NetVault 13.0.3 - Administration Guide

Enabling or disabling availability broadcasts

Availability broadcasts are used to discover NetVault Clients and update the client status on the NetVault WebUI. You can enable or disable availability broadcasts from the Change Settings page.


	NOTE: Although you can disable availability broadcasts, it is not recommended.

To enable or disable availability broadcasts:

In the Navigation pane, click Change Settings.

On the NetVault Server Settings page, complete one of the following actions:

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To configure default settings for the NetVault Server, continue to Step 3.

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To configure default settings for a NetVault Client, click Choose machine. In the Choose machine drawer, select the client, and click Go to settings.

Under Services, click Network Manager.

In the Network Manager dialog box, under Connections, configure the following setting:

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Broadcast details to machines on local network: This check box is selected by default. Although you can disable this option, it is not recommended.

Availability broadcasts are used to discover NetVault Clients and update the client status on the NetVault WebUI. Without these broadcasts, you can only add clients by using the client FQDN or IP address.

Click Apply to apply the new settings and close the dialog box.

Configuring network addresses for multihomed machines

For multihomed machines, you can specify the preferred network address, fallback addresses, and barred addresses from the Change Settings page.

When a connection is initiated, the addresses are attempted in the following order:

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Preferred network address

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Fallback addresses

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Any other addresses in the order defined by the binding order of the host machine

To configure the network addresses for multihomed machines:

In the Navigation pane, click Change Settings.

On the NetVault Server Settings page, complete one of the following actions:

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To configure default settings for the NetVault Server, continue to Step 3.

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To configure default settings for a NetVault Client, click Choose machine. In the Choose machine drawer, select the client, and click Go to settings.

Under Services, click Network Manager.

In the Network Manager dialog box, under Connections, configure the following settings.

Table 130. Network settings for multihomed machines
Setting	Description
Preferred network address	Specify the primary IP address for network connection. You can only specify a single IP address.
Comma separated list of barred address(es)	Specify the barred or blocked addresses that you do not want to use for NetVault connections. To specify multiple addresses, use a comma as delimiter. NOTE: You must restart the NetVault Service to apply any changes to the barred addresses setting.
Comma separated list of fallback address(es)	Specify the fallback addresses to use when the preferred network address is not available. To specify multiple addresses, use a comma as delimiter.


	IMPORTANT: You should use these settings only if machine is connected to multiple networks, either through multiple Network Interface Cards or through virtual IP addressing. When configuring the network addresses, make sure that the preferred, barred, and fallback addresses do not conflict with each other

Click Apply to apply the new settings and close the dialog box.

Important notes

If the preferred address is unavailable and the NetVault Server starts using a fallback address, it does not automatically revert to the preferred address when the IP becomes available.

To force the NetVault Server to use the preferred address, do one of the following:

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Remove the client and add it again.

When you remove the client, the message “Machine <NetVault Machine Name> Has Gone Down” (Warning Level: Background) is displayed on the View Logs page. Wait until the timeout for remote connection expires. The timeout interval is determined by the Time to complete remote connection setting (set to 60 seconds by default).

When the client is up and detected on the network, the message “Machine <NetVault Machine Name> Has Come Up” (Warning Level: Background) is displayed on the View Logs page. To add the client, use the Find Machine command, and specify its preferred network address in the box.

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Alternatively, disable or disconnect the network interface currently in use until the timeout for remote connection expires. The value configured for the Time to complete remote connection setting determines the duration for which the network interface needs to be disabled or disconnected. Restart the NetVault Service when the client is reported as unavailable. The NetVault Server uses the preferred address when the next connection attempt is made after you restart the service on the client.

Reducing startup delay

When the NetVault Service starts, it attempts to resolve all client IP addresses listed in the machines.dat file, which resides in the etc directory under the NetVault installation directory. Resolving all client addresses can cause a significant delay in the service startup and the machine can appear unresponsive during this time. You can reduce or avoid the startup delay by specifying the addresses that are not to be resolved during startup.

To specify the addresses that are not to be resolved:

In the Navigation pane, click Change Settings.

On the NetVault Server Settings page, complete one of the following actions:

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To configure default settings for the NetVault Server, continue to Step 3.

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To configure default settings for a NetVault Client, click Choose machine. In the Choose machine drawer, select the client, and click Go to settings.

Under Services, click Network Manager.

In the Network Manager dialog box, under Connections, configure the following setting:

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Comma separated list of networks and addresses not to resolve: To reduce or avoid the startup delay, specify the addresses that are not to be resolved during startup.

You can specify a single address or a range, for example, 192.168.1.2 or 192.168.x.x. If you want to configure multiple addresses or networks, use a comma as delimiter.

To get the list of networks from the machines.dat file, issue the following command on Windows:

findstr Network <NetVault home>\etc\machines.dat

The following is an example output:

C:\NetVault\etc>findstr Network machines.dat

Networks=192.168.203.1,192.168.65.1,172.16.245.1

Networks=10.1.40.81,172.16.211.1,172.16.62.1

Networks=10.1.2.37,172.16.22.1,172.16.128.1

Networks=10.1.240.222,172.16.4.1

Networks=192.168.122.1,10.1.240.52

Networks=10.1.80.83,10.1.2.68,172.16.116.1

Networks=192.168.172.1,10.1.40.98,192.168.147.1

Networks=192.168.174.1,10.1.8.71,192.168.120.1

Networks=192.168.122.1,10.1.8.79

Networks=10.1.8.132,192.168.91.1,192.168.106.1

Networks=10.1.8.163,192.168.233.1,192.168.207.1

Networks=10.1.8.16,200.0.0.1

...

Based on this output, you can configure the following values in the Comma separated list of networks and addresses not to resolve box:

10.0.0.0, 172.0.0.0, 192.0.0.0, 200.0.0.0

Some networks may have names instead of IP addresses. To find IP addresses for such clients, you can use the nslookup tool.

Note the following:

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To prevent the NetVault Service from resolving all networks, specify the first octet of a network address (that is, 192.0.0.0, 10.0.0.0).

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Using 0.0.0.0 does not prevent the service from resolving the networks.

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The clients that are offline and listed on the Manage Clients page can also cause the startup delay. To speed up the process, you can remove the clients that are offline or no longer in use.

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In a domain managed by a Windows-based NetVault Server, you may experience a long delay as the service attempts to resolve all client IP addresses using the NBNS (NetBIOS Name Service) protocol. In this environment, you can use the Comma separated list of networks and addresses not to resolve setting to reduce the startup delay.

You can also use this setting in a NetVault Client Cluster setup to prevent the service from resolving the private cluster IP addresses.

Click Apply to apply the new settings and close the dialog box.