[DRBD-user] Total OS upgrade on Cluster

ha at buglecreek.com ha at buglecreek.com
Tue Dec 9 16:45:39 CET 2008

Note: "permalinks" may not be as permanent as we would like,
direct links of old sources may well be a few messages off.


On Mon, 08 Dec 2008 11:50:04 -0700, ha at buglecreek.com wrote:
> I just found out that the Drbd-8.0.8 cluster OS that we have is End Of
> Life in January (no patches etc).  So we need to upgrade the OS.  It
> currently runs
> Fedora Core 8 and we would like to go to RHEL5.  The cluster is a
> intranet server with mysql and also uses heartbeat, drbdlinks.  The OS
> is installed on /dev/sda  and the drbd shared device is on it's on
> hardisk (/dev/sdb) on both systems which has all the www, mysql data on
> it.  Is is possible to install a new OS on the backup system, set it up
> with all the necessary server packages, install heartbeat, drbd and have
> it use the existing sdb device. Then make the newly installed backup the
> primary and do the same to the old primary?   If so, any suggestions on
> how to go about it?
> Or do I have to start from scratch on these systems?
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My initial thought on this is to treat the secondary node as a "node
failure" as outlined in the documentation.  So with that in mind I would
do the following on the secondary node:
1. Stop Heartbeat - shutdown machine
2. Reload the new OS and applications (http server, mysql server, samba,
drbdlinks etc) on /dev/sda  as it is now.
3. Load drbd-8.0.14 and copy the drbd.conf from the primary node 
4. I should NOT have to do any of the following since I did not touch
the drbd device (/dev/sdb):
drbdadm create-md resource
drbdadm attach resource
drbdadm connect resource
5. Start the newly upgraded machine- Should connect to the primary node
and automatically start syncing.
6. Load heartbeat - setup and start.
7.  Switch over to the newly upgraded node, verify working.
8. Do the same to the old primary (now acting as the standby).

Of course, I am assuming that the primary would be able to be fully used
during the time the the secondary is down for the upgrade.

I would appreciate comments from those with more experience before I try
this.  Does this plan sound reasonable?   Thanks



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