Version 9.5.2

Released August 11, 2021

Important!!

Read This Document Before Attempting To Install Or Use This Product!
This document contains last minute information that must be considered before, during and after installation.

Introduction

This release notes document is written for the person who installs, configures and/or administers the LifeKeeper Single Server Protection for Linux product. The document contains important information not detailed in the formal LifeKeeper Single Server Protection documentation set such as system requirements, new features and links to product restrictions and troubleshooting hints and tips. It is important that you review this document before installing and configuring LifeKeeper Single Server Protection software.

LifeKeeper Single Server Protection Product Description

LifeKeeper Single Server Protection allows for application monitoring in a single node configuration (i.e., no cluster requirements or restraints). Single node environments may be physical or virtual (vSphere, KVM, Amazon EC2). LifeKeeper Single Server Protection is built on the proven and stable architecture of SIOS LifeKeeper. LifeKeeper Single Server Protection provides superior application monitoring and can perform recovery of failed applications and system infrastructure items (e.g., NFS share, IP address, File System). If an application cannot be recovered for some reason, LifeKeeper Single Server Protection will initiate a restart of the node via a system reboot or via a VMware HA restart for VMware virtual machines configured for VM and Application Monitoring.

Components

LifeKeeper Single Server Protection Software is bundled and runs on 64-bit systems (x86_64, AMD64) and is comprised of the following components:

  • LifeKeeper Single Server Protection Software
Package
Package Name
Protected Applications
LifeKeeper Apache Web Server Recovery Kit steeleye-lkAPA-9.5.2-7301.noarch.rpm Apache Web Server v2.4
LifeKeeper SAP MaxDB Recovery Kit steeleye-lkSAPDB-9.5.2-7301.noarch.rpm SAP MaxDB v7.9
LifeKeeper DB2 Recovery Kit steeleye-lkDB2-9.5.2-7301.noarch.rpm

IBM DB2 Universal Database v10.5, v11.1 and v11.5

IBM DB2 Enterprise Server Edition (ESE) v10.5, v11.1 and v11.5

IBM DB2 Workgroup Server Edition (WSE) v10.5, v11.1 and v11.5

IBM DB2 Express Edition v10.5, v11.1 and v11.5

LifeKeeper Oracle Recovery Kit steeleye-lkORA-9.5.2-7301.noarch.rpm

Oracle Database Enterprise Edition v12c, v12c R2, v18c and v19c (excluding ASM and pluggable database)

Oracle Database Standard Edition 2 (SE2) v12c, v12c R2, v18c and v19c (excluding ASM and pluggable database)

LifeKeeper MySQL Recovery Kit steeleye-lkSQL-9.5.2-7301.noarch.rpm

MySQL and MySQL Enterprise v5.7 and v8.0

MariaDB v10.3, v10.4, and v10.5

LifeKeeper PostgreSQL Recovery Kit

steeleye-lkPGSQL-9.5.2-7301.noarch.rpm

PostgreSQL v9.6, v10, v11, v12, and v13

EnterpriseDB Postgres Plus Advanced Server/EDB Postgres Advanced Server v9.6, v10.0, v11.0, v12.0 and v13.0

LifeKeeper Sybase ASE Recovery Kit steeleye-lkSYBASE-9.5.2-7301.noarch.rpm Sybase ASE 15.7 and 16.0
LifeKeeper Postfix Recovery Kit steeleye-lkPOSTFIX-9.5.2-7301.noarch.rpm Postfix software provided with the supported Linux distributions installed and configured on each server. The same version of Postfix should be installed on each server.
LifeKeeper Samba Recovery Kit steeleye-lkSMB-9.5.2-7301.noarch.rpm Standard Samba file services provided with the supported Linux distributions
LifeKeeper NFS Server Recovery Kit steeleye-lkNFS-9.5.2-7301.noarch.rpm

Linux kernel version 2.6 or later

The NFS Server and client packages must be installed on SLES systems.

LifeKeeper Network Attached Storage Recovery Kit steeleye-lkNAS-9.5.2-7301.noarch.rpm NFS version of Mounted NFS file systems from an NFS server or Network Attached Storage (NAS) device v2, v3 and v4
LifeKeeper WebSphere MQ Recovery Kit steeleye-lkMQS-9.5.2-7301.noarch.rpm

IBM MQ v8.0, v9.0, v9.1 and v9.2

See Known Issues and Restrictions > Installation.

