These release notes contain supplemental information about EMC HomeBase Server and Agent Release 6.5. Topics include:
◆ Revision history ... 2
◆ Product description... 2
◆ New features and changes ... 3
◆ Fixed problems ... 3
◆ Environment and system requirements ... 4
◆ Known problems and limitations ... 4
◆ End of support for AIX and Solaris platforms ... 7
◆ End of service dates and extended support ... 7
◆ Troubleshooting and getting help ... 9
Revision history
Revision history
Table 1 on page 2 presents the revision history of this document.
EMC® HomeBase™ product functionality consists of: ◆ HomeBase Bare Metal Recovery (BMR)
◆ HomeBase Bare Metal Provisioning (BMP)
Product description
HomeBase Bare Metal Recovery
EMC HomeBase is a product suite that uses profile images of a server to recover it in the event of a disaster or to migrate one server’s configuration to another server. The HomeBase Server functions primarily through a web interface that enables browsing of stored profile images, software deployment, and automated recovery. The profile image data can be also be compared against previous versions, which provides an effective change management analysis for any server.
EMC HomeBase product suite includes the following components:
◆ EMC HomeBase Agent: HomeBase Agents are installed on remote machines that need to be protected.
◆ EMC HomeBase Server: HomeBase Server is the secure repository that receives the Profile data sent by HomeBase Agent installed on remote machines.
◆ EMC HomeBase Proxy Server (optional): Proxy Server provides access to the HomeBase Server where the server is deployed in a highly sub-netted and secure environment.
HomeBase Bare Metal Provisioning
EMC HomeBase BMP supports the deployment of multiple types of operating systems from a single unified interface. Deployment templates prepared earlier allow rapid redeployment of a common operating system build such as operating system, device drivers, and software.
HomeBase BMP supports deploying Microsoft Windows, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), VMware ESX, and VMware ESXi operating systems. In addition, HomeBase BMP supports scripted installation of third-party applications on Windows and Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
Table 1 Revision history
Revision Date Description
New features and changes
New features and changes
This section describes the new features and enhancements for HomeBase. ◆ “EMC NetWorker Enhanced Bare Metal Recovery” on page 3
◆ “ESXi support” on page 3
◆ “Archiving redundant license batches” on page 3
In addition, Table 3 on page 4 provides a list of all fixes in this release.
EMC NetWorker Enhanced Bare Metal Recovery
In this release of EMC HomeBase, EMC NetWorker® integrates with HomeBase to provide enhanced server recovery and Windows disaster recovery support. This release provides a one-click enhanced server recovery that facilitates the orchestration of multiple recoveries including installing an operating system, recovering, and restoring NetWorker data. Table 2 on page 3 specifies the supported versions of NetWorker.
The EMC HomeBase Agent Release 6.5 Recovery and Migration Guide and EMC
HomeBase Server Release 6.5 Administration Guide provide information on using
EMC NetWorker as a backup client.
ESXi support
This release of EMC HomeBase provides the ability to upload ESXi images and assign them to deployment sessions. The administrator can upload an ESXi image to the HomeBase sever and use the HomeBase provisioning capabilities to
automatically install the VMware vSphere Hypervisor remotely on to a new bare hardware.
Archiving redundant license batches
This release allows redundant license batches to be archived. Typically, license batches expire or can be created in error. For audit purposes however, license batches cannot be removed and they reside on the HomeBase server indefinitely. An administrator can select one or more license batches to be archived, and thereby hide them from the main license batch listing page.
Fixed problems
Product issues are sorted alphabetically by product feature and by issue number within each product feature. Product issue details include a three column table with the following information for each product issue:
Table 2 Supported NetWorker Windows Client versions
Version Platform
Environment and system requirements
◆ Issue number — A unique case number assigned to track the problem. ◆ Product feature — The name of the feature affected.
◆ Problem summary — A short description of the problem.
Issues fixed in version 6.5
Table 3 on page 4 lists the issues fixed in version 6.5.
Environment and system requirements
All system requirements and configuration details are provided in the installation guides for each HomeBase component.
Known problems and limitations
The following are known problems for HomeBase 6.5 release and are listed separately for the Agent and the Server.
◆ “HomeBase Agent issues” on page 4 ◆ “HomeBase Server issues” on page 5
HomeBase Agent issues
The following are known issues with the HomeBase Agent:
◆ “Windows Veritas Recovery fails with error “Failed to find enough allocatable storage, please omit volumes or attach more disk.”” on page 5
Table 3 Issues fixed in version 6.5
Issue number Product feature Problem summary
HB-7138 Recovery Recovery of RHEL installs wrong kernel version.
Note: The package repositories populated with RHEL packages using earlier versions of HomeBase must be reindexed for the fix to take effect and perform RHEL package matching much more accurately.
HB-7089 Server Service Pack number stated incorrectly on some Microsoft Windows 2008 media.
HB-7229 Windows Recovery
Base recovery fails with the “Failed to extend volume group” message when trying to use additional disks in dynamic mode. HB-7745 Windows BMR Recovery fails to restore Terminal Services settings.
HB-7264 Windows Recovery
Active Directory trust relationship tests fail with nltest.exe.
Known problems and limitations
◆ “Cannot launch control panel on recovered server.” on page 5
Windows Veritas Recovery fails with error “Failed to find enough allocatable storage, please omit volumes or attach more disk.”
