DRBD Ubuntu Server

[Daniel Caçador]

oi friends!!
I have 2 servers ubuntu server 6.10.
I am having difficulties in installing DRDB 8.0.0....Somebody already made it?
It can say the adopted procedures to me?

Thanks!!

Sorry! My english is too bad!

[Ralph Grothe]

Sorry, I am not fond of Ubuntu
(reminds me too much of the We-know-better-than-you-what's-good-for-you philosophy of other certain OSes)
Thus I cannot say what quirks Ubuntu has to offer to obstruct drbd installation.
I understand Ubuntu is basically a "somewhat patched" Debian.
Probably the biggest challenge is to obtain a root shell in Ubuntu (you don't want to preceede every command by a sudo, do you? ;-)

We make use of DRBD disks on our RHEL Heartbeat clusters (no we aren't using the RH Cluster Server but fiddled up our own solution).

Actually, it is a bit convoluted
because we take ordinary partitions from the SCSI root disks (in BSD/Solaris terms aka slices) which also can be so called extended partitions.
From those we make RAID1 MD devices by Linux raidtools and mdadm.
Then we define DRBD disks from these MDs.
Of the DRBD devices we create LVM PVs, and from them VGs, and of these LVs.
Finally ext3 filesystems are put on these LVs to host the HA applications' data.
All of these resources are made HA by Heartbeat.

But I see no reason why the procedure shouldn't work equally well on Ubuntu.

If you can get a Debian package for drbd driver and utilities, and you don't have any specific needs, take that.
(You should know how to search Debian repositories (possibly Unstable branch), and install from there, i.e. know your apt commands.
Maybe you have to compile the DRBD driver from the sources as we had to.
Then download the DRBD sources from

http://www.drbd.org/

The readmes should tell the build and installation procedure.
Usually you require yours kernel sources and development tools as well.
After installation and loading of DRBD driver
you need to edit /etc/drbd.conf and name your resources.
You also need to setup a dedicated private LAN Fast Ethernet or better Gigabit between your DBRBD nodes.
Sorry, don't know the names and locations of NIC config files on Debian, and an interactive ifconfig or ip command wouldn't suffice since you need to bring up the DRBD NICs on boot up before DRBD gets started.

After having edited drbd.conf one simply runs
(Beware syncing direction!)

# drbdadm -- --do-what-I-say primary all

But the required steps should all be described in the docs.

You may also would want to visit this site

http://www.linux-ha.org/DRBD

[Daniel Caçador]

Hi Ralph!
Thank's to help-me.

Well, I Finaly can install DRBD on Ubuntu.
I had instaled via apt-get.
DRBD8-source-modules
DRBD8-utils


But...I had a new problem: The DRBD.conf

I configure this file, but don't work...

You have a exemple of DRBD.conf?

Thank's!!

PS. Sorry to my bad english!

[Ralph Grothe]

Hi Daniel,

you need not apologize for your English (or is this your standard signature? ;-).
This is an international Forum, and my English isn't much better either.

I am afraid, that you have difficulties with your drbd.conf.
This file is very well commented,
so that it almost makes further referring to the docs redundant.
However, before you set up your DRBD you should consult the pages on the website of the Linux HA project that I cited in my yesterday's reply.
There you will find good explanations of all the prerequisites that must be met to arrive at a working DRBD.
Also available are step by step instructions with sample configurations.
The Linux HA website offered all that we required to set up our first Heartbeat cluster from scratch.

Of course can I post the drbd.conf of one of our clusters, if that would help you.
The "drbdadm dump" command dumps the current config stripped from all the affluent comment that you would find in the sample drbd.conf.
I only piped the dump through sed to rename the cluster nodes to nodeA and nodeB here.
Also note that you for the start merely need to define a single resource (which you can name anything you like unlike the unimaginative "r0" that we chose).
You can add more resources later should need arise.
This was the way the second resource "r1" made it into the config,
because we ran out of disk space (no more free PEs in the "shared" VG) and had to create a new HD partition and MD device (poor planning).
If our dumb Linux kernel had recognized the newly created partition the whole extension could have been excercised without a reboot (I presume newer Linux kernels are capable of this).
Nevertheless, since we had Heartbeat cluster the application could be switched over to the standby node to remain online.

