Return Material Authorization

With the Return Material Authorization (RMA) process, you can replace a faulty device with a new device that has the same configuration.

The high-level process is as follows. For specific steps and commands, see Replace a Faulty Device.

1. Verify prerequisites.
   • Periodic configuration backup must be enabled on all devices that may need RMA. This prerequisite ensures that you have the latest configuration file to be used for recovery.
   • Maintenance mode must be enabled upon reboot on all devices.
2. Remove the faulty device and replace it with the new device. Ports on this device must be administratively up and online.

   The ports on the new device must have the same connections as the old device. For example, if the old device ethernet port1 and port2 went to port3 and port4 of another device, the new replacement device must have these exact same ethernet port connections.

3. Configure the new device with the same management IP address and credentials as the old device.
4. Start the RMA process from the command line or with the REST API.
   

   Note

   As a best practice, run the efa inventory rma execute command with the configuration backup ID so that the configuration is properly restored. If you run the command without the backup ID, you must manually update the configuration on the new device.
   During the RMA process, the following actions occur:

   • The device boots up in maintenance mode.
   • EFA updates the device ID for the connection details in the database.
   • Maintenance mode is initiated if the device is not already in maintenance mode.
   • EFA replays the backed-up configuration specified by the config-backup-id parameter of the efa inventory rma execute command.
   • EFA begins the drift reconcile process, which involves device discovery, device update, and fabric and tenant reconciliation. For more information, see Drift and Reconcile.
     

     Note

     If the RMA command fails during this stage, you can manually run the drift reconcile process from the CLI. If the RMA process fails for any other reason, restart the RMA process.
   • When drift reconcile is complete, the device is taken out of maintenance mode.
   • During the RMA process, EFA health checks are deactivated and RASlog does not trigger drift reconcile.
5. Install the HTTPS or OAuth2 certificate on the new device.

Note

The following conditions result in the RMA process failing:

• If there is mismatch in device IP and credentials
• If the device maintenance mode is not successful

In both the conditions, reject the device replacement with the new device.