[DRBD-user] Cluster filesystem question

Lars Ellenberg lars.ellenberg at linbit.com
Thu Dec 1 17:10:41 CET 2011

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


On Wed, Nov 30, 2011 at 12:30:43PM +0200, Kaloyan Kovachev wrote:
> On Tue, 29 Nov 2011 21:17:30 +0100, Florian Haas <florian at hastexo.com>
> wrote:
> > 
> > As this sort of issue currently pops up on IRC every other day, I've
> > just posted this rant:
> > 
> >
> http://fghaas.wordpress.com/2011/11/29/dual-primary-drbd-iscsi-and-multipath-dont-do-that/
> > 
> > ... in the hope that at least a few of those who are attempting to set
> > this up are stopped in their tracks by googling first. Lars, if you
> > object to this or would like some edits, please let me know or find me
> > on IRC. Thanks.
> > 
> > Cheers,
> > Florian
> 
> 'doing that' for near an year now, so here are my 0.02 ...
> 
> quote from the link above:
> "So please, if you’re seeing Concurrent local write detected or the
> tell-all DRBD is not a random data generator! message in your logs, don’t
> come complaining. And even if you don’t see them yet, you will,
> eventually."
> 
> 'Concurrent local write detected' appeared in the logs at the beginning
> (during the tests) without cman running on the DRBD nodes, but as soon as
> they became members of the cluster accessing the data - cluster FS locks do
> synchronize the write attempts and multipath is running fine even in
> multibus configuration - no more such messages in the logs. Maybe it is
> because there are mostly reads and fewer writes, while the service which
> does the writes runs on the DRBD node itself and accessing its own device
> only (no multipath)
> 
> it is possible, but only if properly configured:
>  use GFS2, OCFS2 or other cluster aware FS with properly configured
> cluster
>  have cluster manager running on DRBD nodes or preferably have DRBD as a
> service controlled from the cluster
>  do not start iSCSI target until both nodes are connected and in
> Primary/Primary state
>  have proper fencing and _always_ use resource-and-stonith - no I/O until
> split-brain is resolved

Cluster FS on Dual-Primary DRBD is ok
(if done right, as you apparently do),
as they are, well, cluster aware.

Independent iSCSI targets on Dual-Primary DRBD is not,
as those targets are *not* cluster aware.

That's what the "Don't do that." mainly was about:
Do not expect DRBD to make non-cluster aware things cluster-aware,
magically, somehow. It does not, can not, and will not do magic.

> it won't help spreading the writes, as they are done on both nodes, but
> may speed up the reads
> if used as a storage for VM images, it is better to have each VM using
> it's own DRBD device - live migration possible with no risk for the data

-- 
: Lars Ellenberg
: LINBIT | Your Way to High Availability
: DRBD/HA support and consulting http://www.linbit.com



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