topic Re: ISE blank GUI after login in Network Access Control

ISE blank GUI after login

Mottok — Tue, 31 Jul 2018 09:57:21 GMT

Hi, first post here and I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction please.

The circumstances: Our Cisco/network engineer left our company last week and I have been left to deal with everything, my network knowledge = 1 ICND1 course about two months ago!

The issue: We can get to the login page of Cisco ISE however once you click on 'login' we just get a blank page and it never loads (no matter what browser we use). Everything is still functioning correctly in the background although there seemed to be a migration of the VM (the Cisco ISE server is a VM) to another part of the data store, possibly due to corruption but like I say it is still functioning correctly.

I have attached a snapshot of the applications on the server taken via CLI if that helps any.

Any help very much appreciated thanks.

Re: ISE blank GUI after login

craiglebutt — Tue, 31 Jul 2018 10:07:58 GMT

From CLI, have you tried to start the service?

application start ise

Might take several minutes to initialize

check by typing sh application status ise

Re: ISE blank GUI after login

Mottok — Tue, 31 Jul 2018 10:11:34 GMT

Hi, many thanks for your quick reply. I had run the status command and it is attached on my first post, it looks as if the application is already running?

Re: ISE blank GUI after login

craiglebutt — Tue, 31 Jul 2018 10:31:40 GMT

try to stop the service

application stop ise,

then check the status

then application start ise

Re: ISE blank GUI after login

Mottok — Tue, 31 Jul 2018 11:05:59 GMT

Thanks for that - I'll hold off on this just for now as I want to pass it via my line manager who is not around but will update as soon as possible.

Thanks again.

Re: ISE blank GUI after login

Cory Peterson — Tue, 31 Jul 2018 15:14:26 GMT

Why type of Deployment is this? Is it Distributed, You have admin nodes that are separate from the PSNs?

If it is Distributed you can restart services on the Admin node without affecting the PSN.

Re: ISE blank GUI after login

Mottok — Tue, 31 Jul 2018 15:25:47 GMT

Thanks for your reply Cory, really appreciate it, unfortunately I have no idea what you mean - imagine you're talking to a small child 🙂 ....

After trying to understand what you mean I believe we only have one admin node and one local network, does that make sense in relation to your question?

Many thanks.

Re: ISE blank GUI after login

Cory Peterson — Tue, 31 Jul 2018 15:32:11 GMT

Ha! No worries.

It sounds like a standalone deployment, in that case I would error on the side of caution and do the services restart after hours and expect there to be an outage in regards to authentications.

Re: ISE blank GUI after login

Mottok — Tue, 31 Jul 2018 15:37:06 GMT

Ok will do! We have a support call in for this but have been waiting 2 days for a response (BT not Cisco) so wanted to try and figure it out myself, it looks as if it maybe worth just hanging on.

Very much appreciate your help.

Re: ISE blank GUI after login

Arne Bier — Tue, 31 Jul 2018 22:12:33 GMT

The database server should be running (no matter type of node this might be - PAN, MnT or PSN). So an application stop, followed by a start is probably a wise move. To be honest, if you had a VM migration then you won't be worse off by simply reloading the entire server (Linux reboot). It will add 1min to the job but so what. If it's already in such a bad shape then you might as well go the whole hog.

Might be worth doing a config backup if you're able to.

If you have a repository configured, then take a quick snapshot of the box just in case it all goes pear shaped

On the CLI perform a

show run | begin repository

and see if one is configured. The assumption here is also that the repo is reachable and that the credentials work. A small leap of faith 🙂

Here is the CLI syntax to create a backup called "safetynet" on a repository called "backup"

backup safetynet repository backup ise-config encryption-key plain MySecret123

Re: ISE blank GUI after login

Mottok — Wed, 01 Aug 2018 09:57:43 GMT

Hi Arne, many thanks for that, that's really useful.

Looks like I will have to setup a new repository via CLI (if anyone has the steps to do this via CLI or a link that would be great, can't find anything so far).

Also - do I need to backup any certificates even though we only run base licenses (not even sure if the two are related but thought I would ask).

Thanks.

Re: ISE blank GUI after login

Mottok — Wed, 01 Aug 2018 10:36:58 GMT

Well nearly got there and then got the attached error, any ideas? Thanks.

Re: ISE blank GUI after login

craiglebutt — Wed, 01 Aug 2018 12:51:39 GMT

Might want to look at http://labminutes.com/, free videos on how to, also some on udemy.com, but have to pay around £10 ish for them.

Re: ISE blank GUI after login

Arne Bier — Wed, 01 Aug 2018 13:14:06 GMT

Oh dear. I think you're not on the PAN node. You need to be on the active PAN node. You can only perform backups on the primary PAN.

BTW, if you do a show repository QMUISE do you see the contents of the remote FTP/SFTP? Might be worth as a sanity check. SFTP requires an extra step (crypto .... to exchange public keys between you and remote host). Keep it simple if you can by using FTP 🙂

Re: ISE blank GUI after login

Mottok — Wed, 01 Aug 2018 13:27:35 GMT

Thanks Arne - I get a "Error reading directory on remote server" message when doing a show repository QMUISE. We are using FileZilla as the FTP server but all this is new to me so I'm really struggling to know how to set it all up from both ends, very frustrating just to do a back up!

Thanks again for your help.

Re: ISE blank GUI after login

Arne Bier — Wed, 01 Aug 2018 13:38:19 GMT

If you are using known username and password (verified on an FTP client elsewhere) then that is a first step. I would also check that your repository path has the full directory path of where you need to end up in

Re: ISE blank GUI after login

Mottok — Wed, 01 Aug 2018 13:41:48 GMT

Ok thanks, I'll take a look at it and post back, thanks.

Re: ISE blank GUI after login

Mottok — Wed, 01 Aug 2018 13:55:14 GMT

How would I edit the current username and or password for my repository "QMUISE" in CLI? Thank you.

Re: ISE blank GUI after login

Cory Peterson — Wed, 01 Aug 2018 14:00:18 GMT

config t

repository QMUISE

username foo password bar

Keep in mind any changes made to the Repository from the CLI will not survive a reboot.

Re: ISE blank GUI after login

Mottok — Wed, 01 Aug 2018 14:08:37 GMT

Get an 'invalid command detected' - do you ever wish you were in another job?! arrgghh