One Identity Safeguard for Privileged Passwords 2.9 - Administration Guide

Diagnosing a cluster member

The diagnostic tools are available to an Appliance Administrator or Operations Administrator for the currently connected appliance and any other appliances (replicas) in the cluster.

To run diagnostics on a clustered appliance

1. In Settings, select Cluster | Cluster Management.
2. From the cluster view (left pane), select the appliance to be diagnosed.

3. In the details pane (right pane), click Diagnose.

   The Appliance Information view displays.

4. Select Diagnostics and choose the type of test to be performed.

   • Ping: To verify your network connectivity and response time.
   • NS Lookup: To obtain your domain name or IP address.
   • Trace Route: To obtain your router information; trace route determines the paths packets take from one IP address to another.
   • Telnet: To access remote computers over TCP/IP networks like the Internet.
   • Show Routes: To retrieve routing table information.
5. Enter the requested information in the test dialog that displays.

Patching cluster members

When an appliance update is released, apply the patch so all appliances in the cluster are on the same version. See About cluster patching for more information on how Safeguard for Privileged Passwords handles access requests and system failures during the cluster patching process.

Prior to installing an update patch to a cluster:

• Ensure all appliances in the cluster are online and healthy. Any warnings or problems should be addressed before cluster patching. The patch install process will fail if any of the cluster members are unhealthy or cannot be contacted.

  IMPORTANT: The primary appliance orchestrates the cluster upgrade; therefore, the primary appliance must stay online and have a solid network connection with all of the replica appliances in the cluster. If this cannot be reasonably assured, you should unjoin the replica appliances from the cluster, individually upgrade them, and then re-enroll them into cluster.

• It is highly recommended to take a backup of your primary appliance before applying a patch.
• You may want to unjoin a replica from the cluster to serve as a backup appliance. In case of a catastrophic failure, you can activate the unjoined replica to be the primary. If the cluster patching process is successful, upgrade the unjoined replica, and then re-enroll it back into the cluster.

To patch appliances in a cluster

1. Log into the primary appliance, as an Appliance Administrator.
2. In Administrative Tools, select Settings | Appliance | Updates.

3. Click Upload a File and browse to select an update file.

   The patch will be uploaded and distributed to all of the appliances in the cluster.

   NOTE: If you make changes to the cluster, such as adding a new replica, while a patch is staged, the update file must be distributed to the new cluster member before the patch install process can begin. Safeguard for Privileged Passwords will not allow the patch install process to begin until all of the cluster members report that they have the update file stored locally.

   NOTE: Clicking the Cancel button during the distribution process stops the distribution of the update file to the replicas. At this point, you can click one of the following buttons: Remove to remove the update file from all of the appliances in the cluster. Distribute to Cluster to continue distributing the update file to each replica in the cluster.

4. Once the file has been successfully distributed to all of the replicas in the cluster, click the Install Now button.

   The primary appliance will go into Maintenance mode to begin the update operation. Once the primary appliance is successfully updated, Safeguard for Privileged Passwords will perform the update operation on each replica, one at a time. During an update operation, the cluster will be locked so that no other cluster operations can interfere with the update operation. Once the update operation is completed on all cluster members, the cluster will automatically unlock so normal operations can resume.

   The Cluster view (Settings | Cluster | Cluster Management) shows that an update operation is in progress and the cluster members that are locked, awaiting to install the update file.

   In addition, the Updates view (Settings | Appliance | Updates) shows the cluster members involved in the update operation and the progress as cluster members are successfully updated.

About cluster patching

The following information provides some insight into how Safeguard for Privileged Passwords processes access requests during the cluster patching process. It also describes what happens if a cluster member loses power or network connectivity during the patching process.

Service guarantees:

During a cluster upgrade, the cluster is split logically into the current version (side A) and the upgrade version (side B). Access request workflow is only enabled on one side at a time. Audit logs run on both sides and merge when the cluster patch completes. Initially, access request workflow is only enabled on side A and replicas in PatchPending state can perform access requests. As appliances upgrade and move to side B, the access workflow migrates to side B when side B has a majority of the appliances. At this point in the upgrade process, replicas in PatchPending state can no longer perform access requests; however, all of the upgraded cluster members can perform access requests. There is a small window where access request workflow is unavailable as the data migrates from one side to the other.

Failure scenarios:

If the primary appliance loses power or loses network connectivity during the upgrade process, it will try to resume the upgrade on restart.

If a replica is disconnected or loses power during an upgrade process, the replica will most likely go into quarantine mode. The primary appliance will skip that appliance and remove it from the cluster. This replica will need to be reset, upgraded, and then re-enrolled into the cluster manually to recover.

Using a backup to restore a clustered appliance

In a clustered environment, the objective of a cluster backup is to preserve and allow the restoration of all operational data, including access request workflow, users/accounts, audit logs and so on. All appliances in a cluster (primary and replicas) can be backed up. However, a backup should only be restored to an appliance in the worst-case scenario where no appliance can be restored using the failover operation.

When a backup is restored to an appliance, all of the cluster configuration data is purged. The appliance is restored as a stand-alone primary appliance in Read-only mode with no replicas. However, all the access request workflow, user/account, and audit log data that existed when the backup was taken is retained. This primary appliance can then be activated and replicas can be joined to recreate a cluster.

To take a backup of a physical appliance

1. Log into the appliance as an Appliance Administrator.
2. In Administrative Tools, select Settings | Backup and Restore.

3. Click Run Now to create a copy of the data currently on the primary appliance.

   For more information, see Run Now.

   Or you can click Backup Settings, in the upper right corner of the Backups page, to configure an automatic backup schedule.

   For more information, see Backup settings.

To restore a physical appliance from a backup

An Appliance Administrator can restore backups as far back as Safeguard for Privileged Passwords version 2.2.0.6958. Only the data is restored; the running version is not changed.

If the administrator attempts to restore a version earlier than 2.2.0.6958, a message like the following displays: Restore failed because the backup version '[version]' is older than the minimum supported version '2.2.0.6958' for restore.

You cannot restore a backup from a version newer than the one running on the appliance. The restore will fail and a message like the following displays: Restore failed because backup version [version] is newer then the one currently running [version].

The backup version and the running version display in the Activity Center logs that are generated when Safeguard starts, completes, or fails a restore.

1. Log into the appliance to be restored as an Appliance Administrator.
2. In Administrative Tools, select Settings | Backup and Restore.

3. Select the backup to be used and click Restore.

4. When the Restore dialog displays, enter the word Restore and click OK.

   For more information, see Restore.

The appliance is restored as a stand-alone primary appliance in Read-only mode with no replicas.

To rebuild a cluster

1. Log into the primary appliance as an Appliance Administrator.
2. Activate the Read-only primary appliance.
   1. In Administrative Tools, navigate to Settings | Cluster | Cluster Management.
   2. Select the node to be activated from the cluster view (left pane).
   3. Click Activate.

   4. Confirm the activate operation.

   For more information, see Activating a read-only appliance.

3. One at a time, enroll the replica appliances to rebuild your cluster.
   1. In Administrative Tools, select Settings | Cluster.

   2. Click Add Replica to join a replica appliance to the cluster.

   Once the enroll operation completes, repeat to add your appliances back into the cluster as replicas.

   NOTE: Enrolling a replica can take up to 24 hours depending on the amount of data to be replicated and your network.

   For more information, see Enrolling replicas into a cluster.

Related Topics

Backup and restore

Backup and restore