Lustre discuss - Aug 2010 - Configuration question

I''m curious about the underlying framework of lustre in regards to
failover.

When creating the filesystems, one can provide --failnode=x.x.x.x at tcp0
and even for the OSTs you can provide two nids for the MDS/MGS. What
do these options tell lustre and the clients? Are these required for
use with heartbeat? If so why doesn''t that second of the manual
reference this? Also I think there is a typo in 4.5 Operational
Scenarios, where it says one can use ''mkfs.lustre --ost --mgs
--fsname=''  That of course returns an error.

David

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On 08/19/2010 10:59 AM, David Noriega wrote:
> I''m curious about the underlying framework of lustre in regards to
failover.
>
> When creating the filesystems, one can provide --failnode=x.x.x.x at tcp0
> and even for the OSTs you can provide two nids for the MDS/MGS. What
> do these options tell lustre and the clients? Are these required for
> use with heartbeat? If so why doesn''t that second of the manual
> reference this? Also I think there is a typo in 4.5 Operational
> Scenarios, where it says one can use ''mkfs.lustre --ost --mgs
> --fsname=''  That of course returns an error.
>
> David
>
- The --failnode= parameter gives a list of LNET address that will be
   tried by a ''client'' (Client in this case can be a client
process on a
   Lustre server, as in OSS talking to failover MDS) in the even of
   dropped connection to the primary address. This is actually un-related
   to the heartbeat setup (which governs services) but critical if
   you wish clients to connect to the new service after failover. So
   it is a necessary part of _any_ Lustre failover whether performed
   by heartbeat or another service.

It is described in the manual, in various places, including section 8.2
Failover Functionality in Lustre and section 4.4.1, please ask further 
if that''s not clear.

Thanks for the manual typo catch - have filed a bug.

cliffw