Quick Service Protection steeleye-lkQSP-9.5.2-7301.noarch.rpm Quick Service Protection supplies functionality to easily protect OS services.

Features of LifeKeeper Single Server Protection

Product
Description
Temporal Recovery Logic Local recovery attempt limits can be set providing improved application availability.
Multi-Level Policies Recovery options can be specified at the server and resource levels allowing clients to define the most appropriate recovery strategy for each application.
Notification Only/Maintenance Mode Allows users to temporarily disable monitoring of one or more resources preventing LifeKeeper Single Server Protection from attempting to recover a resource that is undergoing maintenance.
VMware vSphere Integration Integrates with VMware’s vSphere platform to improve application availability while allowing organizations to realize the full benefits of server virtualization and automation. (VMware environments only)
vSphere Client Plug-in Centralized management and monitoring through the vSphere Client. (VMware environments only)

New Features of LifeKeeper Single Server Protection for Linux Version 9

Product
Feature
New in Version 9.5.2
LifeKeeper Core
Supports Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.4
Supports CentOS 8.3
Supports Oracle Linux 8.3
Supports Oracle Linux 7 UEK 6
Note: The kernel should be updated to 5.4.17-2102.202.5 or higher.
Supports Oracle Linux 8 UEK 6
Note: The kernel should be updated to 5.4.17-2102.202.5 or higher.
LKCLI has been enhanced to control the following Recovery Kits.
  • SAP MaxDB
  • MQ RK
You can now run lkcli from non-root users who belong to the lk group.
You can now use the “-i” option with lkcli stop as well as with lkstop.
Bug Fixes
MySQL Supports MariaDB 10.5
Bug Fixes
MQ Supports WebSphere MQ 9.2 for RHEL 7.9
Supports WebSphere MQ 9.2 for RHEL 8.3
Install, NFS, IP, Oracle, Quorum/Witness, Filesystem, Generic, lksupport Bug Fixes
New in Version 9.5.1
LifeKeeper Core Supports Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.9 (Certified in December 2020)
Note: If you are using DataKeeper, login here and follow these steps when installing LifeKeeper.
Supports CentOS 7.9 (Certified in December 2020)
Note: If you are using DataKeeper, login here and follow these steps when installing LifeKeeper.
Supports Oracle Linux 7.9 (Certified in December 2020)
Note: If you are using DataKeeper, login here and follow these steps when installing LifeKeeper.
lkstop -i command stops LifeKeeper core but does not stop the protected resources. The user is prompted to confirm (yes/no) that they want to continue.
LKCLI has been enhanced to control the following Recovery Kits.
  • DB2 RDBMS
  • RAW
  • Postfix
  • VMDK as Shared Storage
  • SAP ASE
  • Samba
  • HULFT / HULFT HUB
  • OraclePDB for Oracle RDBMS
Supports Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.3 (Certified in January 2021) Note: If you are using DataKeeper, login here and follow these steps when installing LifeKeeper.
Supports Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.2
Supports CentOS 8.2
Supports Oracle Linux 8.2 (UEK6 is not supported)
Supports OpenSSL package to 1.1.1g
Supports SLES15 SP2
Supports cURL package to 7.68.0
Bug Fixes
MQ SIOS Protection Suite for Linux now supports IBM MQ 9.2 (January 2021)
QSP Apache Tomcat can be protected with the Quick Service Protection (QSP) Recovery Kit
install Implemented a setup script improvement
Bug Fixes
PostgreSQL Supports PostgreSQL 13 (Certified in December 2020)
Supports EDB Postgres Advanced Server 13.0 (Certified in December 2020)
SAP MaxDB, DB2, Filesystem, Generic Application, IP Bug Fixes
New in Version 9.5.0
LifeKeeper Core Supports Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.8 (Certified in July 2020)
Supports CentOS 7.8 (Certified in July 2020)
Supports Oracle Linux 7.8 (Certified in July 2020)
Supports SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP5 (Certified in July 2020)
Support VMware vSphere 7.0 (Certified in July 2020)
Supports CentOS 8.0
Supports Oracle Linux 8.0
Supports Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.1
Supports CentOS 8.1
Supports Oracle Linux 8.1
The CLI has been enhanced to allow you to control LifeKeeper through the Command Line Interface. See LKCLI for details.
Bug Fixes
PostgreSQL Support PostgreSQL 12
EDB Postgres Advanced Server v12.0 is supported. (Certified in July 2020)
LifeKeeper Core, Filesystem, NFS, DB2, MaxDB, Sybase ASE Bug Fixes
New in Version 9.4.1
LifeKeeper Core OpenJDK included with OS is installed. See Configuring the LifeKeeper GUI for details.
Supports SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP1
Supports Oracle Linux 7.7
Supports CentOS 7.7
Supports AWS Nitro system
Supports AWS Transit Gateway
Bug Fixes
Install, IP, MaxDB Bug Fixes
New in Version 9.4.0
LifeKeeper Core Oracle Linux 7 Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 5 (UEK R5) is supported.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 is supported.

