[DRBD-user] (newbie question) DRBD 9, pure controller without data storage

Roland Kammerer roland.kammerer at linbit.com
Tue Dec 5 10:16:49 CET 2017

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, Dec 04, 2017 at 11:10:16PM +0000, Riches Jr, Robert M wrote:
> (This is a newbie question.)
> 
> Having got non-LVM version 9 drbdadm working with two storage nodes and a
> few no-local-storage nodes, I'm attempting to graduate to using drbdmanage
> and LVM.  My goal is to have two storage nodes, one pure controller node
> without data storage, and a few no-local-storage compute nodes.  However, I
> don't understand the green box in Figure 5 in the User's Guide, labeled as a
> 'Control node', 'controlvolume is a local LV', 'pure Controller', and 'nodes
> without data storage'.  This is the figure:
> 
> https://docs.linbit.com/ug-src/users-guide-9.0/images/drbdmanage-venn.png
> 
> The only LVM volume group I see mentioned in chapter 5 of the DRBD 9 UG
> is the one it suggests to name 'drbdpool'.  However, if the pure controller
> has no data storage, how can the controlvolume be a local LV.  Can someone
> please enlighten a newbie on what seem to be contradictory descriptions?

There are two types of storage drbdmange can use:
- the control volume (which is the cluster wide database, 2x4MB, always
  on thick LVM)
- the storage for your actual DRBD resources (LVM/ZFS thin/thick).

That makes 4 combinations:
- The node has a copy of the control volume, that makes it a "control
  node". It can then provide storage for DRBD resources or not (control
  node or pure controller). A use case for a pure controller might be a
  "quorum node" that just has a copy of the cluster DB. Let's say you
  have 3 nodes, one of them is a pure controller, one of the other nodes
  fails then the cluster can continue as it still has 2 nodes with a
  copy of the control volume.
- The node does not have a copy of the cluster DB and gets its cluster
  DB from another node via TCP. These are satellites. They can have
  local storage for DRBD resources or not.

Regards, rck



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