I often see customers with Virtual Machines or Containers that have IPv6 disabled. I assume this is mainly for simplicity, since most services are usually only running internally, and organizations don’t really need more IPs than what IPv4 can provide to begin with. In this blog, I will talk about an upgrade project from Documentum 20.2 to 23.4, using containers on Kubernetes running on the same base OS image (rhel 8.x). With the exact same configuration (OS and Documentum), the 20.2 Connection Broker works correctly, but the 23.4 one refuses to start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As part of the upgrade process, a new image with Documentum 23.4 binaries has been created from the same base OS image. Then, the environment has been started on Kubernetes with the new image, to initiate the upgrade process from 20.2 to 23.4. The first thing done is the upgrade of the Connection Broker, which, according to the logs, went successfully. However, when the process tried to start, it quickly disappeared as it failed with the following:<\/p>\n\n\n
\n[dmadmin@cs-0 ~]$ cat $DOCUMENTUM\/dba\/log\/docbroker.*.1489.log\nOpenText Documentum Connection Broker (version 23.4.0000.0143 Linux64)\nCopyright (c) 2023. OpenText Corporation\n2024-10-08T10:57:59.236419 [DM_DOCBROKER_I_START]info: "Docbroker has started. Process id: 8428"\n2024-10-08T10:57:59.245348 [DM_DOCBROKER_E_START_NETWISE]error: "The docbroker failed to start due to an error returned by the Netwise networking subsystem. Failed API: nl_open(). Error specifics: (601) System error(97) in call to socket(). errno: 97, message: Address family not supported by protocol."\n[dmadmin@cs-0 ~]$\n<\/pre><\/div>\n\n\nThe message “Address family not supported by protocol<\/em>” is usually present when something tries to start on IPv6 while it is disabled. This is the kind of message you might get on a Java application (like the Java Method Server) if you don’t specify the “-Djava.net.preferIPv4Stack=true<\/em>” JVM parameter.<\/p>\n\n\n\nSo, I went ahead and checked the logs and configuration file of the previous Connection Broker that was in 20.2:<\/p>\n\n\n
\n[dmadmin@cs-0 ~]$ ### 20.2\n[dmadmin@cs-0 ~]$ cat $DOCUMENTUM\/dba\/log\/docbroker.*.1489.log\nOpenText Documentum Connection Broker (version 20.2.00013.0135 Linux64)\nCopyright (c) 2020. OpenText Corporation\n2024-09-07T06:40:37.224228 [DM_DOCBROKER_I_START]info: "Docbroker has started. Process id: 6867"\n2024-09-07T06:40:37.225776 [DM_DOCBROKER_I_REGISTERED_PORT]info: "The Docbroker registered using port (1489)."\n2024-09-07T06:40:37.226591 [DM_DOCBROKER_I_LISTENING]info: "The Docbroker is listening on network address: (INET_ADDR: family: 2, port: 1489, host: cs-0 (172.20.20.139, 8b1414ac))"\n2024-09-07T06:40:37.227683 [DM_DOCBROKER_I_REGISTERED_PORT]info: "The Docbroker registered using port (1490)."\n2024-09-07T06:40:37.228659 [DM_DOCBROKER_I_LISTENING]info: "The Docbroker is listening on network address: (INET_ADDR: family: 2, port: 1490, host: cs-0 (172.20.20.139, 8b1414ac))"\n[dmadmin@cs-0 ~]$\n[dmadmin@cs-0 ~]$ cat $DOCUMENTUM\/dba\/Docbroker.ini\n[DOCBROKER_CONFIGURATION]\nsecure_connect_mode=dual\n[dmadmin@cs-0 ~]$\n[dmadmin@cs-0 ~]$ cat $DOCUMENTUM\/dba\/dm_documentum_config.txt\n[DOCBROKER_Docbroker]\nNAME=Docbroker\nVERSION=20.2.0000.0110\nPORT=1489\n[DOCBASE_gr_dbi]\nNAME=gr_dbi\nVERSION=20.2.0000.0110\nDATABASE_CONN=dctmdb\n[dmadmin@cs-0 ~]$\n<\/pre><\/div>\n\n\nAnd just to be sure, I compared the configuration file with its updated version after upgrading to 23.4:<\/p>\n\n\n
