topic Re: SnapCenter Custom Account - ONTAP in Data Protection

SnapCenter Custom Account - ONTAP

davieb1969 — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 11:10:06 GMT

I have a customer who wants to use a custom account in ONTAP for Snapcenter. They have created a role with the following permissions on the cluster vserver but get the error "Error: Failed to connect to storage system, value cannot be null. Parameter name: source. Is something missing?

Thanks

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Re: SnapCenter Custom Account - ONTAP

Ontapforrum — Wed, 13 May 2020 14:31:57 GMT

Just trying to understand your scenario.

Looking at this error: Failed to connect to storage. Are you trying to add 'storage' from SnapCenter ?

So,
1) You have SnapCenter plug-in (for vmware or whatever) installed
2) You have a AD user or group created ? You log into SC and then add a user/group with SnapCenter defined roles ? Settings | Roles | Add..
Depending upon the 'Role', set of permissions are assigned (ex-create storage connection, resource group, clone, provision etc).

For example: In Active Directory, a group is created 'sc_managers', users are added to this group. Then, once you logged in to SC as 'admin', you go to settings, roles, and create a role/permission and assign a 'group' created in AD or chose from existing role that best defines what permissions you want to give. Then the users of that group with the defined 'role' will be able to carry out tasks that the role permits.

I don't know if I am following you?

https://docs.netapp.com/ocsc-41/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.netapp.doc.ocsc-ag%2Fhome.html

Re: SnapCenter Custom Account - ONTAP

mrahul — Wed, 13 May 2020 15:05:14 GMT

A list of minimum required ONTAP privileges is included in the SnapCenter Server installation guide. Request you to please cross-check the permissions against the document.

SnapCenter 4.3 Documentation Center link is

https://docs.netapp.com/ocsc-43/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.netapp.doc.ocsc-isg%2FGUID-27F02419-2BD4-48E5-8EC2-30ABF58FB328.html&resultof=%22%4f%4e%54%41%50%22%20%22%6f%6e%74%61%70%22%20%22%70%72%69%76%69%6c%65%67%65%73%22%20%22%70%72%69%76%69%6c%65%67%22%20

Re: SnapCenter Custom Account - ONTAP

davieb1969 — Wed, 13 May 2020 16:04:02 GMT

Hi, So the customer doesnt want to use the cluster admin account. Following the guide for minimum persmissions required for SnapCenter, the customer has created an ontap role and user account. In SnapCenter he has changed the login to the cluster to the custom account created; resulting in that error. It would appear all permissions are correct.

Re: SnapCenter Custom Account - ONTAP

davieb1969 — Wed, 13 May 2020 16:04:52 GMT

hi, yes, the guide was used to create the role

Re: SnapCenter Custom Account - ONTAP

mrahul — Thu, 14 May 2020 04:47:03 GMT

If I understand it correctly, the customer is registering Cluster (using custom user account) and not explicitly registering the individual SVMs. Modifying the cluster credentials from admin user to custom user account in SC UI is resulting in the error as reported.

There shouldn't be an issue using custom accounts with SnapCenter. The error "Failed to connect to the storage system" is usually given at times when SC is not able to reach the storage system specified. It can be even HTTPs timeout also.

If the network side seems to be fine, I would suggest the customer open a support ticket so that the concerned team can take a look at the logs for proper triage.