WAAS - Troubleshooting vWAAS

Chapter: Troubleshooting vWAAS

This article describes how to troubleshoot vWAAS.

Contents

• 1 Identifying a vWAAS Device
• 2 Troubleshooting vWAAS Device Registration
• 3 Verifying vWAAS Virtual Interfaces
• 4 Troubleshooting vWAAS Networking
• 5 Troubleshooting VPATH Interception
• 6 Troubleshooting Undersized Alarm

Virtual WAAS (vWAAS) implements a virtual WAAS appliance in VMware ESXi on a host server such as Cisco UCS.

NOTE: vWAAS was introduced in WAAS version 4.3.1. This section is not applicable to earlier WAAS versions.

Identifying a vWAAS Device

You can identify a vWAAS device from the Manage Devices page of the WAAS Central Manager. The device type appears as OE-VWAAS for all types of vWAAS devices. The show version and show hardware CLI commands also show the device Version as OE-VWAAS.

Figure 1. vWAAS Device Type

The model of the vWAAS device is determined from the number of CPUs and Maximum TCP Connections shown in the Device Dashboard window when you select the device from the Manage Devices page. These two fields are displayed only for vWAAS devices.

Figure 2. vWAAS Capabilities

The models are as follows:

• vWAAS-750: 2 CPUs, 750 maximum TCP connections
• vWAAS-6000: 4 CPUs, 6000 maximum TCP connections
• vWAAS-12000: 4 CPUs, 12000 maximum TCP connections
• vCM-100N: 2 CPUs, 100 maximum nodes
• vCM-2000N: 4 CPUs, 2000 maximum nodes

For vCM devices, you can use the show hardware command to determine the number of CPUs, which tells you which model of vCM is installed.

Note: The vWAAS device shows 2 disks installed. The first, disk00, is 4 GB and emulates the flash storage in a physical WAAS device. The second, disk 01, emulates the hard disk in a physical WAAS device and varies in size depending on the vWAAS model.

The show tfo detail command also displays the maximum TCP connection limit:

vWAAS# show tfo detail
  Policy Engine Config Item            Value               
  -------------------------            -----               
  State                                Registered          
  Default Action                       Use Policy          
  Connection Limit                     750                 <------ Max TCP connection limit
  Effective Limit                      750                 
  Keepalive timeout                    3.0 seconds

Troubleshooting vWAAS Device Registration

You must register each vWAAS device with the WAAS Central Manager for normal operation. If a vWAAS device is not registered with the Central Manager, it shows the Not registered alarm:

vWAAS# show alarms 

Critical  Alarms:
----------------
None

Major  Alarms:
-------------
        Alarm ID                  Module/Submodule               Instance
   ---------------             --------------------          ---------------
   1  notregistered             vwaas/model                                             <------Not registered  alarm
.  . . 

To register the vWAAS device with the Central Manager, use the cms enable global configuration command on the vWAAS device:

vWAAS# config
vWAAS(config)#  cms enable 
Registering  WAAS Application Engine...
Sending  device registration request to  Central Manager with address 2.75.16.100
Please wait,  initializing CMS tables
Successfully initialized CMS tables
. . .
management  services enabled

You can verify the registration with the show cms info command:

vWAAS# show cms info 
Device  registration information :
Device Id                            =  1730                                
Device  registered as                 = WAAS Application Engine             
Current WAAS  Central Manager         = 2.75.16.100                         
Registered  with WAAS Central Manager = 2.75.16.100                         
Status                                = Online                        <----- Successful  registration
Time of last config-sync              = Thu Aug 19 18:38:13 2010            

CMS services  information :
Service cms_ce is running                                             <----- CMS service is running

vWAAS device registration and deregistration is logged in the system message log with a line that begins with "vWAAS:". You can view the system message log in the Central Manager by choosing Admin > Logs > System Messages.

Figure 3. vWAAS Registration Syslog Message

Verifying vWAAS Virtual Interfaces

Two virtual interfaces are available on vWAAS devices.

In the Central Manager device > Configure > Network > Network Interfaces page, the vWAAS interface type appears as Virtual (Port Channel, Standby, Inline, and GigabitEthernet are not applicable), which is similar to the GigabitEthernet . Some of the GigabitEthernet interface options, such as Port Channel, autosense, speed, mode, and standby, do not apply to virtual interfaces.