Note: Upgrading from one kernel version to another major version such as from RHEL7 to RHEL8 is NOT supported. (i.e DataKeeper resource does NOT work when upgrading from RHEL7 to RHEL8.)

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.7 is now supported. (Authorized in November 2019)

MySQL MariaDB10.3 is supported.
DB2 DB2 11.5 is supported.
General maintenance Bug Fixes
New in Version 9.3.2
LifeKeeper Core

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.6 is supported.

CentOS 7.6 is supported.

Oracle Linux Version 7.6 is supported.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP4 is supported.
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 is supported.
Install The -s option for saving the current setup configuration has been added to the setup command.
PostgreSQL PostgreSQL 11 is supported.
EDB Postgres Advanced Server v11 is supported.
MQ SIOS Protection Suite for Linux now supports IBM MQ 9.1
Oracle Support Oracle 19c (Certified in August 2019).
General Maintenance Bug fixes
New in Version 9.3.1
LifeKeeper Core

Updated the OpenSSL package to 1.0.2p

Support Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.10

Support CentOS 6.10

Support Oracle Linux 6 Update 10

MySQL Support MySQL 8.0
Oracle Support Oracle 18c (Certified in March 2019)
Install Bug fixes
New in Version 9.3
LifeKeeper Core

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Version 7.5 is supported.

CentOS7.5 is supported.

Oracle Linux Version 7.5 is supported.

Support VMware vSphere 6.7. (Certified in October 2018)

Bug fixes

Install The installation script has been renewed. For details, please click here.
Oracle, Samba, MQ, Sybase, Filesystem, Generic Application, QSP Bug fixes
New in Version 9.2.2
PostgreSQL

Support PostgreSQL 10

EDB Postgres Advanced Server v10.0 is now supported. (Certified in April 2018)

NAS Bug fixes
New in Version 9.2.1
LifeKeeper Core

Support Oracle Linux 7.4

Support CentOS 7.4

Support SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP3

  • The kernel should be updated to 4.4.82-6.9.1 for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP3

    Bug fixes


PostgreSQL Support EDB Postgres Advanced Server 9.6
MQ Support IBM MQ 9.0
New in Version 9.2
LifeKeeper Core

Support Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.4

SNMP trap can be sent to multiple targets

Virtualization environment Nutanix Acropolis Hypervisor is supported. (SPS is not supported)

Bug fixes

IP IP resources using real IP (primary IP address configured for NIC) can be created
PostgreSQL Support PostgreSQL 9.6
MQ Support IBM MQ 9.0 (Certified in December 2017)
SAP MaxDB, Install Bug fixes
New in Version 9.1.1
LifeKeeper Core

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP1 support.

* SLES12.0 is not supported.

* Btrfs is not supported.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Version 7.3 support.

Oracle Linux Version 7.3 support.

* UEK is not supported.

vSphere 6.5 support (SMC feature is no longer supported with vSphere 6.5).

Bug fixes

PostgreSQL PostgreSQL 9.5 support

EDB Postgres Advanced Server v9.5 support
For the details, refer to the SPS Optional Recovery Software Requirements, PostgreSQL Recovery Kit Administration Guide > Administration.

Sybase ASE Sybase ASE 16.0 support.
MySQL MySQL 5.7 support on RHEL 7.x/CentOS 7.x/OEL 7.x.

* MySQL 5.7 on other OS is already supported.

New in Version 9.1.0
LifeKeeper Core

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.8 support (Certified in September 2016).

CentOS 6.8, Oracle Linux 6.8 support (Certified in September 2016).

*MD RecoveryKit is not supported on these OS.

LifeKeeper API for Monitoring

Added API to supply LifeKeeper status and log information.

Quick Service Protection support

Added functionality to easily protect OS services.

