Kemp 360 Central V2.2 Release Notes

Updated: May 25, 2021 19:02

Version 2.2 of Kemp 360 Central was released in May 2019 and is a feature and bug-fix release. It contains the new features, resolved issues, and known issues described in the following subsections.

For installation prerequisites, upgrade path information, virtual machine requirements, and other details, please see the article Installing and Upgrading Kemp 360 Central.

For more information on all features described below, see the Feature Description and the rest of the Kemp 360 Central documentation in the Documentation Library.

New Features

LoadMaster Profile Enhancements (SPLA/MELA Customers Only)

Automated Deployment – KVM Hypervisor

This enhancement to automated deployments extends VMware auto-deployment to support direct deployment to a Kernel-Based Virtual Machine (KVM) hypervisor environment. KVM is a virtualization infrastructure, primarily for the Linux kernel, that provides hypervisor capabilities.

VMware Tools Pre-installed with all VMware Deployments

Both manually and automatically deployed LoadMasters on VMware are now pre-installed with VMware Tools version 9.2.0-799703.

VMware Automated Deployment Disk Provisioning Options

In previous releases, automated deployments to VMware always used the thick VMware disk provisioning option, which means that when the VM is created, the entire hard disk size specified will be allocated on disk (250 GB).

With this release, you can now also choose the thin disk provisioning option, which means that when the disk is created, only the disk space actually required during installation will be allocated on disk. The disk will continue to grow during operation as needed, up to the maximum disk size (250 GB).

Downloading the UI Root Certificate for Browser Installation

Users of the Kemp 360 Central UI can now download a root certificate for the UI that can be installed into the user’s browser as a trusted root certificate. This will avoid the self-signed certificate security warnings that occur currently when you open the UI. The certificate is available to be downloaded from the UI by any Kemp 360 Central user.

Network Monitoring Summary Enhancement

If you select a network from the left-frame tree, the Monitoring page for that network presents a top-level summary of the device, application, and real server status on that network. This summary has been enhanced to present several indicators that show:

A Device health rating based on the percentage of devices available, also indicating the number available out of the total number of devices that reside under the network selected.
A Virtual Service health rating based on the percentage of Virtual Services available, also indicating the number available out of the total number of VSs.
A Real Server health rating based on the percentage of Real Servers available, also indicating the number available out of the total number of Real Servers.
A SubVS health rating based on the percentage of SubVSs available, also indicating the number available out of the total number of SubVSs.

UI Notifications History

A Notification History capability has been added to the UI in the left frame icon bar of the UI. This lists all transitory notifications displayed in the UI in response to an action or event (such as adding a device, or a device changing state). All UI messages that appear at the upper right corner of the UI appear in the notifications list, so they can be reviewed in case the user’s attention us taken away from the UI when one of them is displayed. Items in the history can be removed from the list individually, or the entire list can be cleared.

Console Password Reset for UI ‘admin’ User

You can now use SSH to log into the text-based administrative console and modify the password for the admin UI user login. Note, however, that if Kemp 360 Central is installed in the Azure or AWS public clouds, you do not have access to the console in those environments, and so this feature is not available.

VMware Tools for KEMP360 Central

VMware Tools version 10.2.5.3619 is now pre-installed with Kemp 360 Central in VMware deployments.

User Comment Button

This is a new button in the left frame icon bar of the UI that opens a new browser window to a Kemp web comment page where users can leave comments about the product. Please feel free to use this button to provide any comments you have about Kemp 360 Central to help us improve the product in ways that that you will find useful.

Enhancements to the Enable Temporary SSH Access Accordion

The Enable Temporary SSH Access accordion under System Settings and Configuration has been enhanced to more clearly indicate whether or not access is currently enabled, when it will expire, and to match the states of the buttons in the screen to the current state of SSH access.

Operational Notes

Because of the Downloading the UI Root Certificate for Browser Installation feature (see above), the UI certificate must be regenerated after the system is upgraded, reboots, and has been available for 3 minutes. If a user logs in during the first 3 minutes directly after the upgrade completes, they will observe issues in various UI components caused by the need to refresh after 3 minutes. Once the certificate has been regenerated, a manual refresh of the UI will return it to normal functionality.

Resolved Issues

The following are the major issues fixed in Version 2.2.

