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Veritas Flex Appliance Getting Started and Administration Guide

Last Published: 2024-07-23

Product(s): Appliances (4.2, 4.1, 4.0)

Platform: Flex Appliance OS

Accessing and using the Flex Appliance Shell

You can use the Flex Appliance Shell to perform the initial configuration, monitor the appliance hardware, and manage some of the settings.

Accessing the Flex Appliance Shell

To access the Flex Appliance Shell for most operations, open an SSH session to the appliance node and log in with the username hostadmin and the password that you set during initial configuration.

Note:

If you have a multi-node appliance, you must log in to each node individually.

If you have not completed the initial configuration yet, you can access the shell through the Veritas Remote Management Interface. Refer to the initial configuration procedure for instructions.

Veritas recommends that you also log in through the remote management interface for the following operations:

Restarting the node
Factory resets
Reimaging

Note:

When you access the Flex Appliance Shell through the Veritas Remote Management Interface, do not enter alt+PrtScn while a command is running. If you do, the command fails, and it still may not work when you try to rerun it.

To conform with the Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) and the Security Technical Implementation Guide (STIG), the Flex Appliance Shell supports only the following ciphers and message authentication codes (MACs):

Ciphers:
- aes256-ctr
- aes192-ctr
- aes128-ctr
MACs:
- hmac-sha2-512
- hmac-sha2-256

Older SSH clients are likely to prevent access to the appliance. Check to make sure that your SSH client supports the listed ciphers and MACs, and update to the latest version if necessary. Default SSH client settings may not be FIPS- and STIG-compliant, which means you may need to select them manually in your SSH client configuration.

Navigating the Flex Appliance Shell

Note:

When you log in for the first time, the available commands are limited to those that you can run on an unconfigured appliance. Complete the initial configuration to gain access to the rest of the command options. See Performing the initial configuration.

The Flex Appliance Shell includes the following command views:

setup
Includes all of the commands for initial configuration.
system
Includes the commands you can use to manage the appliance OS, system services, and hosts file settings.
show
Includes the commands you can use to show the current appliance settings and information about the appliance hardware.
set
Includes the commands you can use to modify the appliance settings.
support
Includes the commands you can use to access privileged operations and manage storage shelves. This view is primarily intended for Veritas Technical Support.
- Also includes the support shell, which has a command prompt to let you view read-only information on the appliance, including performance metrics.

The following is a list of tips on how to use the Flex Appliance Shell:

You can press the ? key at any time to display more information about the commands or sub-views. If you press ? after you enter a command, the format and usage of the parameters for that command is displayed.
To type a ? without displaying the help, first press Ctrl + v.
You can press Alt + s at any time to view a list of shell shortcuts and additional features.
The Flex Appliance Shell works similarly to the Bourne-Again Shell (BASH) and supports all of the same keyboard shortcuts.
Additional Linux commands are available by typing the full path to the command. For example: /usr/bin/top.
The available commands are dependent on the security permission settings of the user.
In the documentation, command variables are italicized or in angular brackets (<>). Replace these variables with the appropriate information for each command.

More Information

Common tasks in Flex Appliance