[Samba] Samba HA-Cluster and SAN

Ed Plese ed at edplese.com
Wed Sep 7 20:13:45 GMT 2005


On Wed, Sep 07, 2005 at 04:36:47PM +0200, Thommen, Christoph FKD wrote:
> I'm trying to set up a high available (HA) cluster with samba and store
> the data on a SAN.
> Are there any known problems that I should no before starting this
> project?
> Have someone of you already realized a project like this? And which
> cluster-software did you use?

The High Availability chapter of the Samba HOWTO is a great place to
start.

http://us1.samba.org/samba/docs/man/Samba3-HOWTO/SambaHA.html

For reasons cited there, your best bet is an active/standby
cluster configuration.  With this setup you'd have two servers
up and running, but only one of them would be serving files with
Samba.  In the event of a problem with the Samba server, the
standby server would take over and begin serving the files.
There are various programs that can be used to help automate the
failover.

It is worthwhile to note that during failover SMB connections
will be lost and will have to be reestablished.  With newer
Windows clients the reconnection will typically occur automatically
though any open files will likely be closed.  The loss of
connections would occur even in an active/active configuration
though only half of the clients (those connected to the failing
server) would be affected.


Ed Plese


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