Here's the dump of our config:

# drbdadm dump
resource r0 {
protocol C;
incon-degr-cmd "echo '!DRBD! pri on incon-degr' | wall ; sleep 60 ; halt -f";
on nodeA {
device /dev/drbd0;
disk /dev/md3;
address 192.168.3.2:7788;
meta-disk internal;
}
on nodeB {
device /dev/drbd0;
disk /dev/md3;
address 192.168.3.3:7788;
meta-disk internal;
}
disk {
on-io-error detach;
}
syncer {
rate 700000k;
group 1;
al-extents 257;
}
startup {
degr-wfc-timeout 120;
}
}

resource r1 {
protocol C;
incon-degr-cmd "echo '!DRBD! pri on incon-degr' | wall ; sleep 60 ; halt -f";
on nodeA {
device /dev/drbd1;
disk /dev/md4;
address 192.168.3.2:7789;
meta-disk internal;
}
on nodeB {
device /dev/drbd1;
disk /dev/md4;
address 192.168.3.3:7789;
meta-disk internal;
}
disk {
on-io-error detach;
}
syncer {
rate 700000k;
group 2;
al-extents 257;
}
startup {
degr-wfc-timeout 120;
}
}

[Daniel Caçador]

Hi Ralph!

I found the problem.

I had instaled the ubuntu 6.10 Server, via apt-get install drbd0.7-module-source
apt-get install drbd0.7-utils

But, during the intalation, make don't find the path of kernel.

You know how to I fix this problem?

Thank's my friend!

[Ralph Grothe]

Hi Daniel,

I again untarred the sources of our DRBD release (0.7.15, maybe obsolete by now?).
There is an INSTALL that quite clearly descripes the prerequisites and steps of installation for various distros.
I would really urge to read it.
You should follow the steps marked debian (at the time of writing of this INSTALL there wasn't Ubuntu around).
You must as a prerequisite install the kernel sources.
For Debian it says to run this:

# apt-get install kernel-source

Then you must prepare your kernel.

# cd /usr/src/linux
# make mrproper

Note, the last command will erase all left over object files *including* any .config file!
So if you have done kernel builds before you better save your .config file before the mrproper.

To save you a hack of kernel configuring (which really can be time consuming and bewildering due to the hundreds of drivers) you should find the .config file which was the basis of your currently running kernel, as it should already include all the drivers that your platform will require.
Some newer distros have the nice feature enabled in their kernel to dump their config in the virtual proc filesystem.
If yours is one of those you can simply do this (your milage may vary)

# zcat /proc/config.gz > /usr/src/linux/.config

On RH distros the kernel's config usually can be found in /boot

There you can do

# cp /boot/config-$(uname -r) /usr/src/linux/.config

I have absolutely no idea where Debian/Ubuntu distros hide their kernels' config.
You will have to search or consult the Ubuntu docs.
If you also use Grub then it should be found most likely in /boot as well.

After having put .config in place prepare the kernel to assume your current config by

# cd /usr/src/linux
# make oldconfig
# make modules_prepare

After you have prepared the kernel sources you should extract DRBD sources in /usr/src.

# cd /usr/src
# tar zxf /where/your/downloads/are/drdb-XX.tar.gz
# cd drbd-*

Read the INSTALL file!

# make clean all

# make install

Thereafter configure drbd.conf

[Daniel Caçador]

Hi Ralph!!

How are you?

Well....you will kill me....But....I don't can install in Ubuntu 6.10 server or 7.07 Server or Debian 4.0 RC1...Don't work because the kernel font and kernel headers don't are found....And I have in this server!!!

But, in the fist time I install in a Fedora Core 4...Why work in fedora and don't work in Debian or Ubuntu?

I like Debian and Ubuntu...I don't know that I have to do....

You know?

Thank's!!!!

[Ralph Grothe · Accepted solution]

Hi Daniel,

I am sorry that your Ubuntu installation seems to be so unwieldy when it comes to getting the DRBD driver compiled and installed.
I really would have thought that a Debian(-like) distro was quite to the contrary more flexible and supportive to extensions such as DRBD.
I am afraid, I cannot help you with the Ubuntu/Debian specifics as my Linux experience mainly builds on RedHat-like distros.
Maybe you should try to search for help in a Ubuntu forum.
There must have been others who already successfully have set up DRBD on this distro, or who can report about their possibly necessary workarounds.

Good Luck

Ralph

[Daniel Caçador]

Thank's Ralph!!!

[Gary Cantwell]

Hi There,

Please take a moment to assign points to those who have taken the time to assist you. Here's how:

http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/helptips.do?#33

Thanks,

Gary