Issue number - HB-4198
Storage recovery for Windows 2003 with Veritas storage manager is unable to use concatenated RAID to span single partitions over multiple disks. It should be noted that a profiled RAID configuration is never recovered, but the recovery should be able to span a partition across multiple disks.
Workaround: Make sure you have enough storage available to accommodate your profiled partitions without needing to span any single partition across multiple disks.
Cannot launch control panel on recovered server. Issue number - HB-4249
This problem seems to affect the administrator account, when restoring a profile from a VM on to a physical server.
Workaround: Delete the references to the VMware Tools Control Panel applet (VMControlPanel) from the registry.
HomeBase Server issues
The following issue is found in HomeBase Server:
◆ “Enhanced Bare Metal Recovery using EMC Avamar fails” on page 5
◆ “Relicensing a HomeBase Server invalidates any existing licence batches” on page 6
◆ “Concurrent scheduled replications fail to run.” on page 6
◆ “HomeBase server displays license information based on the latest profile, not live data.” on page 6
◆ “Error in uploading large sets of HP-AIX packages.” on page 6
◆ “Data transmission error occurs when sending command to the HomeBase server.” on page 6
◆ “EBMR data restore fails on Windows 2008 R2 64 bit server” on page 6 ◆ “Windows services not recovered after EBMR” on page 7
◆ “NetWorker data restore fails” on page 7 Enhanced Bare Metal Recovery using EMC Avamar fails
Issue number - HB-7448
Known problems and limitations
The services might not function correctly after recovery and error messages such as, "Login process cannot be initialized" and "Windows Error Recovery, Windows failed to
start" are displayed.
Relicensing a HomeBase Server invalidates any existing licence batches Issue number - HB-1900
If a new HomeBase license is generated by using a new license (.bsk) file, any batches created using the old issuer is incompatible and fails to import the HomeBase user interface.
Workaround: Contact your licensing representative for replacement batches that will work with your new licence.
Concurrent scheduled replications fail to run. Issue number - HB-2499
If a replication is already running when another starts, it fails with an exception, “Failed listing agreements:RepositoryAgreementStore.java:169” error in the server.log file.
Workaround: Make sure that scheduled replications do not overlap. HomeBase server displays license information based on the latest profile, not live data.
Issue number - HB-2620
License information displayed for the Agent in the HomeBase Server web interface is based on the latest profile, not live data
Workaround: Either upload a new profile after an agent license is updated, or run the hba lic show command on the agent machine to view current information. Error in uploading large sets of HP-AIX packages.
Issue number - HB-6466
This problem was introduced by the change in process launcher technology made to support Windows 2008. When trying to upload large sets of HP-AIX packages, an error message indicating that too many files are open appears.
Workaround: Manually set a high file ulimit on the UNIX command line, for example, ulimit -n 16384, before using the HomeBase commands.
Data transmission error occurs when sending command to the HomeBase server. Issue number - HB-6654
There is an intermittent failure during when sending command to the HomeBase server. This occurs when processes are communicating with the HomeBase Server over the homebasessl protocol.
Workaround: Restart the HomeBase Server service. EBMR data restore fails on Windows 2008 R2 64 bit server
Issue number - HB-7686
On a Windows 2008 R2 64bit server, the EBMR fails with the “5054:recover: Failed to
End of support for AIX and Solaris platforms
Workaround: Perform a manual recovery. The error appears during a manual recovery too. Ignore the message and continue the recovery.
Windows services not recovered after EBMR Issue number - HB-7634
Some of the Windows services and drivers are not recovered correctly after a EBMR. The issue affects Windows 2003 recoveries using the NetWorker EBMR feature.
NetWorker data restore fails
Issue number - HB-7668
The NetWorker data restore fails with “Win2k3r264 NW data restore failed: ERROR:
Failed to initialize VSS recover, error=0x0: Invalid XML document passed: it is either not a correctly formed XML string or it does not match the schema” message.
The impact of the error is not completely deduced and is currently observed only on Windows 2003 64 bit R2 SP2.
End of support for AIX and Solaris platforms
AIX and Solaris platforms will not be supported by HomeBase version 6.5.x. Post-6.5.x will not be supported on these platforms. Service pack releases offered as part of normal support till the end of support life in March 2013 will continue to support AIX and Solaris platforms.
End of service dates and extended support
EMC has a standard software support duration policy which specifies that a major version will reach End of Service Life (EOSL) a minimum of 24 months following the General Availability (GA). EOSL is followed by an Extended Support period during which customers may elect to pay an additional fee to extend their support coverage rather than migrate to a current software version.
Once a software product reaches EOSL, EMC Technical Support is no longer available under base support/maintenance agreements. Customers interested in uninterrupted support must upgrade to a current release or contract for Extended Support (ES).
Powerlink contains a list of documents that provide end-of-service and extended support information for EMC software and hardware products.
To access these documents on Powerlink: 1. Go to Powerlink.
2. Enter the following text in the Search box and click Search: EMC software release end of service life
3. Find the EMC Software Release and End of Service Life Notifications document in the results.
4. Open it and search for your product and version.
End of service dates and extended support
Troubleshooting and getting help
Troubleshooting and getting help
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Troubleshooting and getting help
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