Release Notes for Cisco UCS Manager, Release 1.1(1)

Table Of Contents

Release Notes for Cisco UCS Manager, Release 1.1(1)

Contents

Introduction

System Requirements

Updating the Cisco UCS Firmware

Upgrade Order

Hardware and Software Interoperability

Known Limitations and Behaviors

Resolved Caveats

Open Caveats

Caveats from Previous Releases

Release 1.0(1)

New Hardware Features in Release 1.1(1)

New Software Features in Release 1.1(1)

Related Documentation

Hardware Documents

Software Documents

Obtaining Documentation and Submitting a Service Request

Release Notes for Cisco UCS Manager, Release 1.1(1)

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First Published: February 5, 2010
Last Updated: June 9, 2010

Part Number: OL-21494-01

This document describes the new features, system requirements, and caveats for Cisco UCS Manager, Release 1.1(1), and all related firmware on blade servers and other Unified Computing System components associated with that release. Use this document in conjunction with the documents listed in the "Related Documentation" section.

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Note We sometimes update the documentation after original publication. Therefore, you should also review the documentation on Cisco.com for any updates. Documentation updates and errata are also in these release notes. The documentation roadmap for this product is available at: http://www.cisco.com/go/unifiedcomputing/b-series-doc

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Table 1 shows the online change history for this document.

Table 1 Online History Change 

Part Number	Revision	Date	Description
OL-21494-01	A0	February 5, 2010	Created release notes for Release 1.1(1j).
	B0	February 19, 2010	Added CSCtf02353
	C0	March 3, 2010	Updated for Release 1.1(1l).
	D0	March 9, 2010	Added CSCtf49065
	E0	June 9, 2010	Updated for Release 1.1(1m)

Contents

This document includes the following sections:

•"Introduction" section

•"System Requirements" section

•"Updating the Cisco UCS Firmware" section

•"Hardware and Software Interoperability" section

•"Known Limitations and Behaviors" section

•"Open Caveats" section

•"Open Caveats" section

•"New Hardware Features in Release 1.1(1)" section

•"New Software Features in Release 1.1(1)" section

•"Related Documentation" section

•"Obtaining Documentation and Submitting a Service Request" section

Introduction

The Cisco® Unified Computing System is a next-generation data center platform that unites compute, network, storage access, and virtualization into a cohesive system designed to reduce total cost of ownership (TCO) and increase business agility. The system integrates a low-latency, lossless 10 Gigabit Ethernet unified network fabric with enterprise-class, x86-architecture servers. The system is an integrated, scalable, multi-chassis platform in which all resources participate in a unified management domain.

System Requirements

Cisco UCS Manager must meet or exceed the following minimum system requirements:

•The Cisco UCS Manager GUI is a Java-based application that requires Sun JRE 1.6 or later.

•UCS Manager uses web start and supports the following web browsers:

–Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 or higher

–Mozilla Firefox 3.0 or higher

•UCS Manager is supported on the following operating systems:

–Microsoft Windows XP

–Microsoft Windows Vista

–-Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.0 or higher

Updating the Cisco UCS Firmware

To update the Cisco UCS firmware, refer to either of the following documents:

•For upgrading from release 1.0(2) to 1.1(1) refer to

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/unified_computing/ucs/sw/upgrading/from1.0.2/to1.1.1/b_Upgrading_Cisco_UCS_from_1.0.2_to_1.1.1.html

•For upgrading from release 1.0(1) to 1.1(1) refer to

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/unified_computing/ucs/sw/upgrading/from1.0.1/to1.1.1/b_UpgradingCiscoUCSFrom1.0.1To1.1.1.html

Upgrade Order

To upgrade from Release 1.0(2) builds to Release 1.1(1), upgrade the software components in the following order:

1. Adapter (interface card) firmware

2. BMC

3. I/O module (set startup version only)

4. Cisco UCS Manager

5. Fabric interconnect

To upgrade from release 1.0(1) builds to Release 1.1(1), upgrade the software components in the following order: If UCS manager is upgraded before the fabric interconnects, LDAP will crash and the fabric interconnects will reboot.

1. Adapter (interface card)

2. BMC

3. I/O module (set startup version only)

4. Fabric interconnect

5. Cisco UCS Manager

Hardware and Software Interoperability

For detailed information about storage switch, operating system, adapter, adapter utility, and storage array interoperability, see the Hardware and Software Interoperability Matrix located at:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps10477/prod_technical_reference_list.html

Known Limitations and Behaviors

Adapters

A UCS B250 M1 Extended Memory Blade Server can hold two mezzanine cards, but they must be the same type. Mixed configurations are not supported.

To deploy two UCS M81KR Virtual Interface Cards on the UCS B250 Extended Memory Blade Server running ESX 4.0 you will need to upgrade to patch 5 (ESX4.0u1p5) or later release of ESX 4.0.

(CSCtd32884 and CSC71310) The type of adapter in a server impacts the maximum MTU supported. Network MTU above the maximums may cause the packet to be dropped for the following adapters:

· The Cisco UCS CNA M71KR adapter supports a maximum MTU of 9216.

· The Cisco UCS 82598KR-CI adapter supports a maximum MTU of 14000.

Recovering the Corrupt BIOS on a Server

(CSCta55689) Before you attempt to recover a corrupt BIOS, remove all attached or mapped USB storage from a server. If an external USB drive is attached or mapped from vMedia to the server, BIOS recovery fails.

UCSM GUI and Boot Order

(CSCtc54935) The Configured Boot Order tab shows the boot order assigned to the server. The Actual Boot Order tab shows exactly what will boot from the various devices in the configuration.

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Note The Actual Boot Order tab always shows "Internal EFI Shell" at the bottom of the boot order list.

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Passwords

(CSCtc70962) Choose a strong password. If a password is not strong, UCSM does not allow it to be set as a local user password. UCSM enforces following rules for a strong password:

1. Must be minimum 8 characters.

2. Must contain at least three of the following: lower case letters, upper case letters, digits or special characters.

3. No character can be repeated more than 3 times consecutively.

4. Must not be same as user name or reverse of user name.

5. Must pass password dictionary check.

6. $ and = symbols are not allowed in the password.

