[Samba] Mirrored samba servers.

[dijuremo at math.gatech.edu]

I am currently running my samba servers with High availability using
Heartbeat (http://www.linux-ha.org/) and drbd (http://www.drbd.org/).

drbd is a network block device (pretty much raid 1 over ethernet).

So I have 2 identical systems with two gigabit nics.  They use a dedicated
gigabit link to sync the file system through drbd (no rsync needed).  Then
whenever the master fails, the slave takes over and the switch is almost
un-noticeable to the end user (it takes 20 seconds tops).

My servers also run nfs4 for linux shares.  They each use 5 SCSI drives
configured in RAID5.

I use RHEL4 with stock rpms and use the ldap backend.

I decided to keep smb.conf separate on each server and sync it manually, but
definitely moved the lock directory to my drbd device.

So my drbd device gets mounted in /export and then I created

/export/home  (for homedirs)
/export/etc   (all /etc information shared by the servers)
/export/var   (all /var information shared by the servers).

On smb.conf I added:
lock directory = /export/var/cache/samba (both servers will use the same
information, but only one can access it at a time.
My netlogon share is also in /export/etc/samba/netlogon.

I could have modified /etc/init.d/smb to look for smb.conf in the shared
device (/export/etc/samba), but decided to keep smb.conf separate and copy
that file over to the slave whenever I made a change.

Diego



Quoting Nathan Vidican <nvidican at wmptl.com>:

> We're running a similar setup here actually, so a few notes that may be of
> assistance to you are as follows:
>
> #1 - RAID 0 + RAID 1 is poor for performance, if you want striping and
> mirroring together you should probably be looking to some sort of parity
> striping mode like RAID 5. We're using 3Ware Escalade 9000 series
> controllers to do just that now with WDC 250GB Raid-Edition Serial ATA
> drives now, and have been for quite some time. Performance is beyond our
> expectations and reliability has been key.
>
> #2 - Quit copying /etc/passwd, group, etc! Yuck... Try looking into
> pam_ldap, nss_ldap, and samba/ldap configuration. OpenLDAP (free, open
> sourced LDAP server), has replication services built right in, and can store
> your users, passwords, mappings, and much more with full failover
> capability. We're running FreeBSD/64bit, (on AMD Opteron machines), using a
> primary/slave LDAP configuration wherein data changes are replicated
> automagically using 'slurpd' - it was quite easy to setup and all the
> necessary documentation exists on http://www.openldap.org/ - all of this
> stuff comes 'standard' out of the box in the FreeBSD ports collection too :)
>
> #3 - Along with your new LDAP-based database of users, passwords, groups,
> mappings, etc, you might want to take a look at using some nice graphical
> user management system - just simplify life for yourself if you're not
> overly familiar with modifying entries in an LDAP tree - try LAM
> (http://lam.sf.net/) - it's been great and I'm usuing it at several
> installations now.
>
> #4 - pam_ldap & nss_ldap (mentioned above) - will allow you to use the same
> account information stored in the ldap database for BOTH unix and Windows
> worlds - signle sign on is key :)
>
> #5 - Setup samba for primary domain control, and setup the second machine
> for secondary (BDC) services. We maintain the same shares on both machines,
> and two dirs for login scripts; should the primary server fail for some
> reason, the login scripts are over-written by the second set which maps all
> the same drive letters over to the second server - not entirely transparent
> mind you, but worst-case scenario if the main server goes out, is that users
> logoff and back on and continue where they left off from half hour ago (data
> replicated using rsync as well).
>
> #6 - last advantage to this setup, involves a bit more complexity, but you
> can device the load/shares out amongst the two servers and replicate
> data/login scripts in both directions (as we're doing) - so your 'backup'
> server is actually primary for some shares and vice-versa to the main
> server, effectively distributing the load.
>
> #7 - split your smb.conf files; keep one for PDC, one for BDC, and one for
> all the shares that they replicate/share for each other - that way you can
> rsync shares configuration file without changing the whole smb.conf file
> (just use an 'include' line to include the shares from the main smb.conf's).
>
> #8 - use CUPS; CUPS will replicate the printers across both servers and
> allow for fail-over design as well... Still working on how 'transparent' we
> can make this - so I won't feed you any details or bull about cause' I
> really havn't tested it well yet.
>
> All-in-all, not a pure 'High Availability' solution; but given a complete
> catastrophic failure of our main/primary server, we can be back up and
> running to within a half hour's data in less than a minute if need be -
> fairly impressive, and definetly noteworthy.
>
> Lot of food for thought, know this stuff can be overwhelming... Might send
> an email back to the list with further details after you do some reading;
> ie: what O/S you're using, LDAP/etc questions etc... Trust me, after having
> done three of these setups now myself it's worth the effort. Good place to
> start is the Samba Domain Control How-To, (which DOES explain
> LDAP+samba+nss_ldap integration and provide example configuration files).
>
> --
> Nathan Vidican
> nvidican at wmptl.com
> Windsor Match Plate & Tool Ltd.
> http://www.wmptl.com/
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: samba-bounces+nvidican=wmptl.com at lists.samba.org
> [mailto:samba-bounces+nvidican=wmptl.com at lists.samba.org] On Behalf Of
> Richmond Dyes
> Sent: Thursday, April 28, 2005 8:17 AM
> To: samba at lists.samba.org
> Subject: [Samba] Mirrored samba servers.
>
>
> I have a customer that is using 250 gig drives for his business data.  I
> have been using rsync to keep mirror copies of his data on a second
> machine.  In the last 3 months I have lost 2 of four drives, the last
> one being the system drive.  I have been doing a manual switchover. Each
> time rsync runs, I copy my samba conf files, passwd, shadow and group
> files from etc.  Has anyone setup a HA configuration for samba servers
> on separate machines. If so, where can I get information for this kind
> of setup?
>
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