CentOS - Nov 2007 - Replacement for Linux-HA (heartbeat) - RedHat cluster?

Hello,

I'm beginning to give up on making Linux-HA's heartbeat work for my
environment (CentOS x86_64) and am wondering what other option have I got to
help me:
1. Use IPVS to maintain a cluster of virtual servers, either master/slave or
load-balanced.
2. Use DRBD in master/slave fashion to keep a home-grown application
highly-available.

The first thing I stumbled upon is RedHat Cluster Suite (
http://www.linuxtopia.org/online_books/centos_linux_guides/centos_cluster_configuration_and_management/),
from which I also saw some packages on my CentOS servers.

I've never heard of it before and am just starting to dig its docs, but if
someone here can confirm/deny that this is a possible route to take it might
save me some time or doubts.

Thanks,

--Amos
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On Fri, 2007-11-30 at 09:30 +0000, Amos Shapira wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I'm beginning to give up on making Linux-HA's heartbeat work for my
> environment (CentOS x86_64) and am wondering what other option have I
> got to help me:
> 1. Use IPVS to maintain a cluster of virtual servers, either
> master/slave or load-balanced. 
> 2. Use DRBD in master/slave fashion to keep a home-grown application
> highly-available.
> 
> The first thing I stumbled upon is RedHat Cluster Suite
>
(http://www.linuxtopia.org/online_books/centos_linux_guides/centos_cluster_configuration_and_management/),
from which I also saw some packages on my CentOS servers.
> 
> I've never heard of it before and am just starting to dig its docs,
> but if someone here can confirm/deny that this is a possible route to
> take it might save me some time or doubts. 
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> --Amos

Perhaps you should read the CentOS docs - see
http://www.centos.org/docs/5/ - cluster suite overview and admin

Rob

On Nov 30, 2007 4:30 AM, Amos Shapira <amos.shapira at gmail.com>
wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I'm beginning to give up on making Linux-HA's heartbeat work for my
> environment (CentOS x86_64) and am wondering what other option have I got
to
> help me:
> 1. Use IPVS to maintain a cluster of virtual servers, either master/slave
or
> load-balanced.
> 2. Use DRBD in master/slave fashion to keep a home-grown application
> highly-available.
>
> The first thing I stumbled upon is RedHat Cluster Suite (
>
http://www.linuxtopia.org/online_books/centos_linux_guides/centos_cluster_configuration_and_management/),
> from which I also saw some packages on my CentOS servers.
>
> I've never heard of it before and am just starting to dig its docs, but
if
> someone here can confirm/deny that this is a possible route to take it
might
> save me some time or doubts.
Dump the cluste suite and use the LinuxVirtualServer.org packages.
You won't have a gui, but it will be better in the long run.  We're
using that for quite a few clusters and handling about 30MBit/s on
each of the clusters, I think it's around 10k concurrent connections.

-- 
-matt

Amos Shapira wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I'm beginning to give up on making Linux-HA's heartbeat work for my
> environment (CentOS x86_64) and am wondering what other option have I 
> got to help me:
> 1. Use IPVS to maintain a cluster of virtual servers, either 
> master/slave or load-balanced.
> 2. Use DRBD in master/slave fashion to keep a home-grown application 
> highly-available.
>
> The first thing I stumbled upon is RedHat Cluster Suite ( 
>
http://www.linuxtopia.org/online_books/centos_linux_guides/centos_cluster_configuration_and_management/),
> from which I also saw some packages on my CentOS servers.
>
> I've never heard of it before and am just starting to dig its docs, 
> but if someone here can confirm/deny that this is a possible route to 
> take it might save me some time or doubts.
AFAIK, RHCS has at its core a spin of heartbeat.

Amos Shapira wrote:
> 
> Hello,
> 
> I'm beginning to give up on making Linux-HA's heartbeat work 
> for my environment (CentOS x86_64) and am wondering what 
> other option have I got to help me:
> 1. Use IPVS to maintain a cluster of virtual servers, either 
> master/slave or load-balanced. 
> 2. Use DRBD in master/slave fashion to keep a home-grown 
> application highly-available.
> 
> The first thing I stumbled upon is RedHat Cluster Suite ( 
> http://www.linuxtopia.org/online_books/centos_linux_guides/cen
> tos_cluster_configuration_and_management/ 
> <http://www.linuxtopia.org/online_books/centos_linux_guides/ce
> ntos_cluster_configuration_and_management/> ), from which I 
> also saw some packages on my CentOS servers.
> 
> I've never heard of it before and am just starting to dig its 
> docs, but if someone here can confirm/deny that this is a 
> possible route to take it might save me some time or doubts. 
What isn't working with heartbeat?

It may be just that some help getting heartbeat working properly
is all you need?

If after working with it fully configured properly it still
doesn't work the way you need it then I'd look at another
clustering solution.

-Ross

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On Friday 30 November 2007, Amos Shapira wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I'm beginning to give up on making Linux-HA's heartbeat work for my
> environment (CentOS x86_64) and am wondering what other option have I got
> to help me:
> 1. Use IPVS to maintain a cluster of virtual servers, either master/slave
> or load-balanced.
> 2. Use DRBD in master/slave fashion to keep a home-grown application
> highly-available.
>
> The first thing I stumbled upon is RedHat Cluster Suite (
> http://www.linuxtopia.org/online_books/centos_linux_guides/centos_cluster_c
>onfiguration_and_management/), from which I also saw some packages on my
> CentOS servers.
>
> I've never heard of it before and am just starting to dig its docs, but
if
> someone here can confirm/deny that this is a possible route to take it
> might save me some time or doubts.
>
We are in the middle of migrating to a new colo and I first heard about 
Cluster Suite with the release of 5. 

Our old colo used 2 different 2-node clusters using hearbeat version 1. We had 
a 2-node cluster in Active/passive for the LVS director and 4 nodes as real 
servers. Our other 2-node cluster was file servers.

I saw the Redhat Cluster Suite (RCS) and spent 2 weeks trying to implement it- 
without success. I ran into bugs and couldn't get it to work right.

(Parenthecally let me say this: VERSION 2 ROCKS! With version 1, you are 
limited to 2 nodes. With 2, as many as you want.)

So I went back to heartbeat and learned version 2. Now, we have a 6-node 
cluster where ANY NODE can be a REAL SERVER OR a LVS DIRECTOR. It was really 
cool when I learned how to do it. I spent 2 more weeks learning it BUT I have 
a solution that works and has been stable since inception. Note that we left 
the file servers in their own 2 node cluster.

So, in summary, from my experience:

1. forget RCS
2. use Heartbeat in version 2 mode to control both LVS and REAL Server 
functionality.
3. This will allow you to sleep at night.

Enjoy!

Dave

On 06/12/2007, Dave Augustus <davea at kcm40202>
wrote:
> If you can try with non-Xen kernels, you should get better results.
Does this mean that you tried Xen kernels and DomU and it failed, then
switched to non-Xen kernels on the same setup and it succeeded?

Thanks,

--Amos