Management GUI

(CSCtb42606) After the initial configuration, you can change the management IP port and the related subnet mask in Cisco UCS Manager CLI. You cannot make this change in Cisco UCS Manager GUI.

(CSCta38463) When several KVM Consoles are launched, the SUN JRE sometimes reports an error and the KVM Console may fail to launch. Launch the KVM Console again to resolve this issue.

(CSCta94641) When waking up a computer from sleep, UCS Manager GUI will detect an event sequencing error and display the error: "Event Sequencing is skewed" because the JRE doesn't have a sleep detection mechanism. Always shut down UCS Manager GUI before putting your computer to sleep.

(CSCtc57481) KVM may fail to open by the first try on a blade. This bug is caused by JRE 1.6_11, see: http://bugs.sun.com/bugdatabase/view_bug.do?bug_id=6741349 To resolve this, upgrade to JRE 1.6_12 or higher.

Boot Order

(CSCtd37421) In UCS Manager we refer to "Primary" and "Secondary" boot order when setting boot devices while creating a Service Profile. The terms "Primary" and "Secondary" commonly imply a certain order, creating the expectation that primary devices are used before secondary devices. Cisco UCS currently does NOT implement any methods to select second level boot devices (that is, select the order among boot devices of the same class - ethernet or storage). None. Be aware that the terms "Primary" and "Secondary" do not imply a boot order. The effective order of boot devices within the same device class is determined by PCIe bus scan order.

SNMP

(CSCta22029) SNMP shows the fabric interconnect name rather than the system name. There is no workaround.

(CSCta24034) An SNMP user name can not be the same as a local user name. Select an SNMP user name that does not match any local user name.

TFTP

(CSCtb45761) Downloads may be slow if TFTP is used. If TFTP performance is slow, use SCP or another protocol.

VM Migration

(CSCtc50558) After a VM is powered off or migrated to a different host, the vSphere Client prevents the power on or migration of the VM to the same host and it reports the error: "Currently connected network interface <x> uses Distributed Virtual Switch (uuid: <y>) which is accessed on the host via a switch that has no free ports." This is most likely to occur when the cumulative number of virtual NICs associated with the VMs powered on a host approaches the number of dynamic vNICs configured in the service profile of the host. UCS Manager configures the number of ports allowed for the DVS on an ESX host to match the number of dynamic vNICs configured in the service profile of the server. After a VM is powered off or migrated to a different ESX host, vSphere Server should recompute the "numPortsAvailable" property in the "hostProxySwitch" object. In the problem scenario, the numPortsAvailable remains zero. After migrating a second VM away from the ESX host, it is possible to power on or migrate a VM on the ESX host.

(CSCtc70450) When attempting to migrate a VM powered on a server to a different data-store on the same server, the vSphere Client prevents the migration and it reports the error: "Currently connected network interface <x> uses Distributed Virtual Switch (uuid: <y>) which is accessed on the host via a switch that has no free ports." This happens when the cumulative number of virtual NICs of the VMs powered on an ESX host matches or exceeds the number of dynamic vNICs configured in the service profile of the server. UCS Manager configures the number of ports allowed for the DVS on an ESX host to match the number of dynamic vNICs configured in the service profile on the server. As result of attempting the VM migration, vSphere Server incorrectly detects an increase in the number of DVS ports used by VMs powered on the host. Shut down VMs on the ESX host and retry the migration.

Resolved Caveats

The following caveat was resolved for the 1.1(1m) release:

•(CSCtg86520) Low Voltage DIMMs are now marked accurately in the PID catalog.

The following caveats are resolved for the 1.1(1l) release:

•CSCtf07276 When rebooting the chassis or removing the links to IOM, the server connectivity on Fabric Interconnect will no longer fail and send the message " Link Failure or not Connected."

•CSCtf02353 UCSM 1.1.(1l) firmware activation during UCS firmware upgrade will not result in a server reboot. Customers upgrading their systems from the 1.0.1 or 1.0.2 release to the 1.1(1l) release will not experience an unexpected server reboot upon UCSM component activation as would happen with UCSM 1.1.(1j).

•CSCte64738 VHBA no longer intermittently experiences loss of path.

The following caveats are resolved for the 1.1(1j) release:

Red Hat Linux

•(CSCsy24735) When the RHEL 5.3 XEN kernel was booted, the following error message appeared as a part of the boot messages: "MCFG area at a0000000 is not E820 reserved." This error message was removed by Redhat in the 5.4 release.

Cisco UCS Manager

•(CSCta26204) (CSCtc66393) IOM Activation status no longer gets stuck in a rebooting state.

•(CSCtc41465) When vHBA templates are modified, changes are quickly propagated to the affected vHBA instances that are bound to the template.

•(CSCtc50661) When binding a service profile to a template the boot order settings will now be set correctly if the service profile had local boot policy settings.

•(CSCtc91210) When deleting or modifying objects, a Cisco UCS Manager GUI timeout message is no longer displayed and no core file generated. The defect occurs under rare circumstances when a large number of objects are simultaneously deleted or modified.

•(CSCsx33526) You can now mix local disk and SAN boot targets in the boot order.

UCS Manager GUI

•(CSCta24307) In the service profile wizard, when changing the boot policy type, such as from no boot policy to a specifically-created boot policy, clicking Reset Values will now reset the page to the initial status.

•(CSCta43745) World Wide Node Names starting with 5 can be used in a service profile.

•(CSCtc50229) When a new server is inserted it can immediately be associated to an existing service profile.

•(CSCtc75362) When the 'Confirm Successful Operations' confirmation messages checkbox for the Cisco UCS Manager properties has been disabled, all successful confirmation messages stop.

Fabric Interconnect

•(CSCta02631) SNMPv3 is now supported on the Cisco UCS fabric interconnect.

•(CSCta29227) The fabric interconnect management interface IP address gets propagated to an upstream MDS. The Fabric Manager is now able to discover the fabric interconnect and is able to retrieve information via SNMP.

•(CSCta84769) The link between the fabric interconnect and the I/O module no longer fails to come up due to "FEX-fabric sfp invalid."

Adapters

•(CSCta29118) IGMP Join group is seen on the fabric interconnect, and multicast packets now reach the server for those multicast groups which were added after the multicast table on the adapter is full.

