1. Release Notes for Release 2.4.4.2
  2. Feature Overview

2 Feature Overview

This chapter provides an overview of the new features and other changes in different releases of Oracle Private Cloud Appliance.

Changes and Improvements in Release 2.4.4.2

This section describes functional changes, improvements, and bug fixes in the 2.4.4.2 release.

Upgrading to Oracle Private Cloud Appliance Release 2.4.4.2

For specific instructions for upgrading to Oracle Private Cloud Appliance Release 2.4.4.2, see the My Oracle Support document [PCA 2.4.4.2] Upgrade Guide (Doc ID 2914968.1).

You can upgrade from either Private Cloud Appliance Release 2.4.4 or Private Cloud Appliance Release 2.4.4.1.

To review the general upgrade procedure and command output see Oracle Private Cloud Appliance Upgrade Guide for Release 2.4.4.1.

ULN Patching Provides Updates Between Full Releases

In addition to upgrading a Private Cloud Appliance to a new software release using the Upgrader Tool, you can patch a Private Cloud Appliance using dedicated channels on the Unbreakable Linux Network (ULN). Patching provides security updates, kernel changes, and bug fixes between larger ISO releases, for both management and compute nodes. See Oracle Private Cloud Appliance Patching Guide for Release 2.4.3.x and Release 2.4.4.x.

Upgraded Oracle VM Manager

Oracle VM Manager is upgraded to Release 3.4.7.2 with October 2022 CPUs.

For information about enhancements in Oracle VM Manager Release 3.4.7.2, see Oracle VM : What's New with Release 3.4.7 - Latest Information (Doc ID 2832974.1).

pca-diag Enhancements

The pca-diag diagnostic tool is enhanced in the following ways:

  • The vmpinfo command collects a single tarball of logs and configuration data from the Oracle VM Manager. The ocvadiag tarball is merged into the single tarball.

  • The vmpinfo command collects logs and sosreport support data both management nodes and from each Oracle VM Server or compute node.

  • Collects data for Cisco Switches.

  • Collects ILOM data for each management and compute node.

  • Collects ULN configuration files and yum transaction history.

For more information, see the "Oracle Private Cloud Appliance Diagnostics Tool" software component in Concept, Architecture and Life Cycle of Oracle Private Cloud Appliance in the Oracle Private Cloud Appliance Administration Guide.

Bugs Fixed in Release 2.4.4.2

The following table lists notable bugs that have been fixed in Oracle Private Cloud Appliance Release 2.4.4.2.

Table 2-1 List of Fixed Bugs

Bug ID Description

34790192

pca-diag vmpinfo giving warning messages for packages as "Header V3 RSA/SHA256 Signature, key ID ec551f03: NOKEY"

34747228

/boot not having enough space on CNs for upgrade to b218

34726510

Upgrade fails on post upgrade tasks during guestshell destroy

34619179

The repository_mount_monitor Reports Warnings on Local Repositories

34597193

[X8-2] Sort the outputs in pca-admin show network

34595672

[X8-2] Remove pre upgrade check and healthchecks if MN uptime is more than 100 days

34581221

Improve Cisco switch firmware upgrade procedure

34563724

Filesystem in Solaris VM Corrupts Frequently after Testing VM HA by Running "shutdown -h now" on Compute Node

34524559

[X8-2] pca-faultmonitor network_monitor warnings on blue rack invalid check of usb0 ports on server

34505885

[X8-2] Update Password for zfs-root throws an error log "Task failed. Host 192.168.4.2 marked as error in error DB"

34500610

[X8-2] pca_upgrader: upgrade scripts error is not logged in case of abrupt failure

34470591

[X8-2] Add 'bpdufilter enable' by default to uplinks in Cisco configs

34297873

Upgrading Spine Switch Lost External/Uplink Connectivity to PCA

31601967

request to block pca-admin command from non root user

31246371

pca-diag should collect data from all sub-systems without requiring ssh

29551849

add new target "list all-networks" to list all internal and external networks

Changes and Improvements in Release 2.4.4.1

This section describes functional changes, improvements and bug fixes compared to the previous release.

