Skip to content
QS Config and licensing - HAC documentation hub

QS Config and licensing

Configuration and Licensing

To begin configuration, click on Create option on the side-menu (or the shortcut shown on the uninitialized page).

Editing your /etc/hosts file

Before continuing, ensure the /etc/hosts file is configured correctly on both nodes. Hostnames cannot be directed to 127.0.0.1, and both nodes should be resolvable. Here is a correctly configured hosts file for two example nodes, node-a and node-b: 

127.0.0.1 localhost
10.6.18.1 node-a
10.6.18.2 node-b

# The following lines are desirable for IPv6 capable hosts
::1     ip6-localhost ip6-loopback
fe00::0 ip6-localnet
ff00::0 ip6-mcastprefix
ff02::1 ip6-allnodes
ff02::2 ip6-allrouters

The Cluster Create page scans for clusterable nodes (those running RSF-1 that are not yet part of a cluster) and presents them for selection. If any nodes are unlicensed then an additional panel will be included to request 45 day trial licenses:

cluster-create-node-selection

Now enter the cluster name and description, and then select the type of cluster being created (either shared-storage or shared-nothing).

Shared-Nothing: Adding non-local nodes for shared nothing clusters

For a shared-nothing cluster an additional panel is included to allow manual entry of a cluster node. This option is provided as RSF-1 only detects unclustered nodes on the local network and for shared-nothing clusters it is often the case that nodes are located on remote networks and cannot be detected automatically1.

In this case fill in the host name and IP address of the remote node and click the + ADD NODE button:

sn-additional-node

The node will then be availble to select as the secondary node in the cluster:

selectable-additional-node

Obtain trial licenses

Once the cluster nodes have been selected click the LICENCE button to obtain 45 day trial licenses directly from the High-Availability license server. The RSF-1 End User License Agreement (EULA) will then be displayed. Click ACCEPT to proceed:

EULA

Once the licensing process has completed click the refresh button on the node selection panel to update the license status:

nodes-licensed

Shared-Nothing: Configure SSH tunnel between nodes

For shared nothing clusters an additional step is required to configure a bi-directional ssh tunnel between the two nodes. This tunnel is used to transfer snapshots between the two cluster nodes. A panel with pre-filled out values consisting of the cluster node names is presented:

sn-ssh-tunnel

Using the default values of the cluster node names snapshot data will be transfered over primary hosts network. However, this can be changed by specifying a different end point for the target hostnames. For example, if an additional network is configured between the two nodes using the addresses node-a-priv and node-b-priv respectively then this would be configured thus:

ssh-tunnel-private

By default ssh is used as the transport protocol as it encrypts/decrypts data during snapshot transfer.

If data encryption is not required then mbuffer is offered as an alternative as it makes much better utilisation of the available bandwidth:

ssh-sync-protocol

Next click the TEST SSH CONNECTION button to confirm the ssh tunnel is operating correctly:

ssh-test-success

Note

Once the cluster is created the SSH connections settings can be changed from the Settings->Shared Nothing page.

Create and initialise the cluster

Click the CREATE CLUSTER button to cluster the nodes together and create an initial network heartbeat between them over the hosts network:

cluster-created

  1. RSF-1 uses broadcast packets to detect cluster nodes on the local network. Broadcast packets are usually blocked from traversing other networks and therefore cluster node discovery is usually limited to the local network only. ↩