How to verify VCS installation on a system

[Rashmi_Chavan]

Symantec recommends that you verify your installation of Symantec Cluster Server (VCS) on a system before you install or upgrade VCS. This allows you to know about the product prerequisites, installed product version, and configuration. You can verify installation of VCS on a system using the following techniques:

• Operating System (OS) commands
• Script-based Installer
• Symantec Operations Readiness Tools (SORT) checks
• VCS command validation

OS commands

You can run native OS commands on the system to verify whether VCS is installed. The following table lists the commands to verify the VCS installation and the VCS version and patches installed on the system.

Use cases	AIX	HP-UX	Linux	Solaris
Verifying VCS installation	lslpp -l VRTSvcs	swlist VRTSvcs	rpm –qi VRTSvcs	For Solaris 10: pkginfo –l VRTSvcs For Solaris 11: pkg info VRTSvcs
Verifying VCS version and patches	lslpp -l VRTSvcs	swlist VRTSvcs	rpm –qi VRTSvcs	showrev –p | grep VRTSvcs

You can use these commands to verify which product packages are installed on the system. To get a complete list of required and optional packages for VCS, see the product release notes on the SORT website.

Note: On Linux, there is no sparse patch or patch ID. Therefore, the package version itself indicates the patch version of the installed VCS.

Advantage of using the OS command technique

By default, native commands are available on a system and can be used with ease.

Limitations of using the OS command technique

• You must run OS commands as root on the cluster nodes.
• OS commands are useful for package and patch validation. However, these commands do not provide complete information about the VCS product installation. You need to run multiple commands to validate whether the required packages are installed on the system

Script-based Installer

Symantec recommends that you use the script-based installer to install Symantec products. The script-based installer can be used to identify which products from the Storage Foundation and High Availability (SFHA) family are installed on the system. The installer script can be executed to get a list of VCS packages and their versions installed on the system. These commands can be executed on AIX, HP-UX, Linux, and Solaris. The installer also allows you to configure the product, verify the pre-installation requisites, and view the description of the product.

The following command provides the major version of the product and packages installed on the system. However, it does not provide details such as join version, build date, and patches installed on the other nodes in the cluster. To use this command, VCS must be already installed on the system.

To use the script-based installer to verify the version of VCS installed on the system

Run the following command: 

#/opt/VRTS/install/installvcs<version> –version

Where version is the specific release version.

For example, to validate the VCS 6.1 installation on the system, run the following command:

#/opt/VRTS/install/installvcs61 –version

To initiate the VCS installation validation using the product DVD media provided by Symantec, run the following installer script:

#<dvd-media-path>/installer -version

The installer script lists the Symantec products installed on the system along with the version details of the products. You can also use this script to perform a pre-check of the required package dependencies to install the product.

If the product is already installed on the system and you want to validate the list of packages and patches along with their version, run the following command:

#/opt/VRTS/install/showversion

This command provides details of the product installed on all the nodes in a cluster. This information includes the product name, required and optional packages installed on the system, installed and available product updates, version, and product license key.

Advantage of using script-based installer

• A single script validates all nodes in the cluster. Therefore, it does not need any platform-specific commands for performing validation.

Limitation of using script-based installer

• The VRTSsfcpi package must be installed on the systems.
  Note: The VRTSsfcpi package was first released in VCS 6.0 and is available in the later versions. For earlier versions, use the installer from the DVD media. As an alternative, you can launch the installer from the DVD provided by Symantec, regardless of the product version.

For more information about installing VCS using installer, see Installing VCS using the installer.

SORT checks

SORT provides a set of web-based tools to automate and simplify time-consuming administrator tasks. For example, the data collector tool gathers system-related information and generates web-based and text-based custom reports. These reports capture the system and platform-related configuration details and list the Symantec products installed on the system.

SORT generates the following custom reports:

• Installation and Upgrade
• Risk Assessment
• License/Deployment

You can generate and view custom reports to check which Symantec products are installed on a system. These reports list the passed and failed checks and other significant details you can use to assess the system. The checks and recommendations depend on the installed product.

For SORT checks, see System Assessments.

To generate a SORT custom report,

1. On the Data Collector tab, download the appropriate data collector for your environment.
2. Follow the instructions in the README file to install the data collector.
3. Run the data collector. It analyzes the nodes in the cluster and stores results in an XML file.
4. On the Upload Reports tab, upload the XML file to the SORT website. SORT generates a custom report with recommendations and links to the related information.

For more information about custom reports, visit https://sort.symantec.com.

Advantage of using the SORT checks

• SORT checks provide comprehensive information about the installed product.

Limitation of using the SORT checks

• SORT data collector is not a part of product media and must be downloaded and installed on the system to generate reports.

VCS command validation

VCS provides a set of commands to validate and provide additional details of the components installed as a part of VCS product installation.

For more information about verifying the VCS installation using VCS commands, see Symantec™ Cluster Server 6.1 Administrator's Guide.

The VCS command validation method allows you to check if VCS is correctly configured on the nodes in a cluster. To verify the status of the VCS components such as Low-Latency Transport (LLT), Group Membership Services/Atomic Broadcast (GAB), and the VCS engine, you can inspect the content of the key VCS configuration files or run the following VCS commands.

Component	Command	Provides
GAB	#gabconfig -W	GAB protocol version
LLT	#lltconfig -W	LLT protocol version
VCS engine	#had -version	HAD engine version and join version
Cluster	#hasys -state	Cluster state

Advantages of using VCS commands

• VCS commands provide comprehensive information about the cluster.
• VCS commands can be used for configuring the cluster.

Limitation of using VCS commands

• VCS commands can be used only after the VCS product is completely installed and configured on the system.

Frequently asked questions

The following is a list of VCS installation-related frequently asked questions:

• Where do I check the availability of the CPI installer on a system?

          The installer script is located at /opt/VRTS/install.

• Where are the CPI installation logs located?

          The installation logs are located at /opt/VRTS/install.

• Where do I find information about SORT checks and reports?

          For information about SORT checks and reports, visit https://sort.symantec.com.

• How do I validate a system before installing VCS?

          Before you install VCS, you must make sure the system is ready. To validate the system, use the installer script on the Symantec DVD.

          To start the pre-installation validation on the system and verify whether the system meets the product installation requirements, run the following command:

#installer –precheck

[Gaurav_S]

Should this be posted as article rather than a forum discussion ?

G