Open Caveats

The following caveat is open for Release 1.1(1l), most Release 1.1(1j) caveats also apply unless they are listed as resolved for Release 1.1(1l):

Symptom    Pass-through DMA Support selection is not available in the BIOS if it was Disabled prior to the BIOS upgrade. If you had this option Disabled in previous version, the selection is hidden in the updated BIOS.

Workaround   When you are in the BIOS Setup utility, press F9 to Load the BIOS defaults (CSCtb96792)

This section lists the open caveats in the release 1.1(1j) release.

BIOS

Symptom    Low Voltage DIMMs marked as Identity Not Established and are not included in the PID catalog.

Workaround   None. Disregard the message, the DIMMs are fully functional and the error state is a false positive. Closed in 1.1(1m). (CSCtg86520)

Symptom    Sometimes keyboard strokes pressed during the boot sequence are ignored by the KVM Application.

Workaround   Before pressing a key in the KVM Tab, always click the mouse inside the KVM Tab itself. (CSCte36910)

Symptom    With the B-250 blade server, the displayed ESX and Linux OS HDD Boot Device Order is the reverse of the BIOS HDD Boot Order.

Workaround   Review both the disks (and drive labels as applicable) during installations of ESX and Linux versions and choose the correct disk for installation. (CSCtd90695)

Symptom    When memory mirroring configuration is disabled by removing a DIMM, BIOS will switch to the Performance mode, and will not log a SEL that mirroring was disabled.

Workaround   Check the status of the memory mirroring in BIOS Setup->Advanced -> Memory Configuration -> Memory RAS and Performance Configuration. (CSCsy54097)

Symptom    When a faulty DIMM is detected in early BIOS POST (e.g. the blade was powered on with a faulty DIMM), two SEL entries will be sent to the BMC. One entry will be logged for each DIMM.

Workaround   Enter BIOS Setup and navigate to Advanced -> Memory Configuration. This menu will help to distinguish a faulty DIMM from its neighbor. (CSCsy97698)

Symptom    When hot plugging or removing USB devices at a BIOS Setup -> Advanced -> USB screen, the Setup Utility may freeze.

Workaround   Reboot the server. (CSCsz41907)

Symptom    When a NIC is not present in the system, or is not part of the boot order, the BIOS produces the prompt "Press F12 to boot from the Network".

Workaround   None. (CSCsz44683)

Symptom    If a single DIMM in a channel is marked faulty during BIOS POST, the entire channel is marked faulty. Even empty DIMM slots can be marked faulty.

Workaround   None. This is a false positive error message, it can be safely ignored. (CSCsz73464)

Symptom    Installing EFI Native SLES 11 is not supported in this release.

Workaround   Currently, there is no workaround. (CSCsz99666)

Symptom    If the BIOS scrub policy is enabled for a service profile, in some rare circumstances, the BIOS reset will cause the Association or Disassociation time to increase to as much as 15 minutes.

Workaround   The default setting is for the BIOS Scrub policy to be DISABLED. Rather than use the BIOS scrub policy; use the "Clear CMOS" option to reset all BIOS settings. (CSCta10138)

Symptom    Disabling USB 2.0 through Advanced->USB could result in inconsistent information on that particular page. Some devices may not show up as expected. This does not results in functional degradation during POST.

Workaround   Either don't disable USB 2.0 (we are not aware of any need to disable it), or ignore the resulting artifacts in the BIOS setup. (CSCta21849)

Symptom    FSM gets stuck in an Error Configuring the Local Disk Controller state due to various underlying conditions. Those can include but are not limited to the following:

•The Local Disks not getting discovered correctly or are "available/presence-Equipped" but not in a Ready state.

•Failures that can't be correctly communicated to Cisco UCS Manager can get reported as this type of error.

Workaround   Remove and insert all of the local disks from the failing server, then re-acknowledge the server. (CSCta45805)

Symptom    The Disk Fault/Error Codes, Disk Status, Alarms and the failures forwarded by the SAS Controller are not received by Cisco UCS Manager.

Workaround   None. (CSCsy76853)

Symptom    After resetting the CMOS the system date needs to be reset to current.

Workaround   None. (CSCtb12390)

Symptom    After moving a mirrored RAID cluster from one server to another server, it fails to boot and is reported as a foreign RAID.

Workaround   Array activation is necessary to convert the foreign RAID to a native RAID by utilizing the RAID configuration Utility within the BIOS. (CSCtd59353)

Red Hat Linux

Symptom    Network usage (e.g. SCP, FTP, web browsing, etc.) causes a kernel panic on RHEL5.4 Xen kernel (2.6.18-164.el5xen).

Workaround   Please refer to http://kbase.redhat.com/faq/docs/DOC-23816 for the workaround. (CSCte11502)

Symptom    When a vNIC is not in failover mode and a link down event occurs, the network traffic on the blades is disrupted with a system running RHEL 5.3.

Workaround   This is a known issue with the ixgbe driver in RHEL 5.3 and because RHEL 5.4 is the latest release, Redhat recommends upgrading the systems to the RHEL 5.4. If you cannot upgrade to RHEL 5.4, below are a few suggestions that has been found to work.

1. Restart the network.

service network restart

or

ifdown ethx 

ifup ethx  

2. Run your system with nomsi.

•Edit /etc/grub.conf

•Add pci=nomsi to the kernel line

•Restart the system with this kernel

Note that network performance may be affected since the system is running in legacy mode. (CSCte44548)

Symptom    When using the Cisco UCS M81KR Virtual Interface Card and Large Receive Offload (LRO), you may encounter a panic when traffic forwarding and LRO are enabled with RHEL 5.4 - xen kernel.

Workaround   For steps and more information on this issue, refer to the article http://kbase.redhat.com/faq/docs/DOC-22147 (CSCte53336)

Adapters

Symptom    When a DCBXP peer on a physical interface sends two different unique identifiers in the Protocol data unit in the same session, a DCBXP process error disables the port.

Workaround   Issue the following commands to enable the port:

scope chassis <Chassis Id> 

scope server <Server Id> 

scope adapter <Adapter Id> 

scope ext-eth-if <Id> 

set adminstate reset-connectivity 

commit-buffer 

Wait for a minute, the port will come up.(CSCsx42435)

XML API

Symptom    From XML API, for properties that are based on an enum type, users are able to send numeric values that don't correspond to an enum constant, and these numeric values are not validated.

