Configuring Failover in a Lustre File System

This chapter describes how to configure failover in a Lustre file system. It includes:

For an overview of failover functionality in a Lustre file system, see Understanding Failover in a Lustre File System.

Setting Up a Failover Environment

The Lustre software provides failover mechanisms only at the layer of the Lustre file system. No failover functionality is provided for system-level components such as failing hardware or applications, or even for the entire failure of a node, as would typically be provided in a complete failover solution. Failover functionality such as node monitoring, failure detection, and resource fencing must be provided by external HA software, such as PowerMan or the open source Corosync and Pacemaker packages provided by Linux operating system vendors. Corosync provides support for detecting failures, and Pacemaker provides the actions to take once a failure has been detected.

Selecting Power Equipment

Failover in a Lustre file system requires the use of a remote power control (RPC) mechanism, which comes in different configurations. For example, Lustre server nodes may be equipped with IPMI/BMC devices that allow remote power control. For recommended devices, refer to the list of supported RPC devices on the website for the PowerMan cluster power management utility:

https://github.com/chaos/powerman/tree/master/etc/devices

Selecting Power Management Software

Lustre failover requires RPC and management capability to verify that a failed node is off before I/O is directed to the failover node. This avoids double-mounting the two nodes and the risk of unrecoverable data corruption. A variety of power management tools will work. Two packages that have been commonly used with the Lustre software are PowerMan and Pacemaker.

The PowerMan cluster power management utility is used to control RPC devices from a central location. PowerMan provides native support for several RPC varieties and Expect-like configuration simplifies the addition of new devices. The latest versions of PowerMan are available at:

https://github.com/chaos/powerman

STONITH, or “Shoot The Other Node In The Head” is used in conjunction with High Availability node management. This is implemented by Pacemaker to ensure that a peer node that may be importing a shared storage device has been powered off and will not corrupt the shared storage if it continues running.

Selecting High-Availability (HA) Software

The Lustre file system must be set up with high-availability (HA) software to enable a complete Lustre failover solution. Except for PowerMan, the HA software packages mentioned above provide both power management and cluster management. For information about setting up failover with Pacemaker, see:

Preparing a Lustre File System for Failover

To prepare a Lustre file system to be configured and managed as an HA system by a third-party HA application, each storage target (MGT, MGS, OST) must be associated with a second node to create a failover pair. This configuration information is then communicated by the MGS to a client when the client mounts the file system.

The per-target configuration is relayed to the MGS at mount time. Some rules related to this are:

  • When a target is initially mounted, the MGS reads the configuration information from the target (such as mgt vs. ost, failnode, fsname) to configure the target into a Lustre file system. If the MGS is reading the initial mount configuration, the mounting node becomes that target’s “primary” node.
  • When a target is subsequently mounted, the MGS reads the current configuration from the target and, as needed, will reconfigure the MGS database target information

When the target is formatted using the mkfs.lustre command, the failover service node(s) for the target are designated using the --servicenode option. In the example below, an OST with index 0 in the file system testfs is formatted with two service nodes designated to serve as a failover pair:

mkfs.lustre --reformat --ost --fsname testfs --mgsnode=192.168.10.1@o3ib \
              --index=0 --servicenode=192.168.10.7@o2ib \
              --servicenode=192.168.10.8@o2ib \
              /dev/sdb

More than two potential service nodes can be designated for a target. The target can then be mounted on any of the designated service nodes.

When HA is configured on a storage target, the Lustre software enables multi-mount protection (MMP) on that storage target. MMP prevents multiple nodes from simultaneously mounting and thus corrupting the data on the target. For more about MMP, see Lustre File System Failover and Multiple-Mount Protection.

If the MGT has been formatted with multiple service nodes designated, this information must be conveyed to the Lustre client in the mount command used to mount the file system. In the example below, NIDs for two MGSs that have been designated as service nodes for the MGT are specified in the mount command executed on the client:

mount -t lustre 10.10.120.1@tcp1:10.10.120.2@tcp1:/testfs /lustre/testfs

When a client mounts the file system, the MGS provides configuration information to the client for the MDT(s) and OST(s) in the file system along with the NIDs for all service nodes associated with each target and the service node on which the target is mounted. Later, when the client attempts to access data on a target, it will try the NID for each specified service node until it connects to the target.

Administering Failover in a Lustre File System

For additional information about administering failover features in a Lustre file system, see: