Cisco WAAS Prepositioning 0.0 bytes Copied........ :-(

[colemac26]

Good Evening All,

I am having my first attempt of using the prepositioning function within Cisco WAAS running version 4.1.7a and its not going very well at all.........:-(

We are trying to test a preposition of Microsoft Updates to a selection of Branch WAE devices but the "Amount Copied" is constantly sat on 0.0 bytes and never changes.

Clearly i am doing something wrong and im hoping someone can advise, basically i create the Preposition task via the CM (also running 4.1.7a), i see the root folder i need (which has further subfolders benieth it) and select the folder, i submit this and it takes this with no problem, i assign the branch WAE's to this and its also submitted and accepted, i select schedule for "Now" and the preposition appears in the statuc tab however no matter how many hours its left it constantly sits at 0.0 Bytes - Clear something is wrong.

Doing a "Sh run" on the branch WAE it sees the preposition task at the end of the config but still nothing. I am assuming this is down to the fact that the Data Centre WAE is not loading the files in the "staging" area, the Data Centre WAE has flows for the chosen Server when you do a "sh stat con" and can ping the server by name and ip address.

Im at a lost of what to check next, we are not running the "legacy" WAFS as we first started running 4.1.3b and recently upgraded to 4.1.7a.

Can anyone help......??

Thanks in advance

Craig

[Michael Korenbaum]

Craig,

The first thing that comes to mind is there a WCCP ACL at the Core that may be preventing the Edge WAE IP from being redirected to the Core WAE?

Also other things to check:

1)  Did you specify the appropriate Domain\Username account when you defined the preposition job (try and Admin account if it's not one).

2)  Can both Edge and Core WAEs resolve the IP and hostname of this server?

3)  Can the Edge & Core WAE ping this server?

4)  Is this CIFS AO running on both WAEs?

Regards,

Mike Korenbaum

Cisco WAAS PDI Help Desk

http://www.cisco.com/go/pdihelpdesk

[colemac26]

Hi Mike,

Thanks for your quick reply on this, i have a feeling you may have hit the nail on the head already with your first comment...... Doh.

Ill give you an example of how the branch site is setup:-

e.g. (not actual addressing used but gives you the idea)

Branch Site

int vlan 10

ip address 10.10.10.1 255.255.255.192

ip wccp 61 redirect in

int vlan 11

ip address 10.10.10.65 255.255.255.192

ip wccp 61 redirect in

int fa0/1

description *** BRANCH WAE WAAS Device ***

ip address 1.1.1.5 255.255.255.248

Int se0/1/0

172.1.1.1 255.255.255.252

ip wccp 62 redirect in

ip wccp 61 redirect-list 161

ip wccp 62 redirect-list 162

access-list 161 permit tcp 10.10.10.0 0.0.0.127 192.168.1.0 0.0.0.255

access-list 162 permit tcp 192.168.1.0 0.0.0.255 10.10.10.0 0.0.0.127

Data centre end:-

This access-list is then replicated but in data centre but with the access-list 161 & 162 swapped - the 192.168.1.0 subnet is acting as the Data Centre server subnets.

In the data centre the WAE will have an address of say 172.21.1.5 255.255.255.248.

Is there any risk/implication of including the ip address ranges of the WAE devices themselves? currently we dont do this on any site where we have a WAE device and we are seeing great benefits still but i guess this will explain why the prepositioning is not working as the devices are not matching the ACL and therefore being denied redirection.

Cheers

Craig

[Michael Korenbaum]

Craig,

Correct, you need to permit the Edge WAE(s) IP address(es) redirection via your WCCP ACL in the Core.  This is because in the prepositioning scenario the Edge WAE is acting as a client and initiates the connection with its IP as the source and the server IP as the destination. 

It is the same as if you forgot to include a client IP in the redirect list on one side of the connection, that connection would show up as pass through and not be optimized.

Hope this helps clarify things.

Regards,

Mike

[colemac26]

Hi Mike,

That does and now thinking about it makes complete sense!

I guess i now have to wade through a massive exercise to include these IP's Branch and Data Centre WAE's at both of the ACL's which is going to take some time....... Dam it! :-)

Thanks again.

Craig

[Michael Korenbaum]

Craig,

Glad I could help.  Please do mark the question as answered so others on the forum know the response(s) have helped.

Thanks,

Mike

[colemac26]

Hi Mike,

one further question, does that mean that there will also need to be a ip wccp 61 redirect in on the client waas vlan?

cheers

craig

[Michael Korenbaum]

Craig,

No, you do not want to put a redirect in statement on the WAE vlans, that would cause a WCCP routing loop.

Regards,

Mike

[colemac26]

Hi Mike,

so based on the example addressing that i gave the ACL would need amending to show as follows:-

access-list 161 permit tcp 1.1.1.0 0.0.0.7 [branch wae subnet] 192.168.1.0 0.0.0.255 [subnet target server is on]

access-list 162 permit tcp 192.168.1.0 0.0.0.255 [subnet target server is on] 1.1.1.0 0.0.0.7 [branch wae subnet]

and this would need to be applied at both Branch end ACL and Core end ACL's?

Thanks again for your help and apologies for going on but i just need to be clear on this.

Cheers

Craig

[Michael Korenbaum · Accepted solution]

Craig,

The redirect ACL example looks correct.

You really only need it on the Core side router's WCCP redirect ACL because the traffic isn't redirected at the Edge since the return traffic is actually destined for the Edge WAE's IP.

Regards,

Mike

[colemac26]

Mike,

This has worked a treat, the files are now prepositioned.

I have 2 other queries following this, the files we are prepostioning are microsoft files and some are .cab files, are these ok to be prepositioned? is there any such file types that cant be prepositioned?

also is there any way of finding out on the Branch WAAS device what the size of the preposition actually is? it appeared that although the preposition was successfull the 2 branch WAE's 1 had a preposition of 115MB and the other had 262MB (this is the correct file size), i have re-ran this and it is advising of no changes to be prepositioned.

Thanks again for your help with this.

Cheers

Craig

[Michael Korenbaum]

Craig,

As far as I know there are no issues prepositioning specific file types.

As for the reporting of different sizes, it is likely that more on-demand caching for some of the files already occurred on the 1st WAE (e.g. an end user accessed the same folder/files you are prepositioning). 

If you re-run the job and it says no data needs to be prepositioned on all Edge WAEs then they do have all the actual data.

Note, there is only one cache for CIFS object caching shared between on-demand CIFS access and prepositioning.  So if a user at Branch A accesses \\fileserver\myfolder and downloads all of the files, then you ran a preposition job for that same \\fileserver\myfolder to that Branch A WAE, you will most likely have no data to transfer since the user already downloaded it all and it's already in the CIFS cache.

Regards,

Mike