Bug Fixes.

New in Version 9.0.2
LifeKeeper Core

Support of Red Hat Enterprise Linux Version 7.2.

※MySQL RK is not supporting RHEL 7.x/CentOS 7.x/OEL 7.x.

※Support of RHEL 7.2 by each application must be confirmed by user.

Update OpenSSL package to 1.0.1q

Bug Fixes.

MQ

WebSphere MQ – Added support for Multi-version WebSphere MQ. With this support queue managers for 7.1, 7.5, and 8.x can all be protected on the same cluster node.

Added the function that mqm group user can execute MQ command alternatively

Bug Fixes.

IP, Filesystem, PostgreSQL, SAP MaxDB, Oracle Bug Fixes.
Licensing Update the package of FlexNet
New in Version 9.0.1
LikeKeeper Core Bug Fixes
DataKeeper Bug Fixes
New in Version 9.0
LifeKeeper Core

Combined documents of Parameters List, and added the lkchkconf command.

vSphere 6 support (SMC feature is no longer supported with vSphere 6.)

reiserfs filesystem is no longer supported.

Arks supported with Red Hat Enterprise Linux Version 7.0/7.1, Community ENTerprise Operating System (CentOS) Version 7.0/7.1, and Oracle Linux Version 7.0/7.1 are the same as LifeKeeper for Linux v8.4.1. (Arks to be applied: PostgreSQL, MySQL, Oracle, DB2, Apache, Postfix, NFS, NAS, Samba)

Bug Fixes.

GUI

JRE 8u51 support. (JRE 7 is no longer supported.)

Chrome Browser is no longer supported

Bug Fixes.

FileSystem, PostgreSQL Bug Fixes.

Bug Fixes

The following is a list of the latest bug fixes and enhancements.

Bug
Description
PL-3822 Added checks during LifeKeeper installation, LifeKeeper startup, and various DataKeeper operations to verify that the expected versions of kernel modules required by DataKeeper are able to load successfully.
PL-4122 Improved efficiency when collecting extended error log files via lkexterrlog, yielding more complete and useful log files.
PL-4318 Added additional logging to core LifeKeeper heartbeating functions to help diagnose possible root causes when customers experience recurring communication path failures.
PL-4769 The LifeKeeper installation setup script now warns users when removing installed packages to prevent accidental removal of packages required by existing resources.
PL-5163 Fixed the LKCLI ‘resource info’ command to return exit code 1 when a non-existent resource tag is provided for the —tag option.
PL-5402 The lksupport utility now collects grub2 boot information.
PL-5415 IP quickCheck and recover overlaps are now prevented.
PL-5594 Fixed a memory allocation issue which caused some issues in the LifeKeeper GUI, such as the inability to change the Shutdown Strategy.
PL-5596 Improved LKCLI import command to create dependencies correctly.
PL-6608 Fixed an issue which required a file system to be manually mounted before importing the corresponding LifeKeeper file system resource with the LKCLI import command.
PL-6616 Fixed a systemd dependency issue where multipathd.service was stopping before LifeKeeper took resources out of service, causing system shutdowns to hang in some situations.
PL-6691 Fixed an issue where commands in the Oracle Recovery Kit could fail when certain environment variables were exported by the Oracle administrative user.
PL-6780 Fixed a memory/thread leak with lkscsid.
PL-7066 Extension of a LifeKeeper resource will now fail if the target server priority chosen for the resource does not match the priority for existing dependent child resources.
PL-7185 Fixed an issue that caused the route table to be deleted when switching over an IP resource using IPv6.
PL-7308 Fixed an issue where the optional —all parameter of the LKCLI ‘resource config gen’ command was incorrectly treated as a required parameter.
PL-7309 Fixed an issue where adding an action script to a generic application resource via the LKCLI ‘resource config gen’ command failed to make the script executable.
PL-7310 Fixed an issue where resources with more than one parent dependency were not deleted correctly by the LKCLI clean command.
PL-7348 Fixed a bug where the resource that protects systemd-managed mysql on SSP did not start properly.
PL-7363 Changed the default value of WAITFORLCM from 20 seconds to 30 seconds.
PL-7858 Fixed an issue where bringing in-service or recovering an IP resource when the network interface was down incorrectly added the address 0.0.0.2/0 to the interface.
PL-8035 HADR package can now be specified by a setup option when installing LifeKeeper.
PL-8152 Fixed an issue with the LKCLI import command that caused NFS resource hierarchy creation to fail if the shared file system was not manually re-exported.
PL-8971 It is now possible to specify a 32-bit netmask (/32, 255.255.255.255) when creating an IP resource.
PL-9012 Fixed a device validation issue in LKCLI import.
PL-9033 It is now possible to create an NFS resource on a server which is not the highest priority server for the dependent IP resource.
PL-9036 Fixed an issue where hanfs resources were not correctly deleted when using the LKCLI delete command.
PL-9056 Fixed an issue where the disk resource ID is configured incorrectly.
PL-9900 Added warning when secure boot is enabled on SLES and UEK systems.

