Validating VMware Aria Automation SaaS Cloud Proxy health

Products

• VMware Aria Suite

Issue/Introduction

The goal of this article is to list the suggested steps in order to validate the health of a VMware Aria Automation SaaS Cloud Proxy.
 
Cloud Proxies allow for the creation of Cloud Accounts connecting to endpoints such as:

• vCenter
• NSX-T
• Ansible
• Ansible Tower
• Puppet
• Red Hat OpenShift
• VMware Enterprise PKS (Private Cloud)

Documentation

• Understanding the VMware Cloud Services Cloud Proxy for vRAC and vRLIC
• Scale maximums for VMware Aria Automation Cloud Proxies (92193)
• Common known issues during the deployment of VMware Aria Automation, VMware Aria Orchestrator, Cloud Proxy and Cloud Extensiblity Proxy (93142)
• Creating Cloud Accounts:
  • vCenter
  • NSX-T
  • NSX-V
• Integrations:
  • Ansible Open Source integration
  • Ansible Automation Platform/Ansible Tower Integration
  • Puppet Enterprise integration
  • Red Hat OpenShift Integration
  • VMware PKS integration

Resolution

1. Validating services and appliance health

   1. Command line:

      docker ps 
      sh /data-collector-status --docker
      sh /data-collector-status –traceroute

      • Suggestions: sh /data-collector-status –traceroute indicates that a data collector is not able to access one of the URLs. Validate your internet connectivity and firewall configuration.
   2. You may also retrieve the proxy status from the UI by going to Assembler > Infrastructure > Connections > Cloud Proxy. Select your Cloud proxy, then select Status and then click on EXECUTE.

2. Validating Disk space

   1. Run the following command on the appliance when logged in with the root user through an SSH session: df -hi
      1. At least 20% of the available disk space is required on all partitions. If there are any partitions under 20%, find the files that are consuming the most space by running the following command:

         find ID1 -size +100M -exec du -h {} \; | less

Note: Where ID1 is the name of the partition.
Example: 

find / -size +100M -exec du -h {} \; | less
find /data1 -size +100M -exec du -h {} \; | less
find /boot -size +100M -exec du -h {} \; | less
find /dev -size +100M -exec du -h {} \; | less

Note: If there are old log bundles, database dumps, or *.hprof files consuming space, they can be safely deleted. The log bundles are usually located in /root/log-bundle-directory.

3. Validating DNS

   1. Run the following commands on the appliance:

      nslookup $( ifconfig | grep -A 1 'eth0' | tail -1 | cut -d ':' -f 2 | cut -d ' ' -f 1)
      nslookup $( uname -n)

Note: The DNS record must use Fully Qualified Domain Names (FQDNs), no short name. A single A record and a single PTR record is required.

4. Restarting

   1. UI: You may restart the proxy from VMware Aria Automation Assembler UI, navigating to Assembler > Infrastructure > Connections > Cloud Proxy, select Reboot and then click on EXECUTE.
   2. vCenter Guest OS initiated shutdown: Login to vCenter and find the Cloud Proxy virtual machine. Right click on the VM and navigate to Actions > Power > Shut Down Guest OS.

5. Log bundle creation

   sh /generate-log-bundle
   

6. Log Locations

Description	Log Location
Proxy service	/data1/proxylogs/va-remote-proxy.0.log
Registration Status	/data1/proxylogs/proxy-status.log
Orchestrator agent logs	/data1/vro-agent-logs/*.log
ABX agent logs	/data1/abx-agent-logs/*.log
Pipelines agent	/data1/codestream-agent-logs/*.log
Blueprint agent	/data1/blueprint-agent-logs/*.log
CMX agent	/data1/cmx-agent-logs/*.log
SDDC agent	/data1/sddc-agent-logs/*.log
Migration agent	/data1/vra-migration-agent-logs/*.log

 

7. Updates / Upgrade

• Container images are updated automatically.
• You may check for a pending upgrade for the appliance by navigating to Assembly > Infrastructure > Connections > Cloud Proxies. Select Check for upgrades and then click on EXECUTE. If there is a pending upgrade the UI will provide you an option to upgrade the appliance.

8. Configure a web proxy

   1. Run the following command for additional information:

/configure-network-proxy --help

1. If the web proxy is an SSL Proxy, you must add the root certificate of the SSL Proxy to the trust store of the Cloud Proxy.

/usr/java/jre-vmware/bin/keytool -import -trustcacerts -keystore /usr/java/jre-vmware/lib/security/cacerts -storepass changeit -alias <CERT_NAME_ALIAS> -import -file <Path to certificate> -noprompt

2. Restart the proxy client:

systemctl restart rdc-proxy

9. Best practices

   1. VMware Virtual Appliances and customizations to operating system and included packages is not supported.
   2. Suppress the auto-update of Automation Orchestrator for VMware Aria Automation SaaS extensibility proxy.