SHIFT-WIKI - Sjoerd Hooft's InFormation Technology
This WIKI is my personal documentation blog. Please enjoy it and feel free to reach out through blue sky if you have a question, remark, improvement or observation. See below for the latest additions, or use the search or tags to browse for content.
Reinitialize and Reset a NetApp to Factory Defaults
Summary: How to wipe a Netapp Filer back to its factory defaults.
Date: Around 2015
Refactor: 7 March 2025: Checked links and formatting.
Note: Following this procedure will leave you with a useless machine. You'll only have a few commands, so no filerview etc to work with. You need to reinstall ONTAP and need to re-apply all licenses. Make a backup of your licenses and make sure your support contract allows you to receive a new ONTAP version, since this is not available for download. See NetApp: A Complete Setup of a Netapp Filer for a manual on how to proceed after you've done the reinitialization.
We had a filer with some very sensitive information on it that had to be destroyed (in front of an auditor) before it was allowed to reuse the filer. This was the procedure we followed:
- Connect to the filer through a console cable. For this we simply used Putty that also has the option to connect to your serial/COM port.
- Issued the command “reboot” to reboot the filer.
- Wait for the autoboot to start and when asked for it pressed <CTRL>+C to enter the special boot menu.
- Choose option 4a to reinitialize (zero) all the disks and automatically create a flexvol root volume.
- Confirm this twice
- Wait for a long time, and at the end of the procedure you get a setup sequence with options for naming your filer etc.
See the screenshots below so you'll know when to press what: Issue the reboot:
And this is what happens:
Afterwards you get messages that your disks are zeroed and that your aggregate has been added to the system:
Then the initialization of the network and storage starts, which ends with the setup sequence which starts with providing the new hostname:
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NetApp Type And Serial
Summary: How to get the type and serial number of a Netapp Filer.
Date: Around 2015
Refactor: 7 March 2025: Checked links and formatting.
If you have access to the filer it's quite easy to determine the type and serial number of the filer.
NetApp Syslog
Summary: How to setup syslog on a Netapp Filer.
Date: Around 2015
Refactor: 7 March 2025: Checked links and formatting.
Configuring syslog on a netapp filer is pretty straight forward, with one catch. You can't edit the /etc/syslog.conf file, and that for two reasons:
- There is no syslog.conf
- There is no editor
You can create an empty syslog.conf file however, and while doing that, put in all the required configuration. So first step is looking at the current sample file so you can create the syslog.conf from that:
filer1> rdfile /etc/syslog.conf.sample # $Id: //depot/prod/ontap/R7.3.4x/files/syslog.conf.sample#1 $ # Copyright (c) 1994-1996 Network Appliance. # All rights reserved. # Sample syslog.conf file. Copy to /etc/syslog.conf to use. # You must use TABS for separators between fields. # Log messages of priority info or higher to the console and to /etc/messages *.info /dev/console *.info /etc/messages # Edit and uncomment following line to log all messages of priority # err or higher and all kernel messages to a remote host, e.g. adminhost # *.err;kern.* @adminhost # Edit and uncomment following line to log all messages of priority # err or higher and all kernel messages to the local7 facility of the # syslogd on a remote host, e.g. adminhost. # *.err;kern.* local7.*@adminhost # Edit and uncomment following line to log all messages of priority # err or higher and all kernel messages to a remote host, e.g. adminhost, # at priority debug. # *.err;kern.* *.debug@adminhost # Edit and uncomment following line to log all messages of priority # err or higher and all kernel messages to the local5 facility of the # syslogd on a remote host, e.g. adminhost, at priority info. # *.err;kern.* local5.info@adminhost
Now that we have the original file we'll recreate the file:
filer1> wrfile /etc/syslog.conf
Notice that the file is empty.
Fill in all the original information and an extra line for your syslog server:
# $Id: //depot/prod/ontap/R7.3.4x/files/syslog.conf.sample#1 $ # Copyright (c) 1994-1996 Network Appliance. # All rights reserved. # Sample syslog.conf file. Copy to /etc/syslog.conf to use. # You must use TABS for separators between fields. # Log messages of priority info or higher to the console and to /etc/messages *.info /dev/console *.info /etc/messages *.info @10.10.5.14 # Edit and uncomment following line to log all messages of priority # err or higher and all kernel messages to a remote host, e.g. adminhost # *.err;kern.* @adminhost # Edit and uncomment following line to log all messages of priority # err or higher and all kernel messages to the local7 facility of the # syslogd on a remote host, e.g. adminhost. # *.err;kern.* local7.*@adminhost # Edit and uncomment following line to log all messages of priority # err or higher and all kernel messages to a remote host, e.g. adminhost, # at priority debug. # *.err;kern.* *.debug@adminhost # Edit and uncomment following line to log all messages of priority # err or higher and all kernel messages to the local5 facility of the # syslogd on a remote host, e.g. adminhost, at priority info. # *.err;kern.* local5.info@adminhost
Make sure you leave an empty line at the end. Press <CTRL>+C to close the editor. Check the file when you're done with the rdfile command.
You should, btw, see a line like this when you're done:
filer1> Thu May 5 14:31:28 CEST [filer1: kern.syslogd.restarted:info]: syslogd: Restarted.
NetApp Storage
Summary: How to get started with storage on a Netapp Filer.
Date: Around 2015
Refactor: 7 March 2025: Checked links and formatting.