Release Notes

 
 

SoftNAS™ Cloud 3.2– November 10, 2014

 

Overview

 
SoftNAS™ Cloud 3.2 is a release containing new features, fixes, and improvements.
 

Upgrading

 
Upgrading from 3.1.x to 3.2:
 
No reboot is required.
 
Upgrading from 3.0.x to 3.2:
 
After applying the upgrade, a reboot is required.  Upgrading could take as long as 30 minutes, so schedule downtime accordingly.
 
Upgrading from 2.x to 3.2:
 
After applying the upgrade, a reboot is required.  The upgrade process can take as long as 2 hours to apply, depending upon your Internet speed and resources assigned to the SoftNAS virtual appliance.  Planned downtime should be schedule for the upgrade.
 

New in SoftNAS™ Cloud 3.2

 
AWS Identity and Access Management
SoftNAS™ Cloud now supports AWS Identity & Access Management.  IAM Roles for Amazon Web Services make it easier to securely access AWS services from EC2 instances.  AWS keys and master credentials continue to be supported.
 
Enhanced AWS Disk Management
StorageCenter™ now supports:
 
•     Importing S3 disks
•     Adding EBS disks
 

Fixed in SoftNAS™ Cloud 3.2

 
The following issues are resolved with this release:
 
·     Fixed authentication redirect from HTTP to HTTPS
·     EC2 instance store can be used as read cache
·     Improved security by updating Apache, latest CentOS updates, added session timeouts, disable Apache version info header, and disabling OPTIONS and TRACE methods
·     Welcome Screen can be hidden
·     Host name added to StorageCenter™ header for easy reference
·     Disabled throttle for SnapReplicate™ as default setting
 
 

SoftNAS™ Cloud 3.1.1 - October 28th 2014

 

Overview

 
SoftNAS™ Cloud 3.1.1 is a release containing new features, fixes, and improvements.
 

Upgrading

 
Upgrading from 2.x to 3.1.1:
 
After applying the upgrade, a reboot is required. The upgrade process can take as long as 2 hours to apply, depending upon your Internet speed and resources assigned to the SoftNAS virtual appliance.  Planned downtime should be scheduled for the upgrade.
 
Upgrading from 3.0.x to 3.1.1:
 
After applying the upgrade, a reboot is required.  Upgrading could take as long as 30 minutes, schedule downtime accordingly.
 
Upgrading from 3.1.0 to 3.1.1:
 
After applying the upgrade, a reboot is required.  Upgrading could take as long as 30 minutes, schedule downtime accordingly.
 

New in SoftNAS Cloud 3.1.1

 
Microsoft Azure Marketplace
 
SoftNAS Cloud can now be deployed from the Microsoft Azure Marketplace.  Added features include:
  • StorageCenter is integrated for management of SoftNAS Cloud in Azure
  • Load balancer provides SNAP HA storage access redirection in Azure
 
Improved iSCSI support
 
Linux-IO GTarget (LIO) has been added to improve iSCSI target capabilities.  The LIO stack can be configured directly from StorageCenter.
 
Microsoft Clustering
 
Clustering for Microsoft now supported.
 
SoftNAS Cloud Express Edition
 
The suite of SoftNAS Cloud products is extended with the Express edition.  Express limits capacity to 1TB.
 
Free Tier for AWS and Microsoft Azure
 
SoftNAS Cloud can now be used free with the minimal tier sizes in AWS and Microsoft Azure.  AWS Free Tier instances include t2.micro and t1.micro.  Azure Free Tier is A0 Standard and A0 Basic.
 

Fixed in version 3.1.1

 
The following issues are resolved with this release.
 
  • Fixed issue with CIFS share not being open
     
  • Update LDAP
     
  • Fixed an issue in Software Update progress bar that caused the bar to hang
     
  • Fixed an issue that hung reboot/shutdown when S3 disk was present
     
  • Addressed monitoring issues that spawned too many emails
     
  • Removed old kernels from Grub menu
     
  • Removed Root and Swap from Disk Devices menu
     
  • Ensure alL NFS volumes created are V3 and V4
     
  • Fix issue for Samba users with HA to pass authentication for failover
 

SoftNAS Cloud 3.1 - September 25th 2014

 

Overview

 
SoftNAS Cloud 3.1 is a new maintenance release from SoftNAS containing fixes, and improvements.
 