Ethernet-based Rack Update Only

The 2.4.4.1 software update is designed for the Ethernet-based Oracle Private Cloud Appliance racks. Your Ethernet-based rack must be at version 2.4.4 before you can upgrade to version 2.4.4.1. For upgrade information, see Upgrading Oracle Private Cloud Appliance.

Oracle Private Cloud Appliance Upgrader Changes

For release 2.4.4.1, health checks and additional pre-checks have been added to the upgrader code to ensure the system is healthy and ready for upgrade. For more information, see Oracle Private Cloud Appliance Upgrade Guide for Release 2.4.4.1.

Oracle Private Cloud Appliance Software Installation Changes

The methodology used for upgrading compute nodes has changed for release 2.4.4.1. In the prior release, the pca_upgrager tool was used to upgrade compute nodes. For this release, compute node upgrades are performed using the Oracle Private Cloud Appliance update compute-node command, which provides more flexibility in scheduling compute node upgrades. For more information, see "Upgrading the Virtualization Platform" in the Oracle Private Cloud Appliance Upgrade Guide for Release 2.4.4.1.

New CLI Functionality for the Phone Home Service

Starting with release 2.4.4.1, you can enable or disable the Phone Home service on the management nodes using the set system-property command in the Oracle Private Cloud Appliance CLI.

To set the Phone Home option, log in to the Oracle Private Cloud Appliance CLI on each management node and set the service to the desired option. 

# ssh root@10.100.1.101
root@10.100.1.101's password:
root@ovcamn05r1 ~]# pca-admin
PCA> set system-property phonehome [enable | disable]

Bugs Fixed in Release 2.4.4.1

The following table lists notable bugs that have been fixed in Oracle Private Cloud Appliance Release 2.4.4.1.

Table 2-2 List of Fixed Bugs

Bug ID Description

34318768

"[X8-2] During boot of CN, RAID Card failure caused provisioning to overwrite FC LUN Repo"

34099145

"kdump service not operational on compute nodes updated to kernel version: 4.14.35-2047.511.5.6.el7uek.x86_64 "

33935672

"PCA 2.4.4 pca_healthcheck fails on valid X9 BIOS version 61040500 "

33925660

"[X8-2] PCA - Provisioning status give false impression of CN state"

32702599

"PCA: The pca_healthchecker Gets java.lang.IllegalArgumentException If Compute Node IPMI Not Enabled "

33731454

"[X8-2] Add tcpdump rpm to CN repos"

33699788

"[X8-2] delete oci-backup/target command without an argument fails with index out of range error"

33238764

"[X8-2] PCA Healthcheck - Root disk need not always be on /dev/sda - Remove assumption "

31721530

"[X8-2] pca_upgrader precheck should be a super set of checks that would fail if the healthcheck fails "

Changes and Improvements in Release 2.4.4

This section describes functional changes, improvements and bug fixes compared to the previous release.

Oracle Server X9-2

This release introduces support for the Oracle Server X9-2 as a compute node for Oracle Private Cloud Appliance.

Software Updates

This release introduces support for Oracle Linux 7 UEK5 and Oracle VM 3.4.7. When you upgrade to Software Controller release 2.4.4, compute nodes and management nodes are reprovisioned with these software updates. For more information about the update procedure, see Upgrading Oracle Private Cloud Appliance. Release 2.4.4 is currently supported on Ethernet-based racks only.

Oracle Cloud Native Environment Release 1.2

Caution:

This feature is no longer supported. Kubernetes functions are now available through Oracle Cloud Native Environment.

This release introduces support for the Oracle Cloud Native Environment Release 1.2 (formerly Kubernetes Engine). The new OVA template (pca-k8s-1-2-0.ova) is now the default template for the create kube-cluster command.

Ksplice Support

For Ksplice Support on Oracle Private Cloud Appliance Release 2.4.4 (or later) compute nodes, contact Oracle Support.

