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Managing Serviceguard Version A.11.16, Eleventh EditionSecond Printing > Chapter 4 Planning and Documenting an HA Cluster

Hardware Planning

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Hardware planning requires examining the physical hardware itself. One useful procedure is to sketch the hardware configuration in a diagram that shows adapter cards and buses, cabling, disks and peripherals. A sample diagram for a two-node cluster is shown in Figure 4-1 “Sample Cluster Configuration ”.

Figure 4-1 Sample Cluster Configuration

Sample Cluster Configuration

Create a similar sketch for your own cluster, and record the information on the Hardware Worksheet. Indicate which device adapters occupy which slots, and determine the bus address for each adapter. Update the details as you do the cluster configuration (described in Chapter 5). Use one form for each SPU. The form has three parts:

  • SPU Information

  • Network Information

  • Disk I/O Information

SPU Information

SPU information includes the basic characteristics of the systems you are using in the cluster. Different models of computers can be mixed in the same cluster. This configuration model also applies to HP Integrity servers. The series 700 workstations are not supported for Serviceguard.

On one worksheet per node, include the following items:

Server Number

Enter the series number; for example, rp8400 or rx8620-32.

Host Name

Enter the name to be used on the system as the host name.

Memory Capacity

Enter the memory in MB.

Number of I/O slots

Indicate the number of slots.

Network Information

Serviceguard monitors LAN interfaces as well as serial lines (RS232) configured to carry cluster heartbeat only.

NOTE: Serviceguard does not support communication across routers between nodes in the same cluster.

Serviceguard communication relies on the exchange of DLPI (Data Link Provider Interface) traffic at the data link layer and the UDP/TCP (User Datagram Protocol/Transmission Control Protocol) traffic at the Transport layer between cluster nodes.

LAN Information

While a minimum of one LAN interface per subnet is required, at least two LAN interfaces, one primary and one or more standby, are needed to eliminate single points of network failure.

It is recommended that you configure heartbeats on all subnets, including those to be used for client data. On the worksheet, enter the following for each LAN interface:

Subnet Name

Enter the IP address mask for the subnet. Note that heartbeat IP addresses must be on the same subnet on each node.

Interface Name

Enter the name of the LAN card as used by this node to access the subnet. This name is shown by lanscan after you install the card.

IP Address

Enter this node’s host IP address(es), to be used on this interface. If the interface is a standby and does not have an IP address, enter 'Standby.'

An IPv4 address is a string of 4 digits separated with decimals, in this form:

nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn

An IPV6 address is a string of 8 hexadecimal values separated with colons, in this form:

xxx:xxx:xxx:xxx:xxx:xxx:xxx:xxx.

For more details of IPv6 address format, see the “IPv6 Address Types”

NETWORK_FAILURE_DETECTION

When there is a primary and a standby network card, Serviceguard needs to determine when a card has failed, so it knows whether to fail traffic over to the other card. To detect failures, Serviceguard’s Network Manager monitors both inbound and outbound traffic. The Manager will mark the card DOWN and begin to attempt a failover when network traffic is not noticed for a time. (Serviceguard calculates the time depending on the type of LAN card.)

The configuration file specifies one of two ways to decide when the network interface card has failed:

  • INOUT - The default method will count packets sent by polling, and declare a card down only the count stops incrementing for both the inbound and the outbound packets.

  • INONLY_OR_INOUT - This option includes the INOUT method. However, it will also declare a card down if only the inbound count stops. With this method, Serviceguard tries to validate inbound failure reports by doing additional remote polling. (New in Serviceguard Version A.11.16.)

The default is INOUT.

The suitability of the new option depends mainly on your network configuration. “Monitoring LAN Interfaces and Detecting Failure ” for more information. Also see “Inbound Failure Detection Enhancement” in the White Papers section of http://docs.hp.com/hpux/ha -> Serviceguard.

Kind of LAN Traffic

Identify the purpose of the subnet. Valid types include the following:

  • Heartbeat

  • Client Traffic

  • Standby

Label the list to show the subnets that belong to a bridged net.

Information from this section of the worksheet is used in creating the subnet groupings and identifying the IP addresses in the configuration steps for the cluster manager and package manager.

RS232 Information

If you plan to configure a serial line (RS232), you need to determine the serial device file that corresponds with the serial port on each node.

  1. If you are using a MUX panel, make a note of the system slot number that corresponds to the MUX and also note the port number that appears next to the selected port on the panel.

  2. On each node, use ioscan -fnC tty to display hardware addresses and device file names. For example:

    ioscan -fnC tty

    This lists all the device files associated with each RS232 device on a specific node.

  3. Once you have identified the device files, verify your connection as follows. Assume that node 1 uses /dev/tty0p0, and node 2 uses /dev/tty0p6.