 

Upgrading

 
Upgrading from 2.x to 3.1:
 
After applying the upgrade, a reboot is required. The upgrade process can take as long as 2 hours to apply, depending upon your Internet speed and resources assigned to the SoftNAS virtual appliance.  You should expect to schedule downtime before applying this upgrade.
 
Upgrading from 3.0 to 3.1:
 
After applying the upgrade, a reboot is required.  Upgrading from 3.0 to 3.1 could take as long as 30 minutes, so plan on scheduling downtime.
 
Upgrading from 3.0.2 to 3.1:
 
Upgrading from 3.0.2 to 3.1 can be done online with zero downtime.  No reboot is required.
 
Applying the "Shell Shock" Patch Without Upgrading to 3.1:
 
To apply the "Shell Shock" patch without upgrading, run the following procedure
 
1. SSH into your SoftNAS instance
 
2. sudo yum update bash
 
3. sudo /sbin/ldconfig
 
 

New in SoftNAS Cloud 3.1

 
Support for Microsoft Azure
 
Azure is an Internet-scale computing and services platform hosted in data centers managed or supported by Microsoft. It includes many separate features with corresponding developer services which can be used individually or together.
 
SoftNAS provides the network storage backbone needed for business critical cloud applications.
 
Support for Azure BLOB Devices:
 
Using version 3.1, you can use the SoftNAS Storage Center interface to easily add Azure BLOB devices for management by SoftNAS.  This enable syou to benefit from SoftNAS features including RAM caching, SSD caching, compression, deduplication, scheduled snapshots and read/write clones.
 
Support for SnapReplicate™ HA:
 
You can also deploy multiple SoftNAS virtual machine instances in Windows Azure using SnapReplicate™ HA (high availability).
This provides replication of data between SoftNAS instances for greater redundancy.  In addition, SNAP HA™ adds another layer of protection, by providing load balancing between your SoftNAS instances.  In the scenario where the SNAP HA™ node detects a problem with one of the instances, NAS client storage traffic is seamlessly redirected to limit downtime and maintain access to critical enterprise services.
 

Fixed in version 3.1

 
The following issues are resolved:
 
  • Updated Disk Devices applet to load faster
     
  • Fixed an issue where Root drive was being displayed in Disk Devices
     
  • Fixed an issue where “-“ in SMTP settings was not being passed correctly
     
  • Fixed an issue with MONIT and SMB reporting
     
  • Changed Wording on AD Wizard
 
Patch for Shell Shock Linux Vulnerability
 
The SoftNAS 3.1 provides a critical fix for the Linux issue known as “Shell Shock” Vulnerability (CVE-2014-6271).
 
SoftNAS StorageCenter™ requires authentication for any access to the system, so it is highly doubtful that this issue would impact any customers using SoftNAS. However, SoftNAS has taken the proactive step of addressing this issue with the 3.1 release.
 
Note: You can also run the "Shell Shock" patch without updating to 3.1.
 
How Do I Know If I'm Vulnerable?:
 
To determine whether the deployed version of Bash is vulnerable, run the following command:
 
$ env x='() { :;}; echo vulnerable' bash -c "echo this is a test"
 
A vulnerable Bash will output the following:
 
vulnerable
this is a test
 
About the Patch:
 
The patch used to fix this issue ensures that no code is allowed after the end of a Bash function. Therefore, if you run the above example with the patched version of Bash, you should get an output similar to the following:
 
$ env x='() { :;}; echo vulnerable' bash -c "echo this is a test"
bash: warning: x: ignoring function definition attempt
bash: error importing function definition for `x'
this is a test
 

SoftNAS™ 3.0.2 - September 10th 2014

 
SoftNAS 3.0.2 is a new maintenance release from SoftNAS containing fixes, and improvements
 
Upgrading from 2.x to 3.0.2:
 
After applying the upgrade, a reboot is required. The upgrade process can take as long as 2 hours to apply, depending upon your Internet speed and resources assigned to the SoftNAS virtual appliance.
 
