[CentOS] Replacement for Linux-HA (heartbeat) - RedHat cluster?

Dave Augustus davea at ingraftedsoftware.com
Sun Dec 2 05:18:15 UTC 2007


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



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