linux cluster without shared storage

[Paolo Gilli]

For firewall service,I need to create a active/passive linux cluster with 2 nodes.
for low-cost solution, is possible do this without using shared storage? if yes, where can I found information and howto?

linux distribution will be rh as 2.1 or 3.0

Thanks
Paolo

[Stuart Browne]

What service exactally are you trying to cluster?

If it's just firewall/network gateway, then there's no clustering required. Just set up multi-path network routes on both sides, and you'll have something fun (but at some point, you'll still have one point of failure.

Or are you wanting a specific service (i.e. http/apache) to be clustered?

If it is something like that without a fully-dynamic content (i.e. files being updated regularly), then you can do non-shared-data clusters, just make sure you mirror the data from a designated 'master' periodically.

[Ivan Ferreira · Accepted solution]

You could try heartbeat, and use RHEL only if you have the RHN suscription.

A perimeter host or firewall must be always up to date.

With heartbeat you monitor the nodes through serial and/or ethernet channels, if one node goes down, the other takes over the IP (a VIP) and start the services. So, if you use iptables, configure it on both nodes and heartbeat will start and stop the service as neccesary.

[Paolo Gilli]

Stuart,Ivan
Thankyou for suggestions.
The cluster will do routing service too.
About heartbeat, searcing on the web, I foun d that it is a part of Ultra Monkey (The Linux HA Project). So at www.UltraMonkey.org I can found the RPMs and doc. needed for the installation.
Regards
Paolo

[Steven E. Protter]

http://linux-ha.org

This and webmin will let you cluster without shared storage.

I'm using both right now. The documentation could be better, but eventually I'll have a completely working cluster.

SEP

[Paolo Gilli]

Hi SEP,
can you show me how your ha.cf file is configured?
Thankyou
Paolo

[Donald Kok]

Hi Paolo,
you can use shared storage by using drbd. This software mirrors disks on different hosts. It works well in combination with heartbeat.
Donald

[Donald Kok]

Hi Paolo.
here is my ha.cf.
Good luck
Donald