Upgrade notes

This topic contains important information for users who are upgrading from a previous QoreStor release.

• During the upgrade, the QoreStor installation script will verify that the Repository and Metadata filesystems are mounted with the noatime and dirsync mount options. If not, the installation script will prompt the user to allow the script to make the necessary changes in /etc/fstab and prompt you to reboot the system and re-run the QoreStor installation process.

  NOTE: The above process does not occur when installing QoreStor in Demo mode.

• To ensure proper authentication of network shares, after upgrading to QoreStor 6.1, remove the QoreStor server from the domain and re-add it to the domain.
• QoreStor 6.1 contains support for VTL protocols. To enable VTL support, you must perform the following sequence of operations:
  • Upgrade your existing installation to QoreStor 6.1. Do not select the option to install VTL support at this point.
  • Using the steps documented in "Uninstalling QoreStor while maintaining configuration data" in the QoreStor Installation Guide, uninstall the newly updated QoreStor installation.

    IMPORTANT: Uninstalling your existing QoreStor with the command below will preserve your data and application configurations. /opt/qorestor/bin/qs_uninst When running this command, you will receive the prompt: To completely remove the application, user data, and configuration files, answer 'no' below, and rerun the uninstaller with the '-a' option. Do you wish to continue? yes\no [no]: Enter Yes to continue without removing your data.

  • Reinstall QoreStor 6.1 with VTL support by either using the --install-vtl option or answering “yes” to the prompt for adding VTL support.
• When using QoreStor with VTL, upgrades to the operating system of the QoreStor server require additional configuration. Refer to "Upgrading the QoreStor Operating System" in the QoreStor Installation Guide.

Upgrading QoreStor instances on Microsoft Azure

For QoreStor instances running on Microsoft Azure, perform the actions below before upgrading to 6.1.

• At the prompt, execute the following commands:

  curl -o azureclient.rpm https://rhui-1.microsoft.com/pulp/repos/microsoft-azure-rhel7/rhui-azure-rhel7-2.2-74.noarch.rpm

  sudo rpm -U azureclient.rpm

  sudo yum clean all

Upgrading a migrated DR Series appliance to QoreStor 6.1.0.840

If you have previously migrated your DR Series system to QoreStor, you must upgrade your QoreStor software to build 6.1.0.814 before upgrading to this build (6.1.0.840). The upgrade process in build 6.1.0.814 includes a step that flushes WAM data, and that process must be completed before upgrading to 6.1.0.840.

Upgrading to Rapid CIFS Plug-in 4.0.3.2 with Secure Connect

Secure Connect is comprised of a set of client and server components that create a resilient and secure communication channel for use by WAN-connected clients. The server components are installed and enabled by default during the installation of the QoreStor server. Starting with the Rapid CIFS plug-in version 4.0.3.2, the plug-in installer includes the option to install and enable Secure Connect.

If you have WAN-connected Rapid CIFS clients and choose to install Secure Connect, you can do so by following the steps below:

1. On the media server, map a network share to your CIFS-enabled container.
2. Download the plug-in installer from the website, as detailed previously.
3. Open a command prompt with the “Run as Administrator” option selected. To do this using the Windows Start menu, click Start → All Programs → Accessories. Right-click Command Prompt and selectRun as Administrator.

   This gives all the required privileges to install/copy the driver files to the Windows drivers folder.

4. Run QuestRapidCIFS-4.0.3233.1.exe.
5. When prompted, select Install a Secure Connection to install Secure Connect.

   Secure Connect ensures backups to QoreStor are completed in spite of slow or unreliable WAN connections. When selecting this option, you will be prompted for additional configuration information required to make Secure Connect function correctly.

6. At the Configure Secure Connect page, complete the dialog using the IP or fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of the QoreStor server and appropriate credentials.

   The user account used must have the CIFS role assigned.

   NOTE: The Configure Secure Connect operation is not supported for CIFS containers on DR Series appliances. DR Series appliances do not contain the required Secure Connect server component . This operation is available only for QoreStor instances. For CIFS containers on DR Series appliances, connect using the Rapid CIFS plug-in and the DR Series host name.

   NOTE: The value entered in the Display Name field must not match the hostname of the QoreStor server.

