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Xtravirt Virtual SAN Appliance

Hi Guys,

Over at Xtrairt we've just released a new free virtual appliance that I thought people might find interesting. It lets you use the local storage on two ESX hosts to create a virtual SAN. I've attached an overview diagram to explain how it works.

http://www.xtravirt.com/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=75&func=fileinfo&id=29

Summary: The Xtravirt Virtual SAN (XVS) appliance for VMware ESX3 Server is a free solution to provide the benefits of shared VMFS storage without the cost of a SAN – this allows the utilisation of otherwise unused local storage in the ESX server to facilitate enterprise level features such as vMotion, DRS and HA normally only available through the use of a shared storage device. All volume data is synchronously replicated between hosts, providing full fail-over capability with data integrity in the event of host, disk or appliance failure. The appliance is menu driven and has been designed to be as easy to configure as possible, and full documentation on the implemenation process is provided.

Questions/feedback welcome in this thread. Smiley Happy

Cheers,

Alex

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TechFan
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I was just wondering if anyone had any tips on how to upgrade the VMWare Tools inside the XVS?

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Alexinfo
Contributor
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Hi !

Currently, I perform some test on XVS appliance powered by VMware ESX 3.5. The nodes are configured in dual-primary mode, and there is no problem when I have to shutdown properly one of them. Sync Ok !

But when I simulate a network problem (disconnect the NIC) or when I

made a snapshot of my XVS VM, the both node can't resync' and still

detected a Split-brain.

root@lvs-node1 ~# cat /proc/drbd

version: 8.2.5 (api:88/proto:86-88)

GIT-hash: 9faf052fdae5ef0c61b4d03890e2d2eab550610c build by root@lvs-node2.xtravirt.com, 2008-04-14 16:57:48

  • 0: cs:StandAlone st:Primary/Unknown ds:UpToDate/Outdated r---*

ns:0 nr:0 dw:20970844 dr:20970844 al:0 bm:2560 lo:0 pe:0 ua:0 ap:0

resync: used:0/31 hits:2618796 misses:2560 starving:0 dirty:0 changed:2560

act_log: used:0/127 hits:0 misses:0 starving:0 dirty:0 changed:0

root@lvs-node2 ~# cat /proc/drbd

version: 8.2.5 (api:88/proto:86-88)

GIT-hash: 9faf052fdae5ef0c61b4d03890e2d2eab550610c build by root@lvs-node2.xtravirt.com, 2008-04-14 16:57:48

  • 0: cs:StandAlone st:Primary/Unknown ds:UpToDate/Outdated r---*

ns:0 nr:0 dw:20970844 dr:20970844 al:0 bm:2560 lo:0 pe:0 ua:0 ap:0

resync: used:0/31 hits:2618796 misses:2560 starving:0 dirty:0 changed:2560

act_log: used:0/127 hits:0 misses:0 starving:0 dirty:0 changed:0

This is my drbd.conf:

# cat /etc/drbd.conf

global {

+ usage-count no;+

}

common {

+ syncer {+

+ rate 100M;+

+ }+

+ handlers {+

+

outdate-peer "/usr/lib/heartbeat/outdate-peer.sh";+

+

split-brain "/usr/lib/drbd/outdate-peer.sh";+

+ }+

}

resource vmfs-0 {

+ protocol C;+

+ startup {+

+ become-primary-on both;+

+ degr-wfc-timeout 120;+

+ }+

+ net {+

+ after-sb-0pri discard-zero-changes;+

+ after-sb-1pri consensus;+

+ after-sb-2pri disconnect;+

+ allow-two-primaries;+

+ }+

+ disk {+

+ on-io-error pass_on;+

# fencing resource-only;

+ }+

+ on lvs-node1.xtravirt.com {+

+

device /dev/drbd0;+

+

disk /dev/sdb;+

+

address 10.1.14.130:7788;+

+ meta-disk internal;+

+ }+

+ on lvs-node2.xtravirt.com {+

+

device /dev/drbd0;+

+

disk /dev/sdb;+

+

address 10.1.14.132:7788;+

+ meta-disk internal;+

+ }+

}

I try all of the basics commands from drbdadm, like

connect all, up all, outdate all, invalidate all but still failed with

exiting code or it say as the device is held open by someone it can't

change state... How can I resolve Split Brain automatically? I want that the both nodes will come back in a dual-primary mode, once the split brain is resolved.

Best Regards!

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