KTS-6248	Polling and Device Status: All managed devices are polled every 60 seconds for statistics and, in previous releases, if the device didn’t respond to the poll, it was immediately marked down. With Version 2.2, if a stats call fails, the system will re-try the stats call up to 2 additional times before marking the device down. This is being done in response to issues seen in the field with false or transient ‘down’ reports.
KTS-6144	Fixed an issue where the user is able to schedule an LM firmware upgrade for a LoadMaster HA shared IP – this is not allowed from Kemp 360 Central. Only the individual devices in the HA pair can be upgraded from central, similar to the behavior of the LM WUI on the HA Shared IP Address.
KTS-6134	Virtual Service Naming: A Virtual Service name using exclusively numeric characters, for example, ‘12345’ is not permitted and an appropriate error message will displayed.
KTS-5915 KTS-4776	LoadMaster Firmware Upgrade: Attempting to update the firmware on a LoadMaster to the same release that is already installed results in two messages appearing in the Kemp 360 Central UI. The second message indicates the upgrade was unsuccessful; the progress bar for the upgrade, however, remains active. This Issue has been fixed.
KTS-5910	The Proxy Settings UI has been imprived so that the Test button is not active until a proxy IP has actually been set.
KTS-5908	Online Licensing: In the advanced options for online licensing on the initial licensing page, setting a proxy server IP address that does not point to a working proxy server will result in an 'Incorrect username or password.' error. This has been fixed so that the message is now specific to the cause of the error.
KTS-5743	Reporting: Special characters used in network and device names are not displayed properly in the device selection list on the Reporting page. This issue has been fixed.
KTS-5626	Logging: In the log viewer, the real server drop-down does not display ports along with the IP, so you can't choose a specific server from a group of servers running on the same device using different ports. This issue has been fixed.
KTS-5278	Reboot blocks other device actions: When a managed device has been rebooted from Kemp 360 Central, no other actions can be initiated on this device until the system determines that the device is available again.
KTS-4715 KTS-4690 KTS-4396 KTS-4352	System Configuration tab: Several functional and usability issues with this screen have been addressed to bring consistency to the content, display, and controls for various accordions on this page.
KTS-4567	Unmanaged Devices: In past releases, it was observed that some operations on a device (for example, VS Motion Migrate) cannot be performed until the first time the device is polled for configuration (which occurs every 60 minutes), or until you manually poll the device using the Update button on the device's Monitoring page. This has been fixed.
KTS-4255	Device Nicknames: The UI and API truncate nicknames received from the LoadMaster to 64 characters. This has been fixed so that the LoadMaster limit of 126 characters is honored.
KTS-4223	Firmware Management: In previous releases, there are two UI pages with this name. They have both been changed to be specific to the page content, as follows: Settings and Configuration > Firmware Management Settings and Configuration > Update System Software Global Repository > Firmware Management changed to Global Repository > LoadMaster Firmware Updates
KTS-4079	Reporting: The device list has been enhanced to include a check box at the top of the tree that allows you to specify that all devices on all networks will appear in the report.
KTS-3528	Nicknames: Added “.” (period) as an accepted character for a nickname.
KTS-2145	VS Motion: When using the VS Motion Migrate function, the IP address and port for the new Virtual Service is not automatically updated when you select a LoadMaster from the Target drop-down list. You must update the address manually to an available IP address on a network accessible to the target LoadMaster.

Known Issues

The following list includes the most serious known issues in the product. If you experience an issue that is not on this list, please contact Kemp Support for further information.

