[DRBD-user] Getting started with drbd and fedora

[Roland Kammerer]

On Thu, Jun 21, 2018 at 12:24:10PM -0400, Alex wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I'm trying to understand how drbd works and how all the different
> pieces go together. I first installed drbd on Linux many, many years
> ago, but it appears to be quite different and obviously more mature.
> 
> I have a mail server with about 3TB of disk space for users. I'd like
> to create a completely different system on a completely different
> network and somehow provide a single interface for users to access
> their email.
> 
> Does drbd typically work with a front-end system that helps to manage
> which system is active?

Yes, cluster managers. Typically Pacemaker, we also support VCS.

> Ideally I'd like a system where I can advertise a single IP address in
> DNS and have traffic routed to the currently active system but I don't
> really understand how all the pieces go together.

Read your favorite Pacemaker guide, see below.

> Does drbd typically involve NFS? LVM?

That really depends what you want. Some customers use NFS, I'd guess
most use LVM.

> Is there a general overview doc that provides a description of typical
> configurations?

User guides: https://docs.linbit.com/
Tech guides (more what you are looking for I guess):
https://www.linbit.com/en/resources/documentation

> What are the services that are available as open source as compared
> with the ones offered commercially by linbit?

DRBD Proxy (WAN replication) and the RDMA transport (faster than TCP/IP
interconnect) are proprietary. And of course we provide support to
customers, depending on your subscription. And there are customer
repositories with pre-built packages that follow a slightly different
release cycle than the OpenSource versions.

Regards, rck