Bugs Fixed in Release 2.4.4

The following table lists notable bugs that have been fixed in Oracle Private Cloud Appliance Release 2.4.4.

Table 2-3 List of Fixed Bugs

Bug ID Description

31811656

"PCA 2.4.3 upgrader fails on storage-network update "

32717711

"pca-admin show a network which doesn't exist in CN node"

32710264

"Changing switch password via dashboard is not persistent on X8-2 systems"

31518408

"Compute node crashes when generating an sos report."

32780994

"PCA upgrade fails to detect running OVMM when JAVA_HOME is declared pointing to incorrect location"

31798407

"PCA 2.4.3 upgrader fails on Cisco steps"

30451985

"Remove obsolete checks from PCA Healthcheck tool"

32356688

"Upgrade cisco switches to add guestshell destroy "

32739839

"Upgrader iscsi precheck should check for unsupported iscsi target "

32047039

"VM Internal Storage networking causes errors during compute node reboot"

Changes and Improvements in Release 2.4.3

This section describes functional changes, improvements and bug fixes compared to the previous release.

Kubernetes as a Service

The Oracle Private Cloud Appliance now supports Kubernetes as a Service. Kubernetes as a Service automates the provisioning of Oracle VM infrastructure and Kubernetes components to provide an integrated solution for Oracle Private Cloud Appliance.

Enhanced Oracle Private Cloud Appliance Fault Monitoring

The new fault monitoring architecture brings together the Oracle Private Cloud Appliance health check, the Oracle VM health check, and the Oracle Private Cloud Appliance pre-upgrade checks under one service. In addition, you can configure health checking to integrate with ZFS Phone Home service to send reports on a weekly basis to Oracle Service for monitoring, using Oracle's Automated Service Request (ASR) infrastructure.

Oracle Private Cloud Appliance Cloud Backup

The Oracle Private Cloud Appliance Cloud Backup service automates the backup of critical components and configuration data to your customer tenancy in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI). This feature is designed to recover an Oracle Private Cloud Appliance to a running state after a catastrophic event.

Support for Oracle VM Exporter Appliance on Oracle Private Cloud Appliance

An Oracle VM Exporter Appliance is a special type of virtual machine used to export another virtual machine from the Oracle VM environment to a tenancy account in the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

Storage Network Provides Internal Access to ZFS Storage Appliance

Oracle Private Cloud Appliance administrators can now create custom networks that enable users to access iSCSI and NFS shares on the internal ZFS Storage Appliance from within their individual Oracle VM guests hosted on the Oracle Private Cloud Appliance. Ensure you have 60 TB of free space on the ZFS Storage Appliance to use this feature.

Bugs Fixed in Release 2.4.3

The following table lists bugs that have been fixed in Oracle Private Cloud Appliance Release 2.4.3.

Table 2-4 List of Fixed Bugs

Bug ID Description

31683379

"PCA health check failed "Multicast Route Check" from one spine switch "

31133075

"check_storage_space always fails after a given failure scenario"

30594475

"PCA 2.4.2 pca_upgrader fails ERROR (precheck:148) [OVMM Default Network Check (Checking default OVMM networks exist on the management nodes)] Failed "

Additional checks have been added to verify the system network configuration.

31176592

"MySql lock issues on the active management node"

31157042

"Timezone: Incorrect java version in /usr/bin/java for PCA 2.4.3 "

31607588

"Pick up the July CPU for JRE 8 on PCA MN"

The latest component firmware is incorporated.

30982691

"UI:Dashboard javascript library requires update"

The latest UI update is incorporated.

31629904

"Tracking - Pick up OVM Manager build 3.4.6.2684 "

The latest component firmware is incorporated.

31350870

"Deprecated SSH settings "

Earlier Releases

For an overview of features, functional changes and bug fixes in earlier releases of Oracle Private Cloud Appliance, please refer to the release notes for the version in question. You can access the documentation libraries for all releases from the Documentation Overview page.