\n[dmadmin@cs-0 ~]$ ### 23.4\n[dmadmin@cs-0 ~]$ cat $DOCUMENTUM\/dba\/Docbroker.ini\n[DOCBROKER_CONFIGURATION]\nsecure_connect_mode=dual\n[dmadmin@cs-0 ~]$\n[dmadmin@cs-0 ~]$ cat $DOCUMENTUM\/dba\/dm_documentum_config.txt\n[DOCBROKER_Docbroker]\nNAME=Docbroker\nVERSION=23.4.0000.0143\nPORT=1489\n[DOCBASE_gr_dbi]\nNAME=gr_dbi\nVERSION=20.2.0000.0110\nDATABASE_CONN=dctmdb\n[dmadmin@cs-0 ~]$\n<\/pre><\/div>\n\n\nObviously, there are no differences in the “Docbroker.ini<\/em>” file and only the version has been updated by the installer in the “dm_documentum_config.txt<\/em>” file, as expected. What is surprising is that a Documentum 20.2 Connection Broker can detect, by itself, that IPv6 is disabled and starts with IPv4 (without any errors), while a 23.4 Connection Broker can’t do that.<\/p>\n\n\n\nA quick look at the OS configuration definitely confirms that IPv6 is disabled at the OS level, as “sysctl<\/em>” does not know of any parameter related to “ipv6<\/em>“: there is nothing returned by the command except the “permission denied<\/em>” which can be ignored (it’s because I don’t have root access inside the container). Same thing for the IPv6 module parameter for “disable<\/em>“, it is set to true:<\/p>\n\n\n\n[dmadmin@cs-0 ~]$ sysctl -a | grep ipv6\nsysctl: permission denied on key 'kernel.apparmor_display_secid_mode'\nsysctl: permission denied on key 'kernel.apparmor_restrict_unprivileged_io_uring'\nsysctl: permission denied on key 'kernel.apparmor_restrict_unprivileged_userns_complain'\nsysctl: permission denied on key 'kernel.apparmor_restrict_unprivileged_userns_force'\nsysctl: permission denied on key 'kernel.cad_pid'\nsysctl: permission denied on key 'kernel.unprivileged_userns_apparmor_policy'\nsysctl: permission denied on key 'kernel.usermodehelper.bset'\nsysctl: permission denied on key 'kernel.usermodehelper.inheritable'\nsysctl: permission denied on key 'net.ipv4.tcp_fastopen_key'\nsysctl: permission denied on key 'vm.mmap_rnd_bits'\nsysctl: permission denied on key 'vm.mmap_rnd_compat_bits'\nsysctl: permission denied on key 'vm.stat_refresh'\n[dmadmin@cs-0 ~]$\n[dmadmin@cs-0 ~]$ cat \/sys\/module\/ipv6\/parameters\/disable\n1\n[dmadmin@cs-0 ~]$\n<\/pre><\/div>\n\n\nWhat should be done then? As for the JMS, the easy way out is to force Documentum to start on the IPv4 address only. For that purpose, there is a specific parameter that can be added into the Connection Broker and the Repository configuration files.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To force the Connection Broker to use IPv4 only, you can define the “host<\/em>” parameter in the “[DOCBROKER_CONFIGURATION]<\/em>” section of the “Docbroker.ini<\/em>” file. If you set the value to the current IPv4 address, then the Connection Broker will be able to start again:<\/p>\n\n\n\n[dmadmin@cs-0 ~]$ cat $DOCUMENTUM\/dba\/Docbroker.ini\n[DOCBROKER_CONFIGURATION]\nsecure_connect_mode=dual\n[dmadmin@cs-0 ~]$\n[dmadmin@cs-0 ~]$ ip="172.20.20.125"\n[dmadmin@cs-0 ~]$ sed -i "\/^\\[DOCBROKER_CONF.*\/a host=${ip}" $DOCUMENTUM\/dba\/Docbroker.ini\n[dmadmin@cs-0 ~]$\n[dmadmin@cs-0 ~]$ cat $DOCUMENTUM\/dba\/Docbroker.ini\n[DOCBROKER_CONFIGURATION]\nhost=172.20.20.125\nsecure_connect_mode=dual\n[dmadmin@cs-0 ~]$\n[dmadmin@cs-0 ~]$ $DOCUMENTUM\/dba\/dm_launch_Docbroker\nstarting connection broker on current host: [cs-0]\nwith connection broker log: [$DOCUMENTUM\/dba\/log\/docbroker.cs-0.1489.log]\nconnection broker pid: 7415\n[dmadmin@cs-0 ~]$\n[dmadmin@cs-0 ~]$ cat $DOCUMENTUM\/dba\/log\/docbroker.*.1489.log\nOpenText Documentum Connection Broker (version 23.4.0000.0143 Linux64)\nCopyright (c) 2023. OpenText Corporation\n2024-10-08T11:03:41.924702 [DM_DOCBROKER_I_START]info: "Docbroker has started. Process id: 7415"\n\n[RPCMAI] Got the IPV4 address dmNetwork::isValidIPV4(172.20.20.125)\n2024-10-08T11:03:41.925179 [DM_DOCBROKER_I_REGISTERED_PORT]info: "The Docbroker registered using port (1489)."\n2024-10-08T11:03:41.925237 [DM_DOCBROKER_I_LISTENING]info: "The Docbroker is listening on network address: (INET_ADDR: family: 2, port: 1489, host: 172.20.20.125 (172.20.20.125, 7d1414ac))"\n2024-10-08T11:03:41.925271 [DM_DOCBROKER_I_REGISTERED_PORT]info: "The Docbroker registered using port (1490)."\n2024-10-08T11:03:41.925311 [DM_DOCBROKER_I_LISTENING]info: "The Docbroker is listening on network address: (INET_ADDR: family: 2, port: 1490, host: 172.20.20.125 (172.20.20.125, 7d1414ac))"\n[dmadmin@cs-0 ~]$\n<\/pre><\/div>\n\n\n