[Linux-cluster] Achieving a stable cluster with a 2.6.21 kernel

[Craig Johnston]

On Fri, Apr 11, 2008 at 1:08 AM, Steven Whitehouse <swhiteho at redhat.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
>
>
>  On Thu, 2008-04-10 at 14:27 -0700, Craig Johnston wrote:
>  > We would like to achieve a stable GFS/GFS2 cluster configuration using
>  > a non-Redhat distribution that is based on a 2.6.21 kernel.  Our first
>  > attempt was to obtain the Fedora Core 7 source rpms for the various
>  > components (cman, rgmanager, openais, etc.).  We were successful in
>  > incorporating these packages into our distribution, and creating what
>  > should be a working cluster configuration with multiple nodes sharing
>  > a set of GFS2 file systems from an iSCSI SAN.
>  >
>  > The problem is that it is all very unstable, takes forever to
>  > start-up, and locks up under even small load.  We would like to move
>  > to a more recent version of the cluster suite and update the kernel
>  > gfs2 and dlm modules for a 2.6.21 kernel.  We need to stick with
>  > 2.6.21 for other reasons (vendor support mostly), and we figure if it
>  > all can be back ported for RHEL5.1 (2.6.18) it should be doable for
>  > 2.6.21.  We just don't know where to start.
>  >
>  > Any advice on how we might proceed on this process would be greatly appreciated.
>  >
>  > Thanks,
>  > Craig
>  >
>  If you want to use GFS2, then try F-8, or rawhide with the most uptodate
>  set of packages. I would not recommend using a kernel that old for GFS2,
>
>  Steve.

Do you think we could be successful in patching up the GFS2/DLM
modules in our 2.6.21 kernel to bring it up to a more recent version?
 How coupled is the GFS2/DLM code to the rest of the kernel?  We have
a number of machines running CentOS 5.1.  Does it seem feasible to
select the applicable patches from that distribution and apply them to
a 2.6.21 kernel (with some tweaks no doubt)?

Craig