ID	Description
KTS-6374	Backup and Diagnostic Access: If a backup archive is created while SSH diagnostic access is enabled, and that archive is restored, SSH access will appear to be enabled in the UI on the restored system; however, it is not actually enabled and an attempt to log in to the diagnostic shell via SSH will fail. To work around this issue, click the Revoke Access button to clear the SSH access form and enable access again.
KTS-4252	Virtual Service Wildcard Addresses: If a Virtual Service uses a wildcard (*) IP address, you cannot add Real Servers to the Virtual Service from Kemp 360 Central. The workaround is to add them using the LoadMaster UI; they are then displayed in the Kemp 360 Central UI.
KTS-3857	LoadMaster HA Pairs: In the Log Viewer, the Virtual Service and Real Server search boxes do not display Virtual Services and Real Servers for the HA nodes. The workaround is to use the Text search box instead.
KTS-3837	LoadMaster HA Pairs: If the shared IP address for a LoadMaster HA pair cannot be contacted, both HA units show their status as "Standby". You must restore access to the shared IP address from Kemp 360 Central to correct this issue. Possible causes are that the network of the shared IP address is unreachable or that the authentication parameters on one or both of the HA units in the pair was modified on the LoadMaster without making the same modifications on Kemp 360 Central.
KTS-3812	LoadMaster HA Pairs: When setting up Role Based Access Control (RBAC) for a user on LoadMasters configured in HA mode, ensure to assign the same level of access to all three devices in the LoadMaster HA pair; the HA1 device, the HA2 device, and the shared IP device. This is not enforced by the UI.
KTS-3721	LoadMaster HA Pairs: If a LoadMaster HA unit configured in a LoadMaster HA pair is moved to "standalone" mode in the LoadMaster WUI, the effect on status reporting for that device in the Kemp 360 Central UI depends on the LoadMaster Operating System (LMOS) release: If the now standalone mode device is running on LMOS release 7.2.37 or later, that unit's device in Kemp 360 Central always shows as "down" in the Kemp 360 Central UI. If the now standalone mode device is running an LMOS release earlier than 7.2.37, the unit always shows its HA status as "Standby", even when it is "Active". The only indication you get that there is a problem is that the now standalone unit will never assume the "Active" role, even when the other unit is unavailable.
KTS-3427	Network Level System Configuration Tabs: Errors can occur when selecting multiple devices in the System Reboot, Templates, Update LoadMaster Firmware, and Backup/Restore menus in the System Configuration tab at the network level. If you experience these errors, use the System Configuration tab at the device level instead.
KTS-3304	RBAC: If you create a user, give it full write permissions, and add it as a member of a custom user group - any device that user adds is not visible to that user in the network tree. The workaround is to specifically add the new device to the custom group.
KTS-2707	Virtual Service Configuration: Configuring a Layer 7 specific parameter on a Layer 4 Virtual Service should both enable Layer 7 services on the Virtual Service and set the new parameter value. Instead, only Layer 7 is enabled; the Layer 7 specific parameter is not set to the value specified.
KTS-2101	UDP Virtual Services: Setting the alternate IP address does not work on UDP services.

Known Issues with Specific LoadMaster Releases

The following table lists all issues in Kemp 360 Central that occur only with specific LoadMaster releases. If there is a fix for the issue, the release containing the fix is listed in the description.

ID	Description
PD-11560	MELA LoadMaster HA Units Failover Every 5 Minutes: LoadMaster HA Pairs fail over every 5 minutes. This issue has been addressed in LMOS 7.2.43.
PD-10051	MELA Licensing: When re-activating a previously activated LoadMaster, it is not possible to choose a license on the LoadMaster that is above the previously-selected license in the menu. This issue is addressed in LoadMaster Operating System (LMOS) version 7.2.41.
PD-9947	Virtual Service Status: Issues with Virtual Service status returns from LoadMasters running version 7.1.35.4 can result in incorrect Virtual Service health statuses being displayed in the Kemp 360 Central UI. This can occur when either Virtual Service status is requested from the LoadMaster, or when the Virtual Service is modified (if the issue is not already present). In the latter case, the issue should correct itself on the next UI status update (within a minute). This will be addressed in LMOS 7.2.46.
PD-9747	Lost Contact with LoadMaster HA Standby Unit: When monitoring two LoadMasters that are configured in an HA pair, and certificate authentication is in use, it is possible for Kemp 360 Central to lose contact with the standby (passive) LoadMaster. The recommended workaround is to reboot the standby LoadMaster. This has no effect on traffic through the HA pair (because this is the standby unit) and certificate-based authentication with Kemp 360 Central should be restored after the reboot. An alternative workaround is to edit the LoadMaster HA devices on Kemp 360 Central and switch the authentication setting from certificate to basic authentication. This issue is addressed in the 7.1.35.4 and 7.2.40 LoadMaster releases.
PD-9373	MELA LoadMaster HA Units Lose Connectivity: This issue occurs in 7.2.38 and causes MELA LoadMaster HA units to lose network connectivity. A reboot results in the same problem recurring. This issue is fixed in LMOS 7.2.39. Also see PD-11560, above.
PD-9383 PD-9398	Special Characters in LoadMaster Passwords: Most special characters supported in LoadMaster passwords are supported in V1.15 and later releases of Kemp 360 Central. However, because of an issue in the LoadMaster Application Program Interface (API), quotes and spaces in LoadMaster passwords can cause authentication from Kemp 360 Central to fail. However, they work without issue when logging directly into the LoadMaster WUI. As a workaround, you should log into the LoadMaster and update the password for the login that you supply to Kemp 360 Central so that it does not contain any spaces or quotes. Then, add the device to Kemp 360 Central. This issue is addressed in the 7.1.35.4 and 7.2.40 LoadMaster releases.

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