Upgrading from 3.0/3.0.1 to 3.0.2:
 
After applying the upgrade, a reboot is required.  Upgrading from 3.0 or 3.01 to 3.02 could take as long as 30 minutes.
 

Fixed in version 3.0.2

 
The following issues are resolved:
 
  • Fixed an issue with CIFS module and a Perl error on Dir browsing.  When trying to view CIFS share information from webmin a Perl error is generated.
 
  • Fixed an issue with NFS module and a Perl error on Dir browsing.  When trying to view NFS export details from webmin a Perl error is generated.
 
  • Fixed an issue with Krb5-workstation package missing.  The Krb5-workstation package was missing form the SoftNAS CentOS implementation.
 
  • Fixed a ZFS issue with DKMS module and long running SNAP replicate SYNC images.
 
  • Fixed an issue with Monit recognizing NMB service.  Monitoring utility unable to monitor the Samba daemon NMB.
 

SoftNAS™ 3 - August 2014

 
SoftNAS 3 is a major software upgrade containing fixes, improvements and new features and functionality.  After applying the upgrade, a reboot is required. The upgrade process can take as long as 2 hours to apply, depending upon your Internet speed and resources assigned to the SoftNAS virtual appliance.
 
SoftNAS 3 is a software upgrade that includes the an updated Linux kernel, the latest Linux updates and security fixes, plus the ZFS SP2 service pack for SoftNAS (ZoL 0.6.3 with selected patches).  Applying the upgrade disables normal NAS operation for up to two hours during the upgrade process, and includes an automatic system reboot at the end of the  process.  Be sure to schedule planned downtime and a maintenance window before applying the upgrade.
 
Also note that this upgrade includes support for the latest version of CentOS 6.5, and that the upgrade includes changes to many packages in the Linux distribution.
 
A new SoftNAS kernel is included in this release to provide enhanced support for Amazon AWS instances in either PV or HVM mode.
 
A current backup of the SoftNAS boot disk should be in place before applying SoftNAS software updates. Of course, it's a best practice to have current backups of data disks that meet your company's backup and recovery objectives at all times.
 
To apply the software update, go to Settings > Software Update and click on Apply Update Now.
 

New in SoftNAS Cloud 3

 
  • Up to 300% Faster I/O - a combination of performance improvements yields up to 3 times faster read and write I/O for increased IOPS and throughput.
 
  • Administrator Applet - This new applet allows a SoftNAS administrator to configure standard server and network administration settings such as:
 
  • Mail server for notifications
  • Monitoring of disk space, CPU, memory and key processes
  • Logging controls
     
  • Email Alerts and Notification - The new administrator features of 3.0 include email alerts and notification to keep the SoftNAS Administrator up-to-date when the following occurs:
  • System resource thresholds are exceeded (configurable)
  • Monitored services throw errors
  • Monitored SoftNAS logs include error entries
     
  • Active Directory Wizard - It is now possible to setup Active Directory integration with SoftNAS using a step-by-step configuration wizard.  Features include:
     
  • Configures AD by collecting configuration settings (e.g., domain name, Windows admin ID/password, etc.)
  • Automatically configures SoftNAS for use with AD
  • Verifies AD integration and authentication are operating correctly (and reports any errors or issues).
     
  • Support for VMware vCloud Hybrid Service - VMware® vCloud® Hybrid Service™ (a.k.a. vCloud Air) is a secure, dedicated hybrid cloud service operated by VMware, giving your IT organization a common platform to seamlessly extend your data center to the cloud.  Using SoftNAS Cloud 3, you can setup SoftNAS virtual machines in vCloud to manage your storage environment.
 
 
Support for NFSv4 - NFS Version 4 is the IETF standard for file sharing.  SoftNAS version 3 provides improved NFSv4 support.  Using any modern web browser, you can setup user accounts, Apache, DNS, file sharing and much more.
 
  • Support for Samba 4.1.11 - Security and feature release which addresses vulnerability with remote code execution in nmbd, improved AD integration for granular access control from Windows clients.
 
