[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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