You can also see the virtual interfaces with the show running-config command:

VWAAS# show running-config interface
primary-interface Virtual 1/0
!
!
!
interface Virtual 1/0
 ip address 10.104.227.25 255.255.255.128
 exit
interface Virtual 2/0
 shutdown
 exit

Additional details are available with the show interface virtual 1/0 or show interface virtual 2/0 commands.

To make interface configuration changes, you can use the Central Manager Network Interfaces page or the interface, ip, and primary-interface configuration commands, as follows:

vWAAS# config
vWAAS(config)# interface virtual 1/0
vWAAS(config-if)# ip addr 10.10.10.15 255.255.255.0
vWAAS(config-if)# end
vWAAS# config
vWAAS(config)# ip default-gateway 10.10.10.1
vWAAS(config)# primary-interface virtual 1/0
vWAAS(config)# end

Troubleshooting vWAAS Networking

If you see no connections on the vWAAS device, check the vWAAS networking configuration in the vSphere Client. Is the vWAAS device connected to the correct vSwitch?

Using the vSphere Client, you can trace vWAAS network connectivity from the device page. Identify which network label the network adapter is connected to, determine the virtual switch that this network is connected to, and determine the physical NIC that is a member of this virtual switch. Verify that the configuration is correct.

Also make sure the virtual switch VLAN settings are correctly configured to reach the network.

Verify the configured IP address, netmask, default gateway, and primary interface on the vWAAS device. For details, see the previous section, "Verifying vWAAS Virtual Interfaces".

From the vWAAS device, ping the default gateway and Central Manager to make sure they are reachable.

Troubleshooting VPATH Interception

A vWAAS device can use VPATH or WCCP interception methods, but not both. To check if VPATH interception is enabled from the Central Manager, choose the vWAAS device, then choose Configure > Interception > VPATH. If the Enable VPATH box is checked, then it is enabled. WCCP must be disabled before VPATH can be enabled.

You can use the vn-service vpath global configuration command to enable or disable VPATH interception.

From the vWAAS device CLI, you can view VPATH status and statistics with the show statistics vn-service vpath command:

vWAAS# show statistics vn-service vpath
VPATH Statistics 
***************** 
Packet Statistics
-----------------
                                     VPATH Enabled = YES             <-----Should be YES
                             VPATH Packet received = 4783472         <-----Should be incrementing
              Optimized TCP Packets VPATH returned = 918762          <-----Should be incrementing
              WAAS Bypassed VPATH packets returned = 15537
VPATH encapsulated IP pkts(excluding TCP) returned = 0
        VPATH encapsulated Non-IP packets returned = 26
                          VPATH Fragments received = 0
                          VPATH Fragments returned = 0
  VPATH Packets returned when VPATH not configured = 0
                        Non-VPATH Packets received = 810022
Error Statistics
-----------------
                 VPATH intercepted packets dropped = 0
                         VPATH Packet CRC failures = 0
            VPATH packets with unsupported Version = 0
             VPATH packets with wrong request type = 0

To determine if VPATH is sending ARP requests, use the tcpdump arp command.

To display VPATH MAC address information for TCP flows, use the show statistics connection egress-methods command:

vWAAS# show statistics connection egress-methods
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
|                       |         TUPLE         |          MATE       |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Local-IP:Port               10.104.227.25:443       10.104.227.28:36052                   
Remote-IP:Port              10.104.227.28:36052     10.104.227.25:443                   
Directed Mode             No                       No       
Egress method             IP Forwarding            IP Forwarding                    
VPATH mode                Yes                      Yes                        <-----VPATH connection
WCCP Service|Bucket                                                    
Tuple Flags               NON-WCCP|L2|             NON-WCCP|L2|
Intercepting Device (ID):                                              
  ID IP address                                                        
  ID MAC address                                                       
  ID IP address updates   0                        0
  ID MAC address updates  0                        0
  Egress Tunnel Dst                                                   
  VPATH MAC Address       00:02:3D:83:B5:03        00:02:3D:83:B5:03          <-----VPATH MAC address
Memory address            0xffff8101078b1b80       0xffff8101078b1b80
. . .

Troubleshooting Undersized Alarm

If the proper memory and hard disk resources are not allocated to the vWAAS device, the following alarm is shown:

vWAAS# show alarms 

Critical Alarms:
----------------
None

Major Alarms:
-------------
        Alarm ID                 Module/Submodule               Instance
   ---------------             --------------------          ---------------
   1 undersized                  vwaas/model                    memory             <-----Undersized alarm
. . . 

You should never see this alarm if you are using valid OVA files to deploy vWAAS. If you see this alarm, delete the vWAAS VM and redeploy it using a valid OVA file.