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SnapCenter Software 4.7
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Installation requirements for SnapCenter Plug-in for Microsoft Windows

Contributors netapp-soumikd
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You should be aware of certain installation requirements before you install the Plug-in for Windows.

Before you begin to use the Plug-in for Windows, the SnapCenter administrator must install and configure SnapCenter Server and perform prerequisite tasks.

  • You must have SnapCenter admin privileges to install the Plug-in for Windows.

    The SnapCenter admin role must have admin privileges.

  • You must have installed and configured the SnapCenter Server.

  • When installing a plug-in on a Windows host, if you specify a credential that is not built-in or if the user belongs to a local workgroup user, you must disable UAC on the host.

  • You must set up SnapMirror and SnapVault if you want backup replication.

Host requirements to install SnapCenter Plug-ins Package for Windows

Before you install the SnapCenter Plug-ins Package for Windows, you should be familiar with some basic host system space requirements and sizing requirements.

Item Requirements

Operating Systems

Microsoft Windows

For the latest information about supported versions, see the NetApp Interoperability Matrix Tool.

Minimum RAM for the SnapCenter plug-in on host

1 GB

Minimum install and log space for the SnapCenter plug-in on host

5 GB

Note You should allocate sufficient disk space and monitor the storage consumption by the logs folder. The log space required varies depending on the number of the entities to be protected and the frequency of data protection operations. If there is no sufficient disk space, the logs will not be created for the recently run operations.

Required software packages

  • Microsoft .NET Framework 4.7.2 or later

  • Windows Management Framework (WMF) 4.0 or later

  • PowerShell 4.0 or later

For the latest information about supported versions, see the NetApp Interoperability Matrix Tool.

For .NET troubleshooting information, see SnapCenter upgrade or install fails for legacy systems that do not have internet connectivity.

Set up your credentials for the Plug-in for Windows

SnapCenter uses credentials to authenticate users for SnapCenter operations. You should create credentials for installing SnapCenter plug-ins, and additional credentials for performing data protection operations on Windows file systems.

What you will need

  • You must set up Windows credentials before installing plug-ins.

  • You must set up the credentials with administrator privileges, including administrator rights, on the remote host.

  • If you set up credentials for individual resource groups, and the user does not have full admin privileges, you must assign at least the resource group and backup privileges to the user.

Steps

  1. In the left navigation pane, click Settings.

  2. In the Settings page, click Credential.

  3. Click New.

  4. In the Credential page, do the following:

    For this field…​ Do this…​

    Credential name

    Enter a name for the credentials.

    User name/Password

    Enter the user name and password used for authentication.

    • Domain administrator or any member of the administrator group

      Specify the domain administrator or any member of the administrator group on the system on which you are installing the SnapCenter plug-in. Valid formats for the Username field are as follows:

      • NetBIOS\UserName

      • Domain FQDN\UserName

      • UserName@upn

    • Local administrator (for workgroups only)

      For systems that belong to a workgroup, specify the built-in local administrator on the system on which you are installing the SnapCenter plug-in. You can specify a local user account that belongs to the local administrators group if the user account has elevated privileges or the User Access control feature is disabled on the host system. The valid format for the Username field is as follows: UserName

      Do not use double quotes (") or backtick (`) in the passwords. You should not use the less than (<) and exclamation (!) symbols together in passwords. For example, lessthan<!10, lessthan10<!, backtick`12.

    Password

    Enter the password used for authentication.

  5. Click OK.

    After you finish setting up credentials, you might want to assign credential maintenance to a user or group of users on the User and Access page.

Configure gMSA on Windows Server 2012 or later

Windows Server 2012 or later enables you to create a group Managed Service Account (gMSA) that provides automated service account password management from a managed domain account.

What you will need

  • You should have a Windows Server 2012 or later domain controller.

  • You should have a Windows Server 2012 or later host, which is a member of the domain.

Steps

  1. Create a KDS root key to generate unique passwords for each object in your gMSA.

  2. For each domain, run the following command from the Windows domain controller: Add-KDSRootKey -EffectiveImmediately

  3. Create and configure your gMSA:

    1. Create a user group account in the following format:

      domainName\accountName$

    2. Add computer objects to the group.

    3. Use the user group you just created to create the gMSA.

      For example,

      New-ADServiceAccount -name <ServiceAccountName> -DNSHostName <fqdn> -PrincipalsAllowedToRetrieveManagedPassword <group> -ServicePrincipalNames <SPN1,SPN2,…>

    4. Run Get-ADServiceAccount command to verify the service account.

  4. Configure the gMSA on your hosts:

    1. Enable the Active Directory module for Windows PowerShell on the host where you want to use the gMSA account.

      To do this, run the following command from PowerShell:

      PS C:\> Get-WindowsFeature AD-Domain-Services

Display Name                           Name                Install State
------------                           ----                -------------
[ ] Active Directory Domain Services   AD-Domain-Services  Available


PS C:\> Install-WindowsFeature AD-DOMAIN-SERVICES

Success Restart Needed Exit Code      Feature Result
------- -------------- ---------      --------------
True    No             Success        {Active Directory Domain Services, Active ...
WARNING: Windows automatic updating is not enabled. To ensure that your newly-installed role or feature is
automatically updated, turn on Windows Update.

    2. Restart your host.

    3. Install the gMSA on your host by running the following command from the PowerShell command prompt: Install-AdServiceAccount <gMSA>

    4. Verify your gMSA account by running the following command: Test-AdServiceAccount <gMSA>

  5. Assign the administrative privileges to the configured gMSA on the host.

  6. Add the Windows host by specifying the configured gMSA account in the SnapCenter Server.

    SnapCenter Server will install the selected plug-ins on the host and the specified gMSA will be used as the service log on account during the plug-in installation.