IP HotStandBy

[EML]

Is it possible to implement in HP-UX 11.0 IP redundancy?

Say, I have 2 LAN cards. I only need to use 1, but I would like to use the other as a hot standby. Is it possible to give them the same ip address, and use only 1, but when this 1 fails, the 2nd would automatically kick in, without the need to manually switch the cables?

[Patrick Wallek]

Have a look at HPs Auto Port Aggregation (APA) software.

http://www.software.hp.com/cgi-bin/swdepot_parser.cgi/cgi/displayProductInfo.pl?productNumber=J4240AA

[Sridhar Bhaskarla]

Edmund,

There are two ways of doing it. Neither of them is simple.

1) Use APA, Auto Port Aggregation. Check the following URL for documentation. There are certain limitations on the Hardware for APA.

http://docs.hp.com/hpux/onlinedocs/J4240-90005/J4240-90005.html

http://docs.hp.com/hpux/onlinedocs/netcom/hp_apa_using11i.pdf

2) Configure a dummy MC/Service Guard package by making your system as a single node cluster. You can monitor the lan and MC/Service Guard will take care of failing over the Lan.

-Sri

[EML]

Thanks, Patrick and Sri.

I find APA somewhat HW limited.

We actually have K, L and N servers, and Cisco Catalyst 2900XL.

Sri, do you have some documents or links where I can find more on the dummy MC/Service Guard?

[Eugen Cocalea]

Hi,

Well, an ugly workaround would be to keep a card configured and the other one not. When the first fails, stop networking, configure the second and start networking (auto-magically, of course).

E.

[Santosh Nair_1]

I suppose you could write a script which could bring up the standby card if the primary card fails...a poor man's MC/SG. It would go something like this...test the lan connection, either by pinging the router or doing a linkloop to another mac address on the same subnet. If these fail, then ifconfig down and ifconfig etc.

Hope this helps.

-Santosh

[melvyn burnard]

If you want to read up on MC/ServiceGuard, go take a look at:
http://docs.hp.com/hpux/ha/index.html#ServiceGuard

[Santosh Nair_1]

Another alternative is the service monitoring daemon MON:

http://www.kernel.org/software/mon/

-Santosh