Question & Answer
Question
What are the known limitations of deploying the DataPower™ virtual appliance in different environments?
Cause
Known limitations affect deploying the DataPower virtual appliance.
Answer
General limitations
The following limitation is common to all virtual platforms.
When you upgrade an appliance to any version later than 7.0.0, a minimum of 8 GB of RAM must be available to the virtual appliance.
Virtual environment limitations
The following virtual environment limitations are for SoftLayer, Amazon EC2, VMware, and Citrix products.
SoftLayer and Amazon EC2
When I configure more than one partition on SoftLayer or Amazon EC2 a limit of 2 TB is silently enforced by the virtual appliance.
On SoftLayer and Amazon EC2, the DataPower virtual appliance can configure each RAID partition for 2 TB or less even if the assigned disk volume is set to a larger amount.
When I configure packet capture through the Web GUI, the available option is to capture "all" packets rather than interface-specific packet capture.
Interface-specific packet capture is available from the DataPower CLI, and through the Ubuntu host when you use a tool like tcpdump.
VMware Player and VMware Workstation
When I start a new virtual appliance on VMware Player or VMware Workstation a vCPU error is displayed in the VMware product.
If you get an error message on first launch concerning the number of vCPUs, consult the VMware product hardware requirements to accommodate your configuration.
VMware Fusion and VMware Workstation
When I attempt to deploy the DataPower OVA on certain VMware products, I see a blank dialog box requesting acceptance of a license.
VMware Fusion and VMware Workstation do not support a globalized OVF file. The DataPower Virtual Edition OVA contains an OVF with multiple languages that is globalized for use in enterprise deployments on VMware vSphere. The user will see an blank dialog box requesting acceptance of a license. Click on the "Accept" button to deploy the OVA, then accept the actual license when DataPower boots the first time.
VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation, and VMware ESXi
- When running on VMware Fusion or VMware Workstation.
- When running on VMware ESXi and I choose an interface type other than vmxnet3.
- If I delete an interface and re-add it.
- Do not add any extra interfaces on VMware Fusion or VMware Workstation.
- If you add extra interfaces on VMware ESXi, make sure to choose vmxnet3 as the type.
- Do not delete the default interfaces.
- Delete the newly added interface.
- Add a new interface of type vmxnet3.
- For VMware ESX 4.1 and earlier, see Connecting to an ESX host using a SSH client (1019852)
Alternatively, access the physical console and press Alt+F1 to begin the authentication process. - For VMware ESXi 4.1+, see Using Tech Support Mode in ESXi 4.1, ESXi 5.x, and ESXi 6.0 (1017910)
- For VMware ESXi 4.0 and 3.5, see Tech Support Mode for Emergency Support (1003677)
When I add an extra Ethernet interface to a DataPower virtual appliance, the interface is unrecognized by DataPower when I next start up. This occurs in the following situations.
Note: The original interfaces are unaffected because they inherit their device type from the OVA.
To avoid the issue:
VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation and Vmware Player:
If you have already added an extra interface, edit the virtualDev option in the virtual machine configuration (.vmx) file, to change the following information:
Change from: ethernet#.virtualDev = "e1000"
Change to: ethernet#.virtualDev = "vmxnet3"
For more information see Editing the .vmx file for your Vmware Fusion virtual machine (1014782)
and Editing the .vmx file of a VMware Workstation and VMware Player virtual machine (2057902)
ESXi Solution A (preferred):
ESXi Solution B:
Power off and unregister the virtual machine prior to making this change.
Note: You can also reload the .vmx file after editing without unregistering the virtual machine. For more information, see Reloading a vmx file without removing the virtual machine from inventory (1026043).
Log in as root to the terminal of the VMware ESX host.
For each network interface you wish to change to vmxnet3, modify the virtualDev line (N represents the interface number) the final result will be:
ethernetN.virtualDev = "vmxnet3"
For more information on procedures for editing the configuration files, see Editing configuration files in VMware ESXi and ESX (1017022)
Citrix XenServer
When I disconnect and reconnect a virtual appliance on XenServer, network connectivity is not restored automatically.
DataPower virtual appliance IP address and ethn interface disappear from the guest when the DataPower virtual appliance network (vSwitch) is disconnected. You must reload, reboot, or modify the ethn interface of the appliance to restore network activity.
Plugging and unplugging the 'back end' (vif) driver does not affect network settings and can be used to simulate "network up" and "network down" situation.
When I access the XenCenter Console, it appears to hang, or stop functioning.
Pressing any key on your keyboard will cause the Console to refresh and move to the end of what was output. This is the case for all virtual machines running on XenServer not just DataPower.
Suggested action: Use XenServer to configure the SSH service then access the DataPower appliance over an ssh session.
When I enter the DataPower show link command, the Mode entry of none is inaccurately displayed.
The show link status provider displays link modes incorrectly as none when the DataPower appliance is running on XenServer. This is a limitation of the XenServer ethernet
driver which does not currently support querying the link type. There is no work around.
When I create Link Aggregation of type transmit, the virtual appliance is placed in strict enforcement mode and the interface is down.
XenServer does not support Link Aggregation of type transmit. Creating Link Aggregation of type transmit will place the appliance in strict enforcement mode and cause the interface to be down.
Related Information
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Document Information
Modified date:
15 June 2018
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swg21671820