[Linux-cluster] Cluster NFS operation...

[Corey Kovacs]

After setting up my 5 node RHEL5.2 cluster I began some testing of the
NFS failover capabilities.

My config is simple...

gfs2 /home filesystem
gfs2 /apps filesystem
gfs2 /projects filesystem

I've tried both managed IP's and managed NFS services for failover.
Both seem to have problems handling "failback" in my case.
The NFS services consist of the following model.

service name
     IP Address
     GFS FS
          NFS Export
               NFS Client

The three services are spread across three of the 5 nodes. Reading the
man page for clurmtabd reveals that it is supposed to
maintain the client states and "merge" rmtab entries etc to prevent
stale filehandles etc.

The clients are RHEl 4.6 using automounted nfs. The clients are
requesting nfs ver 3, and tcp, with the hard and intr flags.

THings seem to work fine for an initial failover, but when I try to
failback, things hang

I am planning on using this cluster to replace an aging alpha cluster
running Tru64/TruCluster.

So I guess my questions are..

1. Is this a known issue?
2. Is there a document other than the nfscookbook from R.P. or at
least a version thats been updated in the last year (if somethings
changed that is)
3. How, when simply floating IP addresses as outlined in the cookbook,
does the rmtab get managed since no NFS service is configured?

Any help in understanding these issues would be appreciated.


-C