutes because the length of operations are dependent on multi-disk operations, flushing caches, etc.

3.39. Sanitize Erase is failing on SED OPAL drive which is in Failed Locking Enabled state.
Issue: SED OPAL drive does not support sanitize until the locking feature's LockingEnabled is clear or 0. Please revert SED OPAL drive to the factory default for trying sanitize erase.

3.40. maxView operations fail with reason "Redfish service is busy updating the configuration try after some time".
Issue: Issuing SCSI passthrough commands on faulty drives results in timeout of the command. Firmware tries recovery mechanism by issuing reset on such devices which delays the operation in maxView.
WORKAROUND: Remove faulty drives from the configuration.

3.41. maxView GUI loses the connection with Redfish server due to network fluctuation.
Issue: If there is network fluctuation, maxView may lose the connection with Redfish server.
WORKAROUND: maxView will automatically reconnect when network is stable.
	
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