Managing lp in a DRP environment

[Graham Van der vaart]

Hi
If 2 nodes are clustered (using SG).
Each node runs own apps. For failover of a node
what is the best way to manage lp stuff such as remote print queues?
Should all printers be configured on both nodes for both nodes (ie for all apps), and if so how should they be synchronized?
Any tips/insight would be valued.
The same approach may also need to be applied for our 3rd party job scheduler and home grown infrastructure components.
Regards
Graham

[Roger Baptiste · Accepted solution]

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Yes, both nodes should be able to see all print queues. We do this using third party print software , the now-defunct openspool.
But, i don't think this takes care of failing over pending print requests.

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Yes, the job scheduler should be set up in such a way that the job schedule also gets failed over. The third party application should have that provision. I use controlM and it is setup accordingly. It also depends on the criticality of the jobs running on the system.

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If there are data, then you can simply fail over the filesystems alone. It all depends on what sort of applications are running on the system.

-raj

[Darrell Allen]

Hi Graham,

If you want to have identical print queue definitions, use SAM to save LP spooler configuration on one server, copy it to the other server, then use SAM to restore the copied configuration. By default it is saved in /var/sam/lp. Unless you add printers often you should get able to get by fine with this method. That's for the config only, not the jobs in the queues.

If you list the printers in /etc/hosts you'll have to make coresponding changes on both servers. Same for any static routes if you use them for printers on other nets.

Unfortunately, the printer queues on each server are independent of the other server unless you use 3rd part software as Raj suggests.

You'll need to check with the job scheduler vendor to see how and if it works in HA environments. I'd think any good scheduler would handle HA clusters.

Darrell