Managing RHEL Cluster with Conga

TRAINING HANDOUT
REDHAT CLUSTER
VERSION 5

Author: <BCT-Managed services >

Creation Date: Oct 10, 2011
Last Updated: October 10, 2011
Version: 1.1

Approvals:

<Name> Alagappan Vairavan

 Document Control 1

1. Conga and its features 3

2. Implementing Clustering with conga 3

2.1 Patching conga Error: Reference source not found

2.2 Starting conga components 4

3. Providing login for luci server 6

4. Creating a Cluster
7

4.1 Snap-view of inputting for new cluster 8

4.2 Cluster config tab snap-view 9

5. Cluster shared ip 10

5.1 Assigning shared ip for cluster 10

5.2 Configuring an ip address resources 11

5.3 Testing shared ip accessiblity 13

6. Service Relocation 13

7. Apache HTTPD Server as Cluster Service 16

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 7.1 Basic httpd server configuration
16

7.2 Cluster Service Configuration

17

1. Conga and its features

Conga is an integrated set of software

components that provides centralized configuration
and Management of Red Hat clusters and storage.

Conga provides the following major features:

• One Web interface for managing cluster and

storage
• Automated Deployment of Cluster Data and
Supporting Packages
• Easy Integration with Existing Clusters
• No Need to Re-Authenticate
• Integration of Cluster Status and Logs
• Fine-Grained Control over User Permissions

2. Implementing clustering with conga

The implementation of clustering with
conga requires the
Primary component namely luci and ricci where,

Luci:

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 Luci is a server that runs on one computer
and communicates with multiple clusters and
computers via ricci.

Ricci:
ricci is an agent that runs on each computer
(either a cluster member or a standalone computer)
managed by Conga.

2.1 Patching Conga

The primary component of conga can be patched

as the following

a) #rpm –ivh luci-0.12.2-12.el5.i386.rpm

(Here the luci component will be installed)

b) #rpm –ivh ricci-0.12.2-12.el5.i386.rpm

(Here the ricci component will be

installed, should be patched for the each nodes
involving in the cluster)

The lists of rpm needed for Conga component are

luci-0.12.2-12.el5.i386.rpm
lvm2-cluster-2.02.56-7.el5.i386.rpm
modcluster-0.12.1-2.el5.i386.rpm
oddjob-devel-0.27-9.el5.i386.rpm
oddjob-libs-0.27-9.el5.i386.rpm
openais-0.80.6-28.el5.i386.rpm
perl-Net-Telnet-3.03-5.noarch.rpm
perl-XML-LibXML-1.58-6.i386.rpm
perl-XML-LibXML-Common-0.13-
8.2.2.i386.rpm
perl-XML-NamespaceSupport-1.09-
1.2.1.noarch.rpm
perl-XML-SAX-0.12-6_3.0.el5.noarch.rpm
pexpect-2.3-3.el5.noarch.rpm
python-imaging-1.1.5-5.el5.i386.rpm
python-pycurl-7.15.5.1-8.el5.i386.rpm
rgmanager-2.0.52-6.el5.i386.rpm

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 ricci-0.12.2-12.el5.i386.rpm
system-config-cluster-1.0.57-3.noarch.rpm
tix-8.4.0-11.fc6.i386.rpm
cman-2.0.115-68.el5.i386.rpm
tkinter-2.4.3-27.el5.i386.rpm

2.2 Starting the conga component services

The luci and ricci service can be started by the

following commands

 #service ricci start

After input of the above command the ricci service

will be started successfully.

The start of the ricci service results in the

generation of the SSL certificate and service can be
checked out by the command

#ps –ef |grep ricci

 #luci_admin init

To initialize the luci server, we use the luci_admin

init command, which results in the prompting for
the luci server admin’s password setting.

The passwd we provide with luci_admin init

command is used for accessing the luci server.

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  #service luci restart

The start of the luci service results in the generation

of the SSL certificate and to provide the access url
for the luci as https://192.168.1.251: 8084

The start of the luci service results in the

generation of the SSL certificate and service can be
checked out by the command

#ps –ef |grep luci

3. Providing Login for luci server

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 By the url https://192.168.1.251:8084, we are
able to locate in the login screen for the luci server,
which prompts for the username and the password..

Login screen snap view:

i. By default administrator is the one who can

access the luci server with login name admin
and the passwd assigned using the
luci_admin init command which can be
notified from the above snap view.

ii. Here admin is the login name inputted and

respective password too.

iii. Then the login in button is clicked to

authenticate into the luci server.

