NIC Change in a Cluster

[Sharon Bi]

Dear All,

We have a three nodes cluster. Currently they are on a FDDI ring. Due to network upgrade, we are going to remove FDDI. So I have to plan to remove FDDI card, put in TWO new 100BT NIC.

As for hardware, I have already decided to go for a HP-PB NIC. But I don't know how to do it from software side. Could anybody teach me how to do that?

Thank you all !!

Sharon

[melvyn burnard · Accepted solution]

first question is: why HP-PB 100BaseT? they are NOT performance cards, in fact you would be lucky to see above 30M/s throughput
Secondly you would nbeed to stop the cluster completely, plan the replacement of the NIC's, reconfigure the nodes INDIVIDUALLY, test the network connections an addressing resolution.
Then you would need to redo your cluster ascii file, cmcheckconf it, and if all is ok, finally cmapply conf.
Once that is done, you would need to start the cluster and see that all works, and then finally do some network failover testing.
Quite a lot of work top do, and I suggest a plan be written up, with backouts at various stages in case of problems.

[Sharon Bi]

Melvyn,

Why I choose to use PH-PB card is because I don't have enough slots on the current system. One of the machine in the cluster is a I60.


My plan is basically like this:


- Halt the system
- Turn off the power Switch
- Remove the FDDI card
- Reboot the system and do not turn on Cluster
- Remove the FDDI device file /dev/lan1:
Rmsf ?H 8
- Check the HP-PB LAN 9000 driver in the Kernel, look for the driver:
Lan1: HP-PB LAN 9000 Link S800
- Halt the system
- Turn off the power switch
- Plug the new HP-PB 100Base-T/9000 card
- Reboot
- The server autoconfigure and create the necessary device files
- Check the autoconfiguration of LANIC
Ioscan ?fn lan

Check the LANIC hardware path and S/W state field for value of CLAIMED (indicating the network driver is installed) for /dev/lan1
- Check if the network connectivity:
Ifconfig lan1
- Enable Cluster


Right now, cluster is using lan1. If I keep the new NIC lan1, do I still have to reconfigure cluster?

Thanks!

[wyan lowe]

I think you have to do a cmapplyconf
because I heard that the cluster binary file
contains the MAC addresses of LAN cards...

[Ramesh Donti]

Hi,
You need to consider the following.

1. Install HP-PB 100BaseT software and latest LAN cumulative & HP-PB 100BaseT patch.

2. Check the lan interface names (lanx) either in ioscan -fnC lan or by lanscan command.

3. Modify ur cluster ascii file and replace the FDDI lanx with the newly added NIC's and u should add second NIC with it's IP address.

4. Modify ur package ascii file as well to include second NIC's subnet.

5. Do cmcheckconf and cmapplyconf to distribute the binary file.