File System Requirements

Supported Platforms/Configurations

File System Configuration Requirements

Operating Systems Server Types Storage Systems Storage Configuration
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5+
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.0+
  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12.0+
  • AIX 6.1+
  • AIX 7.1+
  • Windows Server 2008 R2 [1]
  • Windows Server 2012 R2
  • Windows Server 2016
 Physical [4]
  • IBM Spectrum Accelerate 11.5.3 and later:
    • IBM FlashSystem A9000/A9000R
    • IBM XIV storage systems
  • IBM Spectrum Virtualize Software 7.3 and later/8.1.2 and later:
    • IBM SAN Volume Controller
    • IBM Storwize
    • IBM FlashSystem V9000 and 9100
  • Pure Storage running Pure APIs 1.5 and later:
    • FlashArray//m
    • FlashArray 4xx series
  • Fibre Channel
  • iSCSI
Virtual

(VMware) [2]

  • DellEMC Unity
    • EMC Unity 300, 400, 500, 600 (All-Flash and Hybrid Flash)
    • EMC UnityVSA
    • EMC VNXe 1600 running version 3.1.3 +
    • EMC VNXe 3200 running version 3.1.1 +
  • IBM Spectrum Accelerate 11.5.3 and later:
    • IBM FlashSystem A9000/A9000R
    • IBM XIV storage systems
  • IBM Spectrum Virtualize Software 7.3 and later/8.1.2 and later:
    • IBM SAN Volume Controller
    • IBM Storwize
    • IBM FlashSystem V9000 and 9100
  • NetApp ONTAP storage systems running the following versions:
    • Data ONTAP 8.1.0, 8.2.0 and later in 7-mode
    • Data ONTAP 9.x
    • Clustered Data ONTAP 8.1, 8.2, 8.3, 9.4 and later
  • Pure Storage running Pure APIs 1.5 and later:
    • FlashArray//m
    • FlashArray 4xx series
  • iSCSI disks attached directly to guest operating system
  • pRDM [3]

[1] Windows Remote Shell (WinRM) must be enabled. By default, WinRM is not enabled in a Windows Server 2008 R2 environment. To ensure services in a Windows Server 2008 R2 environment are able to receive connections, perform the following procedure: Run winrm quickconfig, then select Yes to make changes. This adds a listener for port 5985. To ensure the listener is available, enter the following command: winrm e winrm/config/listener.

[2] See System Requirements for supported VMware vSphere versions.

[3] Select the Physical provider type when registering the provider in ECX. Note that NetApp ONTAP and DellEMC storage systems are not supported. All data files and log files for a given instance should reside on either a pRDM or virtual disk.

[4] Dynamic disks are not supported.

Windows File System Considerations

For Windows File System, the following configurations are not supported:

  • Windows Failover Clusters
  • Clustered Shared Volumes (CSV)

NTFS is required for those configurations.

Software

  • The bash and sudo packages must be installed. Sudo must be version 1.7.6p2 or above. Run sudo -V to check the version.
  • Python version 2.6.x or 2.7.x must be installed.
  • AIX only: If data resides on IBM Spectrum Accelerate storage, the IBM Storage Host Attachment Kit (also known as IBM XIV Host Attachment Kit) must be installed on the server.
  • RHEL/OEL/CentOS 6.x only: Ensure the util-linux-ng package is up-to-date by running yum update util-linux-ng. Depending on your version or distribution, the package may be named util-linux.
  • RHEL/OEL/CentOS 7.3 and above: A required Perl module, Digest::MD5, is not installed by default. Install the module by running yum install perl-Digest-MD5.
  • Linux only: If data resides on LVM volumes, ensure the LVM version is 2.0.2.118 or later. Run lvm version to check the version and run yum update lvm2 to update the package if necessary.
  • Linux only: If data resides on LVM volumes, the lvm2-lvmetad service must be disabled as it can interfere with ECX's ability to mount and resignature volume group snapshots/clones.
  • Run the following commands to stop and disable the service:
  • systemctl stop lvm2-lvmetad
  • systemctl disable lvm2-lvmetad
  • Additionally, disable lvmetad in the LVM config file. Edit the file /etc/lvm/lvm.conf and set:
  • use_lvmetad = 0

Connectivity

  • The SSH service must be running on port 22 on the server and any firewalls must be configured to allow ECX to connect to the server using SSH. The SFTP subsystem for SSH must also be enabled.
  • The server can be registered using a DNS name or IP address. DNS names must be resolvable by ECX.
  • In order to mount clones/copies of data, ECX automatically maps and unmaps LUNs to the servers. Each server must be preconfigured to connect to the relevant storage systems at that site.
    • For Fibre Channel, the appropriate zoning must be configured beforehand.
    • For iSCSI, the servers must be configured beforehand to discover and log in to the targets on the storage servers.

Authentication

  • The application server must be registered in ECX using an operating system user that exists on the server (referred to as "ECX agent user" for the rest of this topic).
  • During registration you must provide either a password or a private SSH key that ECX will use to log in to the server.
  • For password-based authentication ensure the password is correctly configured and that the user can log in without facing any other prompts, such as prompts to reset the password.
  • For key-based authentication ensure the public SSH key is placed in the appropriate authorized_keys file for the ECX agent user.
    • Typically, the file is located at /home/<username>/.ssh/authorized_keys
    • Typically, the .ssh directory and all files under it must have their permissions set to 600.

Privileges

The ECX agent user must have the following privileges:

  • Privileges to run commands as root and other users using sudo. ECX requires this for various tasks such as discovering storage layouts and mounting and unmounting disks.
    • The sudoers configuration must allow the ECX agent user to run commands without a password.
    • The !requiretty setting must be set.

For examples on creating a new user with the necessary privileges, see Sample Configuration of an ECX Agent User.

Restore Jobs

When performing a database or filesystem restore from an XFS filesystem, the restore process may fail if the "xfsprogs" package version on the destination server is between 3.2.0 and 4.1.9. To resolve the issue, upgrade xfsprogs to version 4.2.0 or above.

Sample Configuration of an ECX Agent User

The commands below are examples for creating and configuring an operating system user that ECX will use to log in to the application server. The command syntax may vary depending on your operating system type and version.

  • Create the user that will be designated as the ECX agent user: useradd -m ecxagent
  • Set a password if using password-based authentication: passwd ecxagent
  • If using key-based authentication, place the public key in /home/ecxagent/.ssh/authorized_keys, or the appropriate file depending on your sshd configuration, and ensure the correct ownership and permissions are set, such as:
  • chown -R ecxagent:ecxagent /home/ecxagent/.ssh
  • chmod 700 /home/ecxagent/.ssh
  • chmod 600 /home/ecxagent/.ssh/authorized_keys
  • Place the following lines at the end of your sudoers configuration file, typically /etc/sudoers. If your existing sudoers file is configured to import configuration from another directory (for example, /etc/sudoers.d), you can also place the lines in a new file in that directory:
  • Defaults:ecxagent !requiretty
  • ecxagent ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL

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