NetApp 3140 FilerView Not Working with Java 1.6 and SSL (HTTPS) - Workaround

Recently got my new NetApp 3140 FAS series unit running Data ONTAP 8.0.1. I wanted to see different ways to manage it (i.e. CLI, NSM, and Browser). It turned out everything worked with web management except any Java applets with SSL on HTTPs. It turned out that Java 6 JRE didn't like the code since FilerView applets are written using Java 1.4 JRE classes. After some trial and error with trying JRE 1.6.x, 1.5.x  I finally got it working with Java 1.4 JRE. Here is the exception stack trace that JRE 1.6 kept throwing because it couldn't load the right library due to not able to process SSL library correctly.

Java Plug-in 1.6.0_07
Using JRE version 1.6.0_07 Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM
User home directory = C:\Documents and Settings\
----------------------------------------------------
c: clear console window
f: finalize objects on finalization queue
g: garbage collect
h: display this help message
l: dump classloader list
m: print memory usage
o: trigger logging
p: reload proxy configuration
q: hide console
r: reload policy configuration
s: dump system and deployment properties
t: dump thread list
v: dump thread stack
x: clear classloader cache
0-5: set trace level to
----------------------------------------------------
load: class com.netapp.meter.HealthMonitor not found.
java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: com.netapp.meter.HealthMonitor
at sun.applet.AppletClassLoader.findClass(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
at sun.applet.AppletClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
at sun.applet.AppletClassLoader.loadCode(Unknown Source)
at sun.applet.AppletPanel.createApplet(Unknown Source)
at sun.plugin.AppletViewer.createApplet(Unknown Source)
at sun.applet.AppletPanel.runLoader(Unknown Source)
at sun.applet.AppletPanel.run(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
 
Here is the screenshot of error message in Internet Explorer.

Click on image for full size view

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
So in my opinion CLI is the best way to manage all your NetApp filers but if you are not command-line savvy and want to use browser, make sure you install Java 1.4 on your system where you will be accessing NetApp FilerView. I hope NetApp will fix this in later releases of Data OnTAP.