NetApp System Manager TLS Issue

Yesterday while working on one of the customers’ NetApp array I hit an issue which looked like an SSL misconfiguration at first.

I needed to run Network Configuration Checker to check for any inconsistencies between the active and persistent network configuration settings in the /etc/rc file. I used NetApp OnCommand System Manager 3.1.2 with Java 8. When I tried to run a network configuration check I got this error:

‘netapp.domain.local’ is not configured for secure management with TLS

When browsing to controllers management I also got this:

‘netapp.domain.local’ is not configured for secure management with TLS. Sensitive information you supply including passwords will be visible to other computers on the network.

Do you want to continue with non-secure connection ?

The second issue you can ignore by just skipping the warning, but the Network Configuration Checker error you can’t.

Potential Resolution

I googled it up and NetApp KB article 2021507 “OnCommand System Manager Java Compatibility issues” came up, which suggested that all you need to do is enable TLS on the 7-Mode controller (on Cluster Mode it is enabled by default):

options tls.enable on

This did not work for me, though.

Alternative Solution

The reason why System Manager no longer works with SSL and requires TLS instead, is because Java 7u75 (and later) implemented a change that disabled SSLv3 due to the POODLE security vulnerability.

So you either have to enable TLS for Java 7u75 and later (which didn’t work in my case) or downgrade to Java 7u72, which is the previous release from 7u75.

Once that done you should no longer get the error neither in Network Configuration Checker, nor when logging in to controllers in System Manager.

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Tags: java, NetApp, Network Configuration Checker, OnCommand, POODLE, security, ssl, SSLv3, System Manager, TLS