Workaround   For enum properties, only send enum constants. (CSCtb55756)

KVM

Symptom    During the Server Power-State Management, the KVM session may be aborted with a message displaying "Network Connection Dropped".

Workaround   Close the KVM session(s) that have been aborted and open a new KVM session. (CSCtc53253)

Cisco UCS Manager

Symptom    UCSM 1.1.(1j) firmware activation during UCS firmware upgrade will result in a server. reboot. Customers upgrading their systems from the 1.0.1 or 1.0.2 release to the 1.1(1j) release will experience an unexpected server reboot upon UCSM component activation. This is a result of an incorrect setting of the internal VNIC/VHBA property called lifecycle, that makes the system believe that reconfiguration of these objects is required. This reconfiguration triggers a server reboot.

Workaround   No workaround currently exists. Customers can install the 1.1.(1j) release if a server reboot is acceptable for their firmware upgrade scenario and a maintenance window is scheduled. Customers that do not consider a server reboot as an acceptable condition during UCSM FW activation, should install release 1.1(1m). (CSCtf02353)

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Note Please note that BIOS and interface card firmware upgrade still require a server reboot. Customers are expected to continue their operations after UCS firmware upgrade with a new BIOS and Interface Card firmware. Therefore the server reboot described in CSCtf02353 is an unexpected condition on UCSM activation, but still fits in the current firmware upgrade completion requirements.

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Note CSCtf02353 will not be a problem on newly purchased systems that ship with Release 1.1.(1j).

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Symptom    After a host profile is applied to ports in VMware Center, vCenter does not allow the user to remove a pNIC.

Workaround   None. Host profiles are not supported by VN-Link in hardware. (CSCtc58014)

Symptom    The disk scrub policy does not meet DoD compliance.

Workaround   None. (CSCsy20036)

Symptom    After the removal or insertion of one or more local disks, their full discovery fails.

Workaround   Re-acknowledge the server to complete the full discovery. (CSCsy80888)

Symptom    One vNIC defined in the service profile boot order results in two BIOS vNICs.

Workaround   Avoid defining two different pxelinux.cfg/<MAC> files that have different boot/install instructions. When booted, both vNICs should execute the same PXE configuration. (CSCsz41107)

Symptom    After a full restore of the primary fabric interconnect, the subordinate fabric interconnect installation may temporarily fail with the following message:

Enter the admin password of the peer switch:

    Connecting to peer switch... unable to connect! Password could be wrong.

    Hit enter to try again or type 'restart' to start setup from beginning...

Workaround   Retry the fabric interconnect installation. (CSCsz85876)

Symptom    Changing the QoS class of service value for FCoE traffic can disruptive FCoE traffic. FC I/O could be dropped.

Workaround   The QoS architecture should be planned before deploying. Be aware that a change in class of service value for FCoE traffic can disrupt FCoE traffic. (CSCta16847)

Symptom    When the time-based UUID generation method is used in the UUIDgen tool, the system reports duplicate UUIDs because UUIDs are validated based on their suffix, whereas the time-stamp method creates UUIDs with unique prefixes, but non-unique suffixes.

Workaround   Use the random method in the UUIDgen tool to ensure that suffixes are unique. (CSCta40790)

Symptom    For a given port profile with existing VIFs, if the "Max-Ports" setting is reduced from the currently configured value to a value less than the "Used-Ports" value reported for that port profile by VMware vCenter, this is a mis-configuration. The new value for "Max-Ports" for that port profile will only be updated in Cisco UCS Manager and its update in VMware Center will fail, causing a inconsistency between Cisco UCS Manager and VMware Center Server.

Workaround   If the need arises to reduce the value of "Max-Ports" of a given port profile, the new value should be at least the value of "Used-Ports" reported by the VMware Center for all the DVSes for that port profile (not lower than maximum of all the "Used-Ports" values). This constraint has to be ensured manually. (CSCte12163)

Symptom    When a service profile containing 2 vNICs and having failover enabled is applied to some adapters, the fail back timeout specified in the adapter policy for the second vNIC has no effect. The fail back timeout specified in the adapter policy and applied to the first vNIC is applied to the whole adapter and effective for both vNICs.

Workaround   Specify the desired timeout in the adapter policy and apply to the first vNIC. (CSCsz68887)

Symptom    Cisco UCS Manager reports incorrect v NICs or VIFs associated with a given Virtual Machine if and only if the Virtual Machine is deployed from VMware Center in Fault-Tolerance (Active-Standby) mode and the Virtual Machine happens to be the standby or FT Virtual Machine.

Workaround   None. (CSCte45010)

Cisco UCS Manager GUI

Symptom    In Release 1.1(1), the static splash image that is briefly shown when the application is launched shows 1.3 instead of 1.1. This is visible for a few seconds, and is then replaced by the image with the correct version.

Workaround   None. For Release 1.1, this is a purely cosmetic issue. This problem is fixed in Release 1.2 and higher. (CSCtf49065)

Symptom    The UCSM GUI could show all DIMMs to be in array 1, and maximum memory for a blade of 192GB for a B200.

Workaround   This is a display-only issue, and does not affect functionality. DIMMs may be physically located in array 1 or array 2. (CSCta56527)

Symptom    Hardware revision numbers for fabric interconnect components are not populated in the Cisco UCS Manager.

Workaround   Enter the connect nxos command to connect to the native NX-OS CLI, then issue the appropriate show sprom component command and look for H/W Version: field in the command output. (CSCta12005)

Symptom    In the Cisco UCS Manager GUI, you can only select port channels and individual uplink ports as pin targets, but the Cisco UCS Manager CLI allows you to also select port channel member ports as pin targets.

Workaround   Port channel member ports should not be selected as pin targets, even if the Cisco UCS Manager CLI allows you to. (CSCta60495)

Symptom    After launching Cisco UCS Manager GUI and selecting the Firmware Versions section of the SAS Controller, Cisco UCS Manager reports the complete FW section as blank.

