Xsan Big Sur to Monterey upgrade

04 Nov 2021

With macOS Monterey, Apple has announced that the Server.app interface for Xsan is going away. One small benefit to this is that we don’t need to wait for the official release of Server.app v5.12 to upgrade our Xsan to Monterey. Both Big Sur and Monterey have the same Xsan versions (Server Revision 7.0.1 Build 589[96634]).

This post will show the steps I used to upgrade a small test Xsan while the volume was live the whole time. This SAN is run by 2 Mac Mini MDCs with one RAID system connected via fibre. The Mac Minis are connected via ATTO ThunderLink fibre adapters. The volume has 2 LUNs, one for Metadata and Journal, and 2 data LUNs.

1. First I downloaded Install macOS Monterey on both MDCs with softwareupdate --fetch-full-installer --full-installer-version 12.0.1
2. Use cvadmin to ensure all volumes are hosted by the backup MDC

% sudo cvadmin
Password:
Xsan Administrator
Enter command(s)
For command help, enter "help" or "?".
List FSS
File System Services (* indicates service is in control of FS):
Selected Cluster: _cluster0/_addom0
Cluster: _cluster0/_addom0
 1>*TestSanVolume[0]     located on rmp-xsantest-mdc.testsan.priv:49414 (pid 1488) [preferred]
                         located on rmp-xsantest-mdc.domain.com:49414
 2> TestSanVolume[0]     located on rmp-xsantest-bmdc.testsan.priv:49403 (pid 1177) [preferred]
                         located on rmp-xsantest-bmdc.domain.com:49403

3. This shows that the volume is hosted on the MDC, so fail it over to the BMDC. Xsanadmin (TestSanVolume) > fail TestSanVolume
4. Confirm with Xsanadmin (TestSanVolume) > select
5. Now that the volume is hosted on the backup MDC, run Install macOS Monterey.app on the MDC. This will take some time.
6. Once the upgrade is complete, dismiss the alert about Server.app needing to be upgraded.
7. Open a Terminal window and type sudo xsanctl activateSan
8. The volume should mount as expected and both MDCs will show in cvadmin
9. Now fail the volume back to the MDC. Within cvadmin use Xsanadmin (TestSanVolume) > fail TestSanVolume
10. Once confirmed, move to the backup MDC
11. Run Install macOS Monterey.app on the backup MDC.
12. Once the upgrade is complete, dismiss the alert about Server.app.
13. Open a Terminal window and run sudo xsanctl activateSan createReplica --master $mdc-fullyqualified-hostname --account $open-directory-admin-name --pass $open-directory-admin-password
14. A gui prompt will ask you to trust the certificate from the MDCs Open Directory. Enter your admin password.
15. The volume should mount and both MDCs will show in cvadmin