Installing HA Containers With ZFS Using the Solaris 10 5.08 OS and Solaris Cluster 3.2 Software

Installing HA Containers With ZFS Using the Solaris 10 5/08 OS and Solaris Cluster 3.2 Software

July, 2008

Here is how to install high availability (HA) Containers with ZFS using the Solaris 10 5/08 OS and Solaris Cluster 3.2 software.

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  1. Oct 20, 2008

    tfrueauf says:

    The article should mention that with Solaris 10 05/08 it is not recommended to p...

    The article should mention that with Solaris 10 05/08 it is not recommended to place the zone rootpath on a ZFS file system (http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/819-5461/gayov?a=view). While that might change in the future, it should be clearly stated that this can lead to problems with patch and upgrade scenarios, thus the user needs to be aware of it.

    Further the article describes a not supported way to replicate the zone configuration to another node (section "Setting Up the Second Node").

    Instead the following steps should be used:

    On node 1:

    1. clrs disable testzone_rs
    2. zonecfg -z testzone export -f /tmp/testzone.cfg
    3. scp /tmp/testzone.cfg node2:/tmp
    4. clrg switch -n node2 tank_rg

    On node 2:

    1. zonecfg -z testzone -f /tmp/testzone.cfg
    2. zoneadm -z testzone attach -F
    3. clrs enable testzone_rs

    That way the user does not need to enable insecure rhosts configurations, and does not need to change unsupported private interfaces like /etc/zones/*.

    1. Nov 10, 2008

      mbunixadm says:

      Thanks for the feedback. I took your recommendations and fixed the article. Th...

      Thanks for the feedback.

      I took your recommendations and fixed the article.

      Thank you,

      Lucas Williams

  2. Jan 26, 2009

    mtravis9 says:

    Upon reading, I find something to be a bit ambiguous, likely because I don't qui...

    Upon reading, I find something to be a bit ambiguous, likely because I don't quite understand the terminology. To what, precisely, does "zone rootpath" refer?

    Is it the "zonepath" as in "set zonepath=/export/foo/zonename" ? If so, then it's unfortunate that this is not a supported configuration, because I've seen other documentation stating that zones can be cloned using zfs cloning, which would save a lot of disk space.

    The article uses an example zone configuration to include creating a zone on a zfs filesystem as follows:
    "zfs create tank/zones
    zfs create tank/zones/testzone
    zfs set quota=5g tank/zones/testzone
    ...
    zonecfg -z testzone
    create -b
    set autoboot=false
    set zonepath=/share/testzone"

    Is that particular example a supported configuration? If so, then please describe what specifically is meant by "it is not recommended to place the zone rootpath on a ZFS file system."

    Thanks,
    Mark

    1. Jan 26, 2009

      mbunixadm says:

      You can set the root path to a ZFS mount point in zones. At the time I wrote my ...

      You can set the root path to a ZFS mount point in zones. At the time I wrote my article, Sun didn't recommend it becuase ti could lead to problems running Live Upgrade or certain updates becuase they checked for UFS roots. If you plan on creating a zone that will be used for LU or to test patches, you don't need to have it setup in High Availability. This article was mostly written so that if you run zones that are mission critical, such as DHCP, DNS, Web or email servers, then this shows how to do that while running them on ZFS roots. We have been running our DNS and DHCP and a file server in Zones with ZFS roots with no problems. However, we don't update or patch them unless our other zone server that is running is successful. Then we will patch those servers as applicable.
      Having the zones with ZFS roots makes it easier for snapshots so that if we do have problems, we can restore the system quickly with as little down time as possible.
      Sun doesn't recommend running Solaris Update 5 SPARC in zones with ZFS roots becuase they don't want to be held accountable for any loss of data or downtime. If you are brave, you can do this. We have been running this way for almost 8 months with no problems.
      It's just a disclaimer that if you have problems, it's all you and not the fault of Sun or their software.

  3. Jan 26, 2009

    mtravis9 says:

    Upon further research, I'm finding that it now appears to be possible to Live Up...

    Upon further research, I'm finding that it now appears to be possible to Live Upgrade a Solaris 10/08 system with zones whose root paths are on ZFS (from http://opensolaris.org/os/community/zones/faq/#u5):

    Q: Can a zone's root directory be on a ZFS file system?
    A: Solaris 10 release:
    Placing a zone's root directory (i.e. it's PATHNAME) on ZFS is supported starting with Solaris 10 10/08, and you can then upgrade with Live Upgrade going forward. There are still issues with placing a zone on ZFS on a release prior to Solaris 10 10/08 and then trying to upgrade.

    -----------------------------

    Thank you very much if you can provide some clarification.

    Mark

    1. Jan 26, 2009

      mbunixadm says:

      Yes, I forgot to mention that with Update 6, you can have ZFS roots. I have yet ...

      Yes, I forgot to mention that with Update 6, you can have ZFS roots. I have yet to successfully get Sun Cluster 3.2 update 1 to install successfully with U6, but once I do, will update this article to reflect that.

      1. Jan 29, 2009

        mtravis9 says:

        Looks like update 2 is out: http://blogs.sun.com/SC/entry/sc32u2_now_available ...

        Looks like update 2 is out: http://blogs.sun.com/SC/entry/sc32u2_now_available

        Get cracking!

  4. Jan 26, 2009

    mtravis9 says:

    Thanks, mbunixadm.

    Thanks, mbunixadm.

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