Fpolicy EAGAIN errors seen in fpolicy.log in ONTAP

Applies to

• ONTAP 9
• Clustered Data ONTAP 8
• FPolicy

Issue

• Fpolicy.log reports errors pertaining to EAGAIN errors similar to the following:

[kern_fpolicy:error:1552] Write returned EAGAIN[35] [0x0x80c408d00] src/fsm/fsm_external_engine.cc:864
[kern_fpolicy:error:4321] Read returned EAGAIN[35] [0x0x809005a40] fpolicy/fsm/fsm_external_engine.cc:732  

• event log show gives an output similar to below:

[filer1: fpolicy: fpolicy.eagain.on.write:notice]: Write returned EAGAIN while sending notification to the FPolicy server "12.34.56.78" for vserver ID 3.

• Problematic operations will report errors for code 316 (which translates to SPINNP_ERR_FPOLICY_REQD) in SPINHI-STATS, for example:

Unlink: count=17242157 hipri=0 errs=5658866 elapsed: max=5900260.57 avg=300.16
		spinhi cpu: max=930.18 avg=13.53
		wafl cpu: max=5900190.78 avg=258.46 restarts=125102
		errs: 13[18142] 66[552] 298[3] 316[5640169]

• Packet traces may show NFS3ERR_SERVERFAULT as a reply to a failed operation:

• Latency may show higher in Network Processing in Unified Manager
• Lowered performance from CIFS/SMB shares or NFS mounts while FPolicy is enabled
• The fpolicy server running low on resources may also be affected (maxed out CPU and memory)

ActiveIQ Information

• Check Active IQ if this impacts your systems
• Please note, there are 2 Active IQ alerts that utilize this KB to provide further information
  • Signature 1:
    • Excessive EAGAIN errors are present in the Fpolicy logs
      • An EMS message has been seen latest Autosupport that recommends increasing the -send-buffer-size. If the value is already at 1048576, recommendation is to increase the send buffer up to the maximum value of 8mb. This can be done incrementally 1mb or 2mb.
  • Signature 2:
    • Fpolicy External Engine Send Buffer Size Best Practice 1mb
      • If the -send-buffer-size is less than 1mb (1048576), then a recommendation will be made to increase to 1mb.