Communication Between Managed Servers and SA

This section provides information about communication between managed servers and Server Automation and contains the following topics:

Network Address Translation (NAT) for Managed Servers

To manage a server, SA requires that the server have a unique IP address that is routable from SA. However, in a large operational environment, all servers might not have unique IP addresses. In this case, SA supports static Network Address Translation (NAT) for managed servers.

Static NAT maps public IP addresses to hosts inside the internal network, which allows SA to manage all servers in the environment.

Unlike dynamic NAT, the mapping between SA and the servers under management is set ahead of time, not dynamically at runtime.

Key Terms of SA Managed Server Communication

To understand how SA communicates with managed servers, you must understand these three terms:

  • Management IP: The IP address that SA uses to communicate with the Server Agent on the server.

    During hardware registration for a server, the Server Agent opens a TCP/IP connection to SA. The connection contains the source IP (called peer IP) address of the server. By default, SA uses this peer IP address as the management IP for the server.
  • Management Interface: When a server has more than one network interface, you can designate one of them as the management interface.
  • Primary IP: The IP address of the management interface. When you change the management interface, the primary IP changes to the IP address of that interface. The primary IP address is a locally-configured IP address.

    The Server Agents on servers communicate with each other by using the primary IP addresses, even though SA uses management IP addresses to communicate with the servers.

When static NAT is being used, the management IP address for a server will not be the same as the primary IP address. When static NAT is being used, the management IP is the NAT-translated IP address for the server. When static NAT is not being used, the management IP address is always the same as the primary IP address.

Locating the Management IP Address of a Managed Server

In the SA Web Client, you can find the management IP address of a server and check whether it is using static NAT. You might need this information for troubleshooting any servers marked Not Reachable and to determine whether your NAT configuration is correct. The SA Web Client displays the management IP address of a managed server in the following two places:

  • The Network tab of the Server Details page
  • The Hardware view of the Manage Servers list

The Network tab shows (and allows the user to set) the management interface for the server by selecting it from a drop-down list

The following figure shows the Hardware view in the Manage Servers list, which displays the management interface for the server in the Network Info column. (To access the Hardware view, choose View > Hardware.)

Hardware Tab in the Manage Servers List

The Network Info column shows the IP addresses and interfaces configured for each server in the list. If a server is using static NAT, the management IP is the first entry in this list and (NAT) appears after the IP address. If it is not using static NAT, the management IP is the same as the management interface, so it is already shown.

Setting the Primary IP Address of a Server

When a server has more than one network interface, users can specify one of them as the management interface and the IP address for this interface is designated the primary IP address. The primary IP address is used for Server Agent-to-Server Agent communication.

If static NAT is not being used, the management and primary IP addresses are the same. If static NAT is being used, the management IP is unaffected when a user changes the management interface.

Perform the following steps to set the primary IP address of a server:

  1. From the navigation panel, perform one of the following steps:
    1. Select Servers > Manage Servers. The Manage Servers page appears. Browse the list to find the server whose management IP address you want to view.
    2. Search for the server whose management IP address you want to view.
  2. Click the server name. The Manage Servers: Properties page appears.
  3. Select the Network tab. The network information for the server appears.

    The Network tab shows (and allows you to set) the server’s management interface.
  4. Set the management interface by selecting it from the Management Interface field. The IP address for this interface is designated the primary IP address.
  5. Click Update.

See Searching for Servers or Other Resources and Server Searching by IP Address for more information.

NAT Table Mapping and Managed Servers

Static, one-to-one NAT tables map routable IP addresses between SA and managed servers. Network administrators configure and maintain these NAT tables. After the static NAT tables are configured, you do not have to perform any additional setup for SA.

SA does not control these NAT tables and errors can occur if they are modified after SA-managed servers register their hardware information. The following errors can occur if the IP address mapping of a server changes:

  • If the IP address on the SA side of the NAT mapping is modified, the server becomes unmanageable and might be marked Not Reachable on the Manage Servers: Status page. It stays in this state until the Server Agent requests another hardware registration and the server's management IP is updated.
  • If an IP address mapped to a particular server is mapped to a different server, both servers become unmanageable and might be marked Not Reachable on the Manage Servers: Status page. This problem is resolved when one of the two servers reports its IP address during hardware registration. The other server remains unmanageable until the server registers with the Server Agent. Both servers eventually become manageable.