    • From a terminal on node 1, issue the following command:

      cat < /dev/tty0p0 
    • From a terminal on node 2, issue the following command:

      cat /etc/passwd > /dev/tty0p6 

      The contents of the password file should be displayed on the terminal on node 1.

  4. On the worksheet, enter the following:

RS232 Device File

Enter the device file name corresponding to the serial interface to be used on this node. This parameter is known as SERIAL_DEVICE_FILE in the ASCII configuration file.

Second Node Name

Enter the name of the node that will be connected to this node via RS232. a node name can be 31 bytes or less.

Setting SCSI Addresses for the Largest Expected Cluster Size

SCSI standards define priority according to SCSI address. To prevent controller starvation on the SPU, the SCSI interface cards must be configured at the highest priorities. Therefore, when configuring a highly available cluster, you should give nodes the highest priority SCSI addresses, and give disks addresses of lesser priority.

For SCSI, high priority starts at seven, goes down to zero, and then goes from 15 to eight. Therefore, seven is the highest priority and eight is the lowest priority. For example, if there will be a maximum of four nodes in the cluster, and all four systems will share a string of disks, then the SCSI address must be uniquely set on the interface cards in all four systems, and must be high priority addresses. So the addressing for the systems and disks would be as follows:

Table 4-1 SCSI Addressing in Cluster Configuration

System or Disk

Host Interface SCSI Address

Primary System A

7

Primary System B

6

Primary System C

5

Primary System D

4

Disk #1

3

Disk #2

2

Disk #3

1

Disk #4

0

Disk #5

15

Disk #6

14

Others

13 - 8

 

NOTE: When a boot/root disk is configured with a low-priority address on a shared SCSI bus, a system panic can occur if there is a timeout on accessing the boot/root device. This can happen in a cluster when many nodes and many disks are configured on the same bus.

The correct approach is to assign SCSI addresses in such a way that the interface cards on cluster nodes have the highest priority SCSI addresses, followed by any boot/root disks that are on the shared bus, followed by all other disks on the shared bus.

Disk I/O Information

This part of the worksheet lets you indicate where disk device adapters are installed. Enter the following items on the worksheet for each disk connected to each disk device adapter on the node:

Bus Type

Indicate the type of bus. Supported busses are Fibre Channel, single-ended SCSI, F/W SCSI, Ultra2 and Ultra160 SCSI.

Slot Number

Indicate the slot number in which the interface card is inserted in the backplane of the computer.

Address

Enter the bus hardware path number, which will be seen on the system later when you use ioscan to display hardware.

Disk Device File

Enter the disk device file name. To display the name use the ioscan -fnC disk command.

Information from this section of the worksheet is used in creating the mirrored disk configuration using Logical Volume Manager. In addition, it is useful to gather as much information as possible about your disk configuration. You can obtain information about available disks by using the following commands:

  • diskinfo

  • ioscan -fnC disk

  • lssf /dev/*dsk/c*

  • bdf

  • mount

  • swapinfo

  • vgdisplay -v

  • lvdisplay -v

  • lvlnboot -v

  • vxdg list (VxVM and CVM)

  • vxprint (VxVM and CVM)

These are standard HP-UX commands. See their man pages for information of specific usage. The commands should be issued from all nodes after installing the hardware and rebooting the system. The information will be useful when doing storage group and cluster configuration. A printed listing of the output from the lssf command can be marked up to indicate which physical volume group a disk should be assigned to.

Hardware Configuration Worksheet

The following worksheet will help you organize and record your specific cluster hardware configuration. Make as many copies as you need. Complete the worksheet and keep it for future reference.

    SPU Information:

    Host Name ____ftsys9___________ Series No ______rp8400____________

Memory Capacity ____128 MB _________ Number of I/O Slots ______12_______
=============================================================================
LAN Information:

Name of Name of Node IP Traffic
Subnet __Blue___ Interface ___lan0___ Addr___35.12.16.10__ Type ____HB___

Name of Name of Node IP Traffic
Subnet __Blue___ Interface ___lan2___ Addr_______________ Type _standby_

Name of Name of Node IP Traffic
Subnet __Red____ Interface ___lan1___ Addr___35.12.15.12_ Type _HB, client
=============================================================================
    Network Failure Dections: ____INOUT___
=============================================================================

Serial (RS232) Heartbeat Interface Information:

    RS232 Device File ___/dev/tty0p0__

    Second Node Name ____ftsys10__________

=============================================================================
Disk I/O Information for Shared Disks:

Bus Type _SCSI_ Slot Number _4__ Address _16_ Disk Device File __c0t1d0_

Bus Type _SCSI_ Slot Number _6_ Address _24_ Disk Device File __c0t2d0_

Bus Type ______ Slot Number ___ Address ____ Disk Device File _________

Attach a printout of the output from the ioscan -fnC disk command
after installing disk hardware and rebooting the system. Mark this
    printout to indicate which physical volume group each disk belongs to.
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