samba - Sep 2014 - Active/Passive Samba Cluster for Shared NFS Backend

Hello,

I am working on setting up an Active/Passive Samba cluster on Ubuntu 14.04
using Samba 4.1.6. Samba will be sharing an NFS mount so that it can be
accessible to CIFS clients. Thus, the server setup is as follows:

             -- cifs0 --
            /           \
           /             \
NFS_Server                VIP --- CIFS clients
           \             /
            \           /
             -- cifs1 --

The NFS export is mounted at the same place on both cifs0 and cifs1, /mnt/nfs.
I have configured "lock directory" to point at a directory inside of
the NFS
share: 
lock directory = /mnt/nfs/locks

I then configured a share: 
test]
 path = /mnt/nfs/test
 browseable = yes
 public = yes
 guest ok = yes
 writable = yes
 create mode = 0644
 directory mode = 0775

Both cifs0 and cifs1 are running keepalived to export a VIP and move it between
the two of them. All CIFS clients use this VIP for accessing the share. I have
some questions about this setup:
 * does "private dir" also need to be on the shared NFS directory? I
am syncing
   the smb.conf to be identical on both servers (except for "netbios
name"), so
   I don't think it's necessary to have it on shared storage 
 * can I have smbd and nmbd running on both cifs0 and cifs1 simultaneously, 
   since traffic should only come through one server at any given time?  
 * are there any other problems with this configuration?

Thanks,

Andrew Martin

On 09/17/2014 11:57 AM, Andrew Martin wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I am working on setting up an Active/Passive Samba cluster on Ubuntu 14.04
> using Samba 4.1.6. Samba will be sharing an NFS mount so that it can be
> accessible to CIFS clients. Thus, the server setup is as follows:
> 
>              -- cifs0 --
>             /           \
>            /             \
> NFS_Server                VIP --- CIFS clients
>            \             /
>             \           /
>              -- cifs1 --
> 
> The NFS export is mounted at the same place on both cifs0 and cifs1,
/mnt/nfs.
> I have configured "lock directory" to point at a directory inside
of the NFS
> share: 
> lock directory = /mnt/nfs/locks
> 
> I then configured a share: 
> test]
>  path = /mnt/nfs/test
>  browseable = yes
>  public = yes
>  guest ok = yes
>  writable = yes
>  create mode = 0644
>  directory mode = 0775
> 
> Both cifs0 and cifs1 are running keepalived to export a VIP and move it
between
> the two of them. All CIFS clients use this VIP for accessing the share. I
have
> some questions about this setup:
>  * does "private dir" also need to be on the shared NFS
directory? I am syncing
>    the smb.conf to be identical on both servers (except for "netbios
name"), so
>    I don't think it's necessary to have it on shared storage 
>  * can I have smbd and nmbd running on both cifs0 and cifs1 simultaneously,
>    since traffic should only come through one server at any given time?  
>  * are there any other problems with this configuration?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Andrew Martin
> 
You may want to look into Samba CTDB, which is Samba's clustering
solution. https://ctdb.samba.org/

-- 
John Yocum, Systems Administrator, DEOHS

On Wed, Sep 17, 2014 at 01:57:42PM -0500, Andrew Martin
wrote:
>  * are there any other problems with this configuration?
The only question I have is: Why? You should install Samba (Or the Ontap
CIFS option for that matter) on the NFS server, that's a single point
of failure anyway.

Volker

-- 
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