Workaround   The user needs to select some other Servers or other Inventory sections of the same Server first and then select the FW Versions section of the SAS Controller. (CSCtc62337)

Symptom    The OS on the server ignored the soft shutdown request by Cisco UCS Manager. Even if you have selected "Shutdown Server" from Cisco UCS Manager GUI and click the "Gracefully shutdown OS"UI field. There is no change to the power state of the server and no faults are shown in Cisco UCS Manager.

Workaround   Uncheck the "Graceful shutdown" checkbox and try the shutdown again. (CSCtc77623)

Symptom    Even though there are no POST failures in the chassis, Cisco UCS Manager may sometimes display the overall status of the chassis as POST-failure.

Workaround   Check the chassis POST messages for errors, and if there are none, ignore the Cisco UCS Manager status message. (CSCsz01878)

Symptom    Statistics counters cannot be cleared using Cisco UCS Manager CLI.

Workaround   Clear the counters using the Cisco UCS Manager GUI. (CSCsz47512)

Symptom    The assignment of servers to dynamic pools do not automatically occur.

Workaround   Re-acknowledge the server to enable it as a candidate for pool assignment. (CSCta06882)

Symptom    In Cisco UCS Manager GUI, if the Reboot on boot Order Change checkbox is checked for a boot policy, and if CD-ROM or Floppy is the last device in the boot order, then deleting or adding the device does not directly affect the boot order and the server does not reboot.

Workaround   None. (CSCta54895)

Symptom    When a cluster configuration is set up such that I/O module 1 goes to fabric interconnect B and I/O module 2 goes to fabric interconnect A, then the Ethernet devices are given ports 1 and 0. However if the setup is straight, with I/O Module 1 connected to fabric interconnect A and I/O Module 2 to fabric interconnect B, then the devices are assigned ports 0 and 1.

Workaround   Connect IOM1 to fabric-interconnect A, and IOM2 to fabric-interconnect B. (CSCtb35660)

Symptom    When checking for UUID uniqueness, currently only the UUID suffix is checked.

Workaround   Use a single UUID prefix. (CSCtc59481)

Symptom    A service profile associates even if the VLAN-Port instances count is reached.

Workaround   Current limit per switch is 3140. Avoid creating a high number of VLANs in conjunction with a high number of uplink ports. Try to avoid bulk committing on many service profiles at the same time. (CSCtd41935)

Symptom    System takes several minutes to initialize when a large number of virtual interfaces is configured. When a system with a large number of virtual interfaces is rebooted, it can take several minutes to initialize and complete configuration of the virtual interfaces

Workaround   None. (CSCtd59681)

Symptom    Removing servers that have not been previously decommissioned can lead to undefined or missing slots if a new server is subsequently inserted.

Workaround   Always decommission servers before removing them from the chassis for anything but a brief repair or upgrade. If a server is removed without decommissioning, reinsert the old server and decommission it before removal. (CSCtd86292)

Symptom    In a Cisco UCS instance with five or more chassis, the following sequence of events may cause the system to not be in high availability ready state for a period of up to five minutes:

1. Discover all chassis

2. Wait for HA READY

3. Decommission all chassis

4. Recommission all chassis

Workaround   Wait for the HA READY state. (CSCsz40462)

Symptom    Logon access is denied for user accounts where the password field was left blank during user account creation.

Workaround   When creating a user account, ensure that a secure password for the account is specified. (CSCta21326)

Symptom    When a fabric interconnect moves from standalone mode to cluster mode the virtual IP Address may be overwritten by the out of band IP of the primary fabric-interconnect. This issue happens only if the out of band IP was modified in stand alone mode before changing the mode to cluster.

Workaround   After using the cluster enable option, change the cluster IP again. This should fix the cluster IP. (CSCta73919)

Symptom    When more than 10 Cisco UCS Manager GUI sessions are open at the same time with remote authentication for a long time (typically for a few hours), one of the Cisco UCS Manager GUI sessions may fail to re-authenticate. This causes the session that fails the re-authentication to close. The problem does not happen when local authentication is in use.

Workaround   Re-login to the Cisco UCS Manager GUI session when it closes. (CSCtb05260)

Fabric Interconnect

Symptom    Without pin group configuration, server interfaces are pinned to uplink interfaces of the fabric interconnect dynamically and the pinning is redistributed as uplink interfaces go up or down. In some situations, the distribution of server interfaces across uplink interfaces is not balanced. Potential impact is some uplinks are under utilized.

Workaround   None. (CSCsv92356)

Symptom    At bootup of the fabric interconnect, the following message will be displayed on the console: "The startup-config won't be used until the next reboot."

Workaround   None, just ignore the message. (CSCsx13134)

Symptom    Console login is treating the admin and ADMIN account as the same. Console login name on the fabric interconnect is not case sensitive, so there is no differentiation between e.g. 'admin' and 'ADMIN'.

Workaround   Implement usernames that are not case sensitive. (CSCsy15489)

Symptom    When you set a TFTP core exporter IP address through Cisco UCS Manager, the fabric interconnect accepts the address even if it is malformed, e.g 1.2.3.412. This does not pose any functional impact to core exporter with valid IP addresses.

Workaround   Remove the malformed core exporter IP address. (CSCsz75747)

Symptom    A target might not be discovered when configured in an IVR Zone. vHBA driver uses a timeout of 2 seconds for a login command sent to the target. In IVR Zoning setups, a switch can sometimes hold the login command for longer than 2 seconds before forwarding it.

Workaround   There is no real workaround in ESX 4.0 u1 other than not using IVR zoning for such targets. The vHBA driver in later versions of ESX has a fix for this issue. (CSCtd32228)

Symptom    Under high stress on the system with repeated port flapping and a default or native VLAN changing simultaneously, a process may cause the fabric interconnect to reload.

Workaround   None. (CSCta09325)

Symptom    The show cdp neighbor command does not display information for CDP neighbors seen from the management interface, nor does it display the fabric interconnect CDP information corresponding to the management interface.

Workaround   None. (CSCta25287)

Symptom    Under some circumstances, system messages are not shown on the terminal monitor even though logging on terminal monitor is enabled globally and on a particular session.

Workaround   Use some other destination such as a console, remote server, or local log file. If using a terminal monitor as a systlog destination, re-issue the terminal monitor command from the NXOS CLI every time after changing any syslog configuration. (CSCta31689)

Symptom    When multiple SNMP trap hosts are configured, SNMP traps are only sent to the first host.