Upgrading to Rapid NFS Plug-in 4.0.3.3

Secure Connect is comprised of a set of client and server components that create a resilient and secure communication channel for use by WAN-connected clients. The server components are installed and enabled by default during the installation of the QoreStor server. Starting with the Rapid NFS plug-in version 4.0.3.3, the plug-in installation script includes the option to install and enable Secure Connect.

If you have WAN-connected Rapid NFS clients and choose to install Secure Connect, you can do so by following the steps below:

1. Download QuestRapidNFS-4.03310.0-x86_64.bin.gz from the website.
2. Unzip the package.

   unzip QuestRapidNFS-4.03310.0-x86_64.bin.gz

3. Assign execute bit to change the permission of the binary package:

   chmod +x QuestRapidNFS-4.03310.0-x86_64.bin

4. Install the Rapid NFS package. Before installing, remove the stale NFS entry.

   QuestRapidNFS-4.03310.0-x86_64.bin -install

5. Load the file system in user space (FUSE) module, if not already loaded:

   modprobe fuse 
   

6. Create a directory on the client. For example:

   mkdir /mnt/backup

7. Mount Rapid NFS as a file system type using the mount command. For example:

    mount -t rdnfs 10.0.0.1:/containers/backup/mnt/backup -o sc,user=backup_user,password=<backup_user password>

   If you do not wish to type the password in plan text do not include the “password” option and you will be prompted:

   mount -t rdnfs 10.0.0.1:/containers/backup /mnt/backup -o sc,user=backup_user

   Password:

   If you are using a DMA that supports a marker, set the marker by using -o in the mount command. For example, if you wanted to set the CommVault marker (cv):

   mount -t rdnfs 10.0.0.1:/containers/backup /mnt/backup -o marker=cv

   It is also possible to use fstab entriest without the password option, this will prompt for the password the first time but will use the password hash for future mounts. With this it is possible to mount on boot without interrupting boot or prompting for a password:

   10.0.0.1:/containers/backup   /mnt/backup   rdnfs   sc,user=backup_user,marker=cv,defaults,soft,netdev,intr  0  0

   NOTE: If you want to do a mount on AIX, you must set the nfs_use_reserved_ports and portcheck parameters first. The parameters cannot be set to 0. For example: root@aixhost1 / # nfso -po portcheck=1 root@aixhost1 / # nfso -po nfs_use_reserved_ports=1

8. To ensure that the NFS container has the insecure option set, execute the command below on the QoreStor server:

   /opt/qorestor/bin/connection --update --name nfs1 --type NFS --options rw,insecure

Resolved issues

The following is a list of issues addressed in this release. For convenience, defects resolved in previous QoreStor 6.1 builds are also listed.

Table 1: Resolved issues in build 6.1.0.840

Table 2: Resolved issues in build 6.1.0.838

Table 3: Resolved issues in build 6.1.0.833

Table 4: Resolved issues in build 6.1.0.814

Open issues

Known issues

The issues below are known to exist in this release.

Product Licensing

QoreStor offers a backend capacity licensing model to allow for simple integration with other Quest Data Protection products.

• Standalone license - QoreStor is licensed by the amount of backend capacity required. Standalone licenses are available as either perpetual licenses (with no expiration), or term licenses, which expire after a specified period of time.

• NOTE: Term licenses are intended for specific customer use cases, i.e., licensing according to yearly billing cycles. A perpetual license is appropriate for most customers.

QoreStor licenses are additive, meaning that if you purchase a 5TB license now, and a 10TB license in the future, you will have 15TB total capacity.

Evaluating QoreStor

QoreStor offers two methods for evaluation:

• Default installation - If no license is installed, QoreStor defaults to a no-cost, 1TB capacity installation supported by the QoreStor Community. This option requires no license and does not expire.
  • If a license is applied to a server running in this mode, the free 1TB is not added to the purchased license capacity.
  • When installed in Demo mode, the capacity is limited to 100GB.
• Full capacity trial - available on the Quest Software Trial site, which provides a 30-day evaluation license for up to 360TB and access to Quest Support. After the evaluation period has expired, the QoreStor server will operate in Manual Intervention mode until a license is applied. To use QoreStor beyond that time frame, you will need to purchase a perpetual standalone license.
  • If installed in Demo mode, the capacity is limited to 100GB
  • If a longer trial period is required, please contact Quest Sales.

If you have purchased a standalone license, you can install it using the system --license command, as described in the QoreStor Command Line Reference Guide.