[CentOS] drbd strategy

[Fabian Arrotin - relay.skynet.be]

sbeam wrote:
> I have an existing in-production LAMP server running Centos 5.1. It uses 
> physical partitions on top of hardware RAID1, having / /home /var and /boot 
> on separate partitions.
>
> We have a near-identical system I am thinking of bringing in as a 
> DRBD/Heartbeat companion. One solution may be to use csync2 
> [http://oss.linbit.com/csync2/] on /etc and /usr/local (the only areas that 
> will differ from the stock CentOS). Then setup DRBD for /home and /var.
>
> >From reading the docs it seems we have to use "external meta data" on the 
> existing partitions. Other than that, anyone have any caveats or better ideas 
> for this setup?
>
> Also - each has 2 NICs. Can Heartbeat do its pinging over the WAN (eth0) with 
> eth1 dedicated to DRBD only? Is that how it is supposed to be, or should we 
> use the serial ports?
>   
You can decide on which nic heartbeat will do its broadcast ... serial 
port is optional and in certain cases it's even impossible to use serial 
port when machines are not located in the same computer room/building ...
Don't forget that if you use ext3 on your /home and /var partitions 
you'll only be able to use it on one node at a time .. if you need both 
nodes to read/write to the drbd devices, you'll need to use a clusterfs 
(like gfs, gfs2) on top

-- 
- 
Fabian Arrotin <fabian.arrotin at arrfab.net>
"Internet network currently down, TCP/IP packets delivered now by UPS/Fedex ..."