Workaround   Configure only one SNMP trap host. (CSCta36817)

Symptom    With FM/DM version 5.0(0.295) and UCS 1.1 release, a security user defined in Cisco UCS Manager does not get displayed on FM/DM.

Workaround   None. Please verify user security from Cisco UCS Manager. (CSCte25876)

UCS Manager CLI

Symptom    The UUID of the VM changes in VMware vCenter. After a VM restarts, the virtual machine node on the VM tab shows multiple instances of the same VM with one online and one offline.

Workaround   After the VM retention period configured in the VM lifecycle policy has passed, Cisco UCS Manager deletes the offline instance automatically. (CSCtc86297)

Symptom    If multiple vHBA initiators are configured in the same zone so that they are visible to each other and can login to each other, and storage multipathing is not configured with active and standby paths through the Cisco UCS fabric interconnects (There is only one path through the primary fabric interconnect), and the primary fabric interconnect is rebooted, the vHBA driver can be exposed to a situation in which two initiators can try to login to each other at the same time, and cause a host crash.

Workaround   Do not configure multiple vHBA initiators in the same zone, to ensure that they are not visible to each other. (CSCte36784)

Symptom    ESX Read and Write commands sent on a vHBA keep timing out and being aborted even if the target device is logged into the network. This can happen if the link flaps very fast from up to down to up and memory allocation for the link event fails. The vHBA driver misses the link down event and it does not re-login to the fabric interconnect. The fabric interconnect, however, has no login state for the vHBA and so drops all packets from the vHBA.

Workaround   Disable and re-enable the port on the UCS fabric interconnect that corresponds to the vHBA. (CSCte08092)

Caveats from Previous Releases

The following caveats were opened in UCS software release 1.0(2) and are still unresolved.

Adapters

Symptom    If default adapter policies are used, windows OS can take a long time to boot due to non-ideal VHBA related settings.

Workaround   Create an adapter policy with optimal values and use that in the service profile. (CSCtb99003)

BIOS

Symptom    With various Local Disk Configurations, the LSI SAS Configuration Utility fails to launch while in BIOS.

Workaround   The LSI SAS Controller Utility should not be used and all of the Local Disk Policy and Service Profile operations must be executed using UCSM. (CSCtc21336)

Symptom    If the BIOS scrub policy is enabled for a Service Profile. In some rare circumstances, the BIOS clear will cause the Association/Dissassociation time to increase to as much as 15 minutes.

Workaround   The default setting is for the BIOS Scrub policy to be set to DISABLED. Rather than use the BIOS scrub policy; the "Clear CMOS" should be used to reset all BIOS settings. (CSCta10138)

Symptom    Disabling USB 2.0 is disabled through Advanced->USB, results in various artifacts on that particular page. Some devices may not show up as expected. This results in no functional degredation during POST.

Workaround   Either don't disable USB 2.0 (we are currently are not aware of any need to disable it), or ignore the resulting artifacts in the BIOS setup. (CSCta21849)

Symptom    When the memory mirroring configuration is destroyed by removing a DIMM, the BIOS will switch to the Performance mode, and will not log a message that mirroring was disabled.

Workaround   Check the status of the memory mirroring in BIOS Setup->Advanced -> Memory Configuration -> Memory RAS and Performance Configuration. (CSCsy54097)

Symptom    When plugging or removing USB devices at BIOS Setup -> Advanced -> USB, the Setup Utility may hang.

Workaround   Reboot the server. (CSCsz41907)

Fabric Interconnect

Symptom    When a fabric interconnect moves from standalone mode to cluster mode it is possible that the virtual IP gets overwritten by the out of band IP of the primary fabric-interconnect. This issue happens only if the OOB IP was modified in stand-alone mode before changing the mode to cluster.

Workaround   After using the cluster enable option, change the cluster IP again. This should fix the cluster IP. (CSCta73919)

Firmware Management

Symptom    IOM Activation status gets stuck in ""rebooting"" even though IOM was not rebooted. This can happen if IOM was activated back and forth with and without ""set-startup-only"" options respectively.

Workaround   None needed. IOM functionality is not disrupted by this. IOM can be updated and activated as usual. Also, the activate state will converge if there is a switch or IOM reboot. (CSCtc66393)

HTTP

Symptom    HTTPD process crashed, with the following event log:

Process crashed. Core file 1253640662_SAM_ucs-6120-1-A_httpd_log.3114.tar.gz (SAM/Switch Core Dump) detected on fabric interconnect A

Workaround   None. (CSCtc13234)

Pinning

Symptom    In End Host Mode, a server MAC address is only learned on the server facing interface and not the network facing interface. When a MAC address moves out of a UCS-6100, the flushing of the MAC from the original switch depends on gratuitous broadcast packets being sent from the new location and being received by the original switch. In case of a high burst of moves, the notification mechanism on the original switch may not be able to keep up with the events. The loss of such move events will cause the mac to not get flushed from the original switch and cause traffic black-hole for hosts on the same switch trying to communicate with this MAC.

Workaround   The MAC address age is being displayed in the output of the NX-OS show mac address-table CLI command. If duplicate MAC addresses are seen on multiple switches, the clear mac address command can be used to remove the ones not being used. (CSCtb83759)

UCS Manager GUI

Symptom    When more than 10 GUI sessions are open at the same time with remote authentication for a long time (typically for few hours), it has been observed that one of the GUI sessions fails to re-authenticate. This causes the session that fails re-authentication to close. Problem does not happen when local authentication is in use.

Workaround   Re-login to the GUI session when it closes. (CSCtb05260)

Symptom    When waking up from sleep, the UCS Manager GUI will detect an event sequencing error and display the error: "Event Sequencing is skewed" because the JRE doesn't have a sleep detection mechanism.

Workaround   Always shut down the UCSM GUI before putting your computer to sleep. (CSCta94641)

UUID

Symptom    When checking for UUID uniqueness, currently only the UUID suffix is checked.

Workaround   Use a single UUID prefix. (CSCtc59481)

Symptom    Downloads may be slow if TFTP is used.

