Procedure for Increasing RAM For PAM virtual appliances

Products

• CA Privileged Access Manager (PAM)

Issue/Introduction

Increasing RAM on virtual appliance requires a cluster off to ensure the cluster remains synchronized and the new memory settings are applied correctly. If cluster off is not possible, see below procedure.

Cause

Sometimes you get 'out of memory' error message and it is needed to increase virtual machine memory RAM

Resolution

1. Turn the Cluster Off: Navigate to Configuration > Clustering > Status and select Turn Cluster Off. This is a standard prerequisite for maintenance to prevent data inconsistency or heartbeat failures.
2. Power Down the Appliance: Gracefully shut down the PAM virtual machine.
3. Modify Hardware Settings: In your hypervisor (e.g., VMware vSphere, AWS Console, or Azure Portal), increase the allocated RAM for the virtual instance.
4. Power Up the Appliance: Start the virtual machine. Upon boot, PAM will detect the new RAM and update its internal memory configuration files automatically.
5. Turn the Cluster On: Once verified, navigate back to Configuration > Clustering > Status and select Turn Cluster On.

Alternatively, if you have for instance 3 nodes on primary site you can work on one appliance each time with cluster ON

Take one node and  shut it down, change the RAM, start up this node appliance, and when the node is correctly up, then go to the next node, the main king primary node the last.

Rolling RAM Upgrade Procedure (3-Node Cluster)

The key to a rolling upgrade is processing one node at a time. The cluster will continue to function because two nodes (the quorum) will remain online while one is being modified.

1. Preparation:

   • Confirm the cluster health is "Healthy" and all nodes are synchronized.
   • Identify the 3 nodes. We will refer to them as Node A, Node B, and Node C (where Node A is the current Primary/Leader).

2. Upgrade the First Secondary Node (Node C):

   • Shut down Node C gracefully via your hypervisor.
   • Increase the RAM allocation in the hypervisor settings.
   • Power on Node C.
   • Wait for Node C to boot, rejoin the cluster, and synchronize. Monitor Configuration > Clustering > Status to ensure it returns to "Healthy."

3. Upgrade the Second Secondary Node (Node B):

   • Once Node C is fully operational and synchronized, repeat the process for Node B.
   • Shut down Node B, update the RAM in the hypervisor, and power it back on.
   • Wait for Node B to rejoin and synchronize.

4. Upgrade the Primary Node (Node A):

   • With Node B and Node C now running with the new RAM, you are ready to upgrade the Primary node.
   • Shut down Node A.
   • Automatic Failover: As Node A goes offline, the cluster will automatically trigger an election. Since Nodes B and C are already running and healthy, one of them will be promoted to the new Primary role. The cluster remains available.
   • Update the RAM for Node A in the hypervisor and power it on.
   • Once Node A reboots, it will join the cluster as a secondary node.

5. Final Verification:

   • Navigate to Configuration > Clustering > Status.
   • All three nodes should now appear as "Online" and "Healthy."