[DRBD-user] DRBD Versions

Adam Goryachev mailinglists at websitemanagers.com.au
Wed Oct 24 16:16:17 CEST 2012

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


On 24/10/12 23:52, Dan Barker wrote:
> I don't understand the hubbub over compiling this thing. My first DRBD was
> on Linux from scratch, a distribution where everything is done by hand, so
> there was no package manager availaable. I found the install quite simple.
> My most recent upgrade consisted of these easy steps, and took about 2
> minutes. Selecting the kernel parameters for your environment (step 5) might
> take a little more time, but not counting backups, I'd say 10 minutes ought
> to do it.

It's not that I'm scared of compiling, I've used compile from scratch
linux and freebsd in the past, and starting with slackware when packages
were tar files of the source code (well, that's how I remember it, could
be wrong...).

Using pre-packaged debian stable (or your favourite stable distro) means
that:
a) Someone who (hopefully) knows what they are doing is actually
deciding that this source is stable and should work
b) There are a lot of other people also using this same exact code, so
any bugs are more likely to be found by someone else (and fixed before I
notice)
c) There is already a system in place for noticing a serious bug, and
for alerting the admin (me) and for me to install it (regardless of
whether it is drbd, iscsi, or any otherimportant or trivial component).

However, on the flipside, I keep hearing that there are "issues" that
are not fixed in 8.3.13, but work fine in 8.4.x, so I am questioning
whether it is worth abandoning the advantages (a, b, c) and building my
own, or not...

The biggest issue that I have is performance (lack of it), and it seems
a newer version (whether 8.3 or 8.4) might improve this. Currently I've
been forced to disable drbd sync during "business hours" because it
causes "freezes" a few times a day (for approx 10 secs). So I disconnect
the secondary each morning and re-connect each night. I'd really like to
have 100% of the advantages of DRBD, ie, online and uptodate/uptodate
all the time....
> There are some prereqs, but they are probably on your system already: make
> gcc libc6 flex linux-headers-`uname -r` libc6-dev libssl-dev.
>
> 1. cd /usr/src/
> 2. wget http://oss.linbit.com/drbd/8.4/drbd-8.4.2.tar.gz
> 3. tar -xzf drbd-8.4.2.tar.gz
> 4. cd drbd-8.4.2/
> 5. ./configure --with-km --prefix /usr --sysconfdir /etc --localstatedir
> /var
> 6. make clean all
> 7. make install      
>
> I hope seeing it laid out in all its simplicity encourages you to give it a
> try. Heck, fire up a virtual machine or two and experiment. That's the fun
> part of our jobs anyhow.
Which part is the most relevant, kernel module or user tools?
Or must they match?
Does that re-build both components?
At which point does the current version get taken offline (make install
or some point after that)?

>From the docs, it looks like you can upgrade the secondary, then switch
roles, and then upgrade the primary.... In theory with negligible
downtime...

Regards,
Adam

-- 
Adam Goryachev
Website Managers
www.websitemanagers.com.au




More information about the drbd-user mailing list