Workaround   If TFTP performance is slow, use SCP or another protocol. (CSCtb45761)

Release 1.0(1)

The following caveats were opened in UCS software release 1.0(1e) and are still present.

AAA

Symptom   Local user passwords can not contain "$" character.

Workaround   Do not include the "$" character in local user passwords. (CSCsz44814)

Symptom   When using a fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of an LDAP provider, the FQDN is not resolved with DNS, and user authentication using the LDAP provider does not work.

Workaround   Use an IP address instead of an FQDN when creating LDAP providers. (CSCta09972)

Symptom   The IPMI user database in not backed up in the UCS Manager when you export a configuration backup.

Workaround   After the configuration import is done, manually configure the IPMI user profile. (CSCta48483)

Adapters

Symptom   With fabric failover being enabled in a service profile associated with a QLogic or Emulex CNA, there is a potential traffic loss in the network-to-host direction if the fabric interconnect is operating in End Host mode. The duration of loss depends on how soon after failover the host sends a packet towards the network.

Workaround   The traffic loss ends as soon as the host sends a packet after the failover. If the host is a silent host, inject traffic from the host towards the network. (CSCsw39341)

Symptom   When a service profile containing two vNICs and having failover enabled is applied to QLogic or Emulex CNAs, the failback timeout specified in the adapter policy for the second vNIC has no effect. The failback timeout specified in the adapter policy and applied to the first vNIC is applied to the whole adapter and is effective for both vNICs.

Workaround   Specify the desired failback timeout in the adapter policy and apply to the first vNIC. (CSCsz68887)

Symptom   When a DCBXP peer on a physical interface sends two different unique identifiers in the protocol data unit in the same session, a DCBXP process error disables the port.

Workaround   Enter the following commands and then wait for a minute for the port to come up:

scope chassis chassis-id

scope server server-id

scope adapter adapter-id

scope ext-eth-if ext-eth-if-id

set adminstate reset-connectivity

commit-buffer

(CSCsx42435)

BIOS

Symptom   When a blade server is powered on with a faulty DIMM, the BIOS POST detects the faulty DIMM and two SEL entries are sent to the BMC. One entry is logged for each DIMM.

Workaround   Enter the BIOS setup and navigate to the Advanced > Memory Configuration menu to distinguish the faulty DIMM from its neighbor. (CSCsy97698)

Symptom   Installing EFI Native SLES 11 is currently not supported in this release.

Workaround   None. (CSCsz99666)

Symptom   One vNIC defined in the UCS Manager service profile boot order results in two BIOS vNICs.

Workaround   Avoid defining two different pxelinux.cfg/<MAC> files that have different boot/install instructions. When booted, both vNICs should execute the same PXE configuration. (CSCsz41107)

Fabric Interconnect

Symptom   Without pin-group configuration, server interfaces are dynamically pinned to fabric interconnect uplink interfaces, and the pinning is redistributed as uplink interfaces go up or down. In some situations, the distribution of server interfaces across uplink interfaces is not even.

Workaround   None. (CSCsv92356)

Symptom   When a fabric interconnect boots, the "The startup-config won't be used until the next reboot" message appears on the console. Fabric interconnect configuration is controlled by the UCS Manager, so this message has no meaning on the fabric interconnect configuration and has no functional impact.

Workaround   None. (CSCsx13134)

Symptom   Console logon user names on the fabric interconnect are not case sensitive. For example, there is no differentiation between admin and ADMIN.

Workaround   Use case insensitive user names. (CSCsy15489)

Symptom   When you set TFTP core exporter IP address through the UCS Manager, the fabric interconnect accepts the address even if it is malformed; for example, 1.2.3.412. This has no functional impact to core exporter with valid IP addresses.

Workaround   Remove the malformed core exporter IP address. (CSCsz75747)

Symptom   When the system is under high stress, with repeated port flapping (ports rapidly going up and down) and default (native) VLAN change, the FWM process may core and cause the fabric interconnect to reload.

Workaround   None. (CSCta09325)

Symptom   Changing the QoS class of service value for FCoE traffic can disruptive FCoE traffic. FC I/O would be dropped.

Workaround   The QoS architecture should be planned before deploying. Be aware that a change in class of service value for FCoE traffic can disrupt FCoE traffic. (CSCta16847)

Symptom   The show cdp neighbor CLI command does not display information for CDP neighbors seen from the management interface, nor does it display the fabric interconnect CDP information corresponding to the management interface.

Workaround   None. (CSCta25287)

Symptom   Under some circumstances, syslog messages are not shown on a terminal monitor even though logging on the terminal monitor is enabled globally and on a particular session.

Workaround   Use a different syslog destination, such as console, remote server, or local log file. (CSCta31689)

Symptom   When multiple SNMP trap hosts are configured, SNMP traps are only sent to the first host.

Workaround   Configure only one SNMP trap host. (CSCta36817)

Faults and Alerts

Symptom   Even though there are no POST failures in the chassis, the UCS Manager sometimes displays the overall status of the chassis as POST-failure.

Workaround   Check the chassis POST messages for errors, and if there are none, ignore the UCS Manager status message. (CSCsz01878)

Symptom   In rare cases the UCS Manager reports the link absence fault between the fabric interconnect server port and the fabric extender during the internal inventory collection. The following is an example of such a fault:

*************************** 

Severity: Cleared 

Code: F0367 

Last Transition Time: 2009-07-15T11:47:49 

ID: 646445 

Status: None 

Description: No link between fabric extender port 2/1/1 and switch A:1/9 

Affected Object: sys/chassis-2/slot-1/fabric/port-1 

Name: Ether Switch Intfio Satellite Connection Absent Cause: Satellite Connection 
Absent 

Type: Connectivity 

Acknowledged: No 

Occurences: 1 

Creation Time: 2009-07-15T11:46:49 

Original Severity: Major 

Previous Severity: Major 

Highest Severity: Major 

******************************* 

Workaround   Ignore the fault message; it will automatically get cleared after one minute. This will not impact the data path. (CSCta76573)

High Availability

Symptom   On a system with five or more chassis, the following sequence of events causes the system to not be HA ready for up to five minutes:

1. Discover all chassis

2. Wait for HA READY

3. Decommission all chassis

4. Recommission all chassis

Workaround   Wait for HA READY. (CSCsz40462)

Symptom   After a full restore of the primary fabric interconnect, the subordinate fabric interconnect installation may temporarily fail with the following message:

Enter the admin password of the peer switch:

    Connecting to peer switch... unable to connect! Password could be wrong.