  • Support for CentOS updates - Most of the packages have changed and have been updated to more recent versions. It would exceed the scope of this document to list them all. Most notable changes are:
 
  • kernel updated
  • open vmware tools
  • OpenJDK-7
  • XFS as default file system
  • iSCSI and FCoE in kernel space
     
  • Color Codes for SnapReplicate(tm) Logs - In SoftNAS 3.0, color coding has been added to SnapReplicate Logs display.  The color coding functions as follows:
 
ERROR - white text on red background
WARN - black text on yellow background
INFO - black text on white background (no change)
DEBUG - black text on green background
 
  • Enhancement to Creation of Volumes Using iSCSI LUN - In SoftNAS 3, when creating a new volume of type iSCSI LUN, it is possible to select from available LUN targets as part of the volume creation workflow.  This helps to streamline SoftNAS administration by simplifying LUN target assignment.
 
  • Enhancements to Root Volumes for SoftNAS Instances on Amazon AWS. - General Purpose (SSD) volumes are now the default EBS volume type for Amazon EC2 instances. General Purpose (SSD) volumes are backed by Solid-State Drives (SSDs) and are suitable for a broad range of workloads, including small to medium-sized databases, development and test environments, and boot volumes. General Purpose (SSD) volumes provide the ability to burst to 3,000 IOPS per volume, independent of volume size, to meet the performance needs of most applications and also deliver a consistent baseline of 3 IOPS/GB. I/O is included in the price of General Purpose (SSD) volumes, so you pay only for each GB of storage you provision.
 

Fixed in version 3

 
The following issues are resolved:
 
  • Fixed an issue where S3 disks were not visible in SoftNAS Storage center when part of a pool
    Fixed an issue where S3 disks could cause instances to hang on reboot in Amazon AWS environment
    SoftNAS product logo updated in Storage Center.
     
     

Administrator Applet

 
The administrator settings enable the SoftNAS administrator to make settings for standard server and network administration.
 
The administrator can configure settings for email alerts and notifications.  The administrator can
specify the SMTP server settings and can set the system resources thresholds for monitoring.  The administrator can also specify which core services should be monitored, as well as SoftNAS error logging notification behavior.
 
 

Active Directory Wizard

 
Active Directory integration has been greatly enhanced and simplified in version 3.  It is now possible to integrate seamlessly with AD by following a simple wizard.  The administrator starts the wizard and provides the following information to setup AD:
 
  • AD domain information
  • NetBIOS domain
  • domain controller FQDN
  • Administrator login
  • Group selections
 

VMware vCloud Hybrid Service

 
VMware® vCloud® Hybrid Service™ is a secure, dedicated hybrid cloud service operated by VMware, giving your IT organization a common platform to seamlessly extend your data center to the cloud.  Using SoftNAS version 3.0, you can setup SoftNAS virtual machines in vCloud to manage your storage environment.
 
Using SoftNAS 3 you can:
 
  • Add the SoftNAS virtual machine to your VCHS environment using My Catalog or VMware catalog.
  • Power on the VM and verify the system boot via the Console.
  • Add  Source NAT for outside access
  • Add Dynamic NAT for public access
  • Connect to SoftNAS GUI using public IP
  • Share Volumes over the Network
     
 

HOW TO APPLY THE UPGRADE:

 
Scheduled downtime and a reboot is required. SoftNAS Cloud 3 is a software upgrade that includes the ZFS SP2 service pack, which does interrupt normal NAS operation for up to two hours, and includes a system reboot at the end of the update process.  Be sure to schedule planned downtime and a maintenance window before applying upgrade to these systems.
 
To apply the 3 software update/upgrade, go to Settings > Software Update and click Apply Update Now.
 
 

KNOWN ISSUES AND LIMITATIONS

 
SnapReplicate iSCSI Volume Sync Fails After Deleting and Re-adding Replication - When using an HA cluster with iSCSI Targets, SnapReplicate can fail due to an issue with file locking on the iSCSI Volumes. This issue only occurs when re-adding replication to an existing target node.
 
Workaround:
 
A solution for this issue is to delete the target node's iSCSI LUN, then re-add replication.