Discontinued Features

Feature
Description
Discontinued in Version 9.5.2
Core SteelEye Management Console is no longer supported.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 is no longer supported.
CentOS 6 is no longer supported.
Oracle Linux 6 is no longer supported.
Oracle Oracle virtual machine (OVM) latest 3.4.6 is no longer supported.
PostgreSQL PostgreSQL 9.5 is no longer supported.
EnterpriseDB Postgres Plus Advanced Server 9.5 is no longer supported.
VMware VMware 5.5 and 6.0 are no longer supported.
Discontinued in Version 9.5.1
None
Discontinued in Version 9.5.0
LifeKeeper Core System log management using syslog-ng is no longer supported. Please use rsyslog.
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 11.0 to SP4 is no longer supported.
Oracle Oracle Database Enterprise Edition 11g R2 is no longer supported.
Oracle Database Standard Edition 11g R2 is no longer supported.
Oracle Database Standard Edition One 11g R2 is no longer supported.
MySQL MariaDB 5.5, 10.0 is no longer supported.
PostgreSQL PostgreSQL 9.4 is no longer supported.
EnterpriseDB Postgres Plus Advanced Server 9.4 is no longer supported.
Discontinued in Version 9.4.1
None

System Requirements

LifeKeeper Single Server Protection Product Requirements

LifeKeeper Single Server Protection is supported on any Linux platform that satisfies the minimum requirements included in the table below.

Description Requirement
Linux Operating System See the Linux Configuration Table for specific operating system information.
Virtual Environments The guest operating system running on the virtual machine must be one of the supported versions listed in the Linux Configuration Table. The following virtual environment is an example where SIOS Protection Suite for Linux is deployed. Please refer to the Support Matrix for detailed versions of supported virtualization environments.

  • KVM

  • Oracle VM Server for x86

  • VMware vSphere v6.5, v6.7 and v7.0

  • Amazon EC2

  • Nutanix Acropolis Hypervisor

    SAN configuration is supported for vSphere 6.5 or later except RDM which is not supported by VMWare.

    Fibre channel SAN and shared SCSI cluster configurations are not supported with SPS for Linux running in a KVM and Oracle VM Server for x86 virtual machine.

    Note: Some Amazon EC2 configurations have issues when the Shutdown Strategy is set to “Do not Switchover Resources”. For detailed information, see Troubleshooting > Known Issues and Restrictions.

    Note: On SLES v12 or later running on AWS or Azure, the dynamic change of the virtual IP address by the cloud network plug-in may affect the operation of the LifeKeeper cluster. For detailed information, see LifeKeeper Core – Known Issues / Restrictions.
Memory The minimum memory requirement for a system supporting SPS is 512 MB. This is the minimum amount required by SPS supported Linux distributions. System memory should be sized for the applications that will be running on the SPS protected system as well. Refer to Application Configuration for further information.
Disk Space The SPS Package Cluster requires the following disk space:

/opt – approx 100MB (depending on kits installed)

/ – approx 110MB

Java Runtime Environment
  • OpenJDK 1.8, 10 or later

LifeKeeper Single Server Protection Support Software Requirements

The following table of Supporting Software is only required in VMware VMs configured for VM and Application Monitoring.

Product
Requirement(s)
Disk Space Required
VMware

VMware vSphere Client (for LifeKeeper Single Server Protection vSphere Client Plug-in functionality)

VMware Tools installed and running on all protected virtual machines

VMware Application HA monitoring must be enabled and set to VM and Application Monitoring for all protected virtual machines

Approximately 175 KB in /opt (for VMware Tools

Known Issues

See the Known Issues and Workarounds section in LifeKeeper Single Server Protection for Linux Technical Documentation for known issues, workarounds and other troubleshooting information.

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