    Hit enter to try again or type 'restart' to start setup from beginning...

Workaround   Retry the fabric interconnect installation.(CSCsz85876)

Inventory

Symptom   Hardware revision numbers for fabric interconnect components are not populated in the UCS Manager.

Workaround   Perform the following steps to determine the revision number for a fabric interconnect component:

1. Enter the connect nxos command to connect to the native NX-OS CLI.

2. Enter the appropriate show sprom component command and look for H/W Version: field in the command output. (CSCta12005)

Symptom   All DIMMs are reported to be in array 1, and maximum memory for a blade is reported as 192 GB.

Workaround   DIMMs may be physically located in array 1 or array 2, and the maximum memory is 96 GB. This is a display-only issue, and does not affect functionality. (CSCta56527)

Pinning

Symptom   In the UCS Manager GUI, you can only select port channels and individual uplink ports as pin targets, but the UCS Manager CLI allows you to also select port channel member ports as pin targets.

Workaround   Port channel member ports should not be selected as pin targets, even if the UCS Manager CLI allows you to. (CSCta60495)

Pools and Policies

Symptom   The assignment of servers to pools in a dynamic pool are not dynamically assigned. To have a server assigned to a pool, it must be re-acknowledged. This should happen automatically based on the server pool policy qualifications as soon as the qualification is associated to a pool.

Workaround   Re-acknowledge the server to enable it as a candidate for pool assignment. (CSCta06882)

Server

•

Symptom   Local disk removal and insertion is not detected.

Workaround   Select the Re-Acknowledge Server option in UCS Manager GUI to discover the server. (CSCsy80888)

Symptom   The disk scrub policy needs enhancements to meet DOD compliance.

Workaround   None. (CSCsy20036)

SNMP

Symptom   SNMP shows the fabric inteconnect name rather than system name.

Workaround   None. (CSCta22029)

Symptom   An SNMP user name can not be the same as a local user name.

Workaround   Select an SNMP user name that does not match any local user name. (CSCta24034)

SMASH

Symptom   Any SMASH command entered with wrong option should give "INVALID OPTION" error message.

Workaround   None. (CSCsv87256)

UCS Manager CLI

Symptom   Statistics counters cannot be cleared using the UCS Manager CLI.

Workaround   Clear the counters using the UCS Manager GUI. (CSCsz47512)

UCS Manager GUI

Symptom   When several KVM Consoles are launched, the SUN JRE sometimes reports an error and the KVM Console fails to launch.

Workaround   Launch the KVM Console again. (CSCta38463)

Symptom   In the UCS Manager GUI, if the Reboot on boot Order Change checkbox is checked for a boot policy, and if CD-ROM or Floppy is the last device in the boot order, then deleting or adding the device does not directly affect the boot order and the server does not reboot.

Workaround   None. (CSCta54895)

Symptom   Fibre Channel port and server port events do not appear on the Fibre Channel port and server port Events tabs.

Workaround   Look on the Admin Events tab for Fibre Channel port and server port events. (CSCta66375)

UUID

Symptom   When the time-based UUID generation method is used in the uuidgen tool, the system reports duplicate UUIDs because UUIDs are validated based on their suffix, whereas time-stamp method creates UUIDs with unique prefixes, but non-unique suffixes.

Workaround   Use the random method in the uuidgen tool to ensure that suffixes are unique. (CSCta40790)

New Hardware Features in Release 1.1(1)

This release adds support for the:

•Cisco UCS 6140XP fabric interconnect

•N10-E0060 6-port 8/4/2/1 G Fibre Channel uplink module

•Cisco UCS M81KR Virtual Interface Card. In a UCS B250 M1 Extended Memory Blade Server, the UCS M81KR Virtual Interface Card must go in slot 0 only and can not be mixed with other adapters.

New Software Features in Release 1.1(1)

This release adds support for the following features:

•Rate limiting and VN-LINK in Hardware enhancements on the Cisco UCS M81KR Virtual Interface Card

•Fabric based failover

•Key based authentication between UCS Manager and vCenter.

•Support for up to 1000 VIFs

•Port security

•Traffic shaping

•Multiple DVSes within the same VMware data center

•Port profiles for VMs to match capabilities in VMware port groups

•SEL backup, viewer, and automated management

•KVM Launch Manager

•UCS instances now scale to up to 10 UCS 5108 chassis.

Related Documentation

•Cisco UCS Documentation Roadmap

•Cisco UCS Manager Troubleshooting Guide

•MIB Quick Reference for Cisco UCS Manager

Hardware Documents

•Cisco UCS Site Preparation Guide

•Cisco UCS 5108 Server Chassis Hardware Installation Guide

•Cisco UCS 6100 Series Fabric Interconnect Hardware Installation Guide

•Regulatory Compliance and Safety Information for Cisco UCS

Software Documents

•Cisco UCS Manager CLI Configuration Guide, Release 1.1(1)

•Cisco UCS Manager GUI Configuration Guide, Release 1.1(1)

•Cisco UCS Manager CLI Command Reference, Release 1.1(1)

•Cisco UCS Manager XML API Programmer's Guide

Obtaining Documentation and Submitting a Service Request

For information on obtaining documentation, submitting a service request, and gathering additional information, see the monthly What's New in Cisco Product Documentation, which also lists all new and revised Cisco technical documentation, at:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/general/whatsnew/whatsnew.html

Subscribe to the What's New in Cisco Product Documentation as an RSS feed and set content to be delivered directly to your desktop using a reader application. The RSS feeds are a free service. Cisco currently supports RSS Version 2.0.

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This document is to be used in conjunction with the documents listed in the "Related Documentation" section.

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Any Internet Protocol (IP) addresses and phone numbers used in this document are not intended to be actual addresses and phone numbers. Any examples, command display output, network topology diagrams, and other figures included in the document are shown for illustrative purposes only. Any use of actual IP addresses or phone numbers in illustrative content is unintentional and coincidental.

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