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 4. Creating a cluster
Conga automatically installs software
into the cluster nodes and starts the cluster. Create
a cluster as follows:

1. As administrator of luci, select the cluster tab.

2. Click Create a New Cluster.

3. At the Cluster Name text box, enter a cluster

name. The cluster name cannot exceed 15
characters. Add the node name and password for
each cluster node. Enter the node name for each
node in the Node Hostname column; enter the
root password for each node in the in the Root
Password column. Check the Enable Shared
Storage Support checkbox if clustered storage is
required.

4. Click Submit. Clicking Submit causes the

following actions:

a. Cluster software packages to be downloaded

onto each cluster node.

b. Cluster software to be installed onto each

cluster node.

c. Cluster configuration file to be created and

propagated to each node in the cluster.

d. Starting the cluster. A progress page shows

the progress of those actions for each node in the
cluster. When the process of creating a new cluster
is complete, a page is displayed providing a
configuration interface for the newly created cluster.

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 4.1 Snap-View of Inputting for new cluster

In the above snap view,

i. srini is the name chosen for cluster name

ii. In the node hostname column the ip

address of the cluster node have been
inputted where 192.168.1.251 is the first
cluster node ip and the 192.168.1.238 is the
second cluster node ip

iii. According to cluster node their root

password are provided in respectively
columns.

iv. Then choose the option for cluster packages

that to be installed way i.e. by manually or by
machine, any of the one option is mandatory

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 remaining check boxes are as per the admin
requisites.

 Selecting the download packages

option is for machine automatically
downloading the packages.

 The use locally installed packages

option for manual installation of the
cluster packages. Here we chosen
manual installation option so the
necessary rpm are to be installed
manually as follows

 #rpm –ivh rgmanager-2.0.52-

6.el5.i386.rpm

Where,
rgmanager manages and provides
failover capabilities for collections of
resources called services, resource
groups, or resource trees in a
cluster.

 #rpm –ivh clumanager-1.2.9-

1.i386.rpm

Where,

Red Hat Cluster Manager(clumanager)

provides high availability of critical
server applications in the event of
planned or unplanned system
downtime.

 Click Submit. Clicking Submit causes

the clustering of the nodes, after the
successful cluster task we will be landed
in the cluster config tab of the newly
created cluster as shown in the
4.2 Cluster Config tab snap-view.

4.2 Cluster Config tab snap-view

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 In the above snap view, the config tab of the cluster
is shown. From that we can notify the 4 different
tabs are available

i. General tab:
The general tab issues the general properties
for the cluster like cluster name, configuration
version( the how much the cluster Config file is
edited), show advanced cluster properties(the
timeout for networking connectivity values are
assigned over here ).

ii. Fence tab:

Here the fence device we required for the
fencing and the corresponding ip address of the
fence device are inputted.

iii. Multicast tab:

The multicast address for the cluster is provided
in this tab

iv. Quorum partition tab:

The values for quorum disk are inputted here.

5. Cluster Shared ip

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 The shared ip for the cluster in the sense
providing a ip for accessing the cluster independent
of the ip of cluster nodes.

For example:
Consider that in the cluster we have two
nodes and there ip’s as 192.168.141,
192.168.1.164. Here we create a shared ip for the
cluster as 192.168.1.135, so that by using this
shared ip 192.168.1.135 we can access the both
cluster independent of cluster node ip's.

5.1 Assigning a Shared Ip for the Cluster

For assigning the shared ip, add the service as

follows

As an administrator of luci Select the cluster tab

and choose the cluster for which the shared ip to be
assigned, here the cluster with the name myclust

1) At the menu for cluster myclust (below

the clusters menu), click Services. This
causes the display of menu items for service
configuration: Add a
Service and Configure a Service

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 2) Click Add a Service. Clicking Add a
Service causes the Add a Service page to
be displayed

3) For Name, enter clust_sharedip

4) Leave the checkbox labeled automatically

start this service checked, which is the
default setting. When the checkbox is
checked, the service is started automatically
when a cluster is started and running.

5) Leave the Run Exclusive checkbox

unchecked. The Run Exclusive checkbox
sets a policy wherein the service only runs
on nodes that have no other services
running on them.

6) For Failover Domain, leave the drop-down

box default value of none. In this
configuration, all of the nodes in the cluster
may be used for failover.

7) For Recovery Policy, the drop-down box

displays select a recovery policy. Click
the drop-down box and select relocate.

8) Add the Ip Address Resource to this

resource, as described in the 5.2
configuring an ip address resource
sections.

9) After you have added the NFS resources to

the service, click Submit. The system
prompts you to verify that you want to
create this service. Clicking OK causes a
progress page to be displayed followed by
the display of Services page for the cluster.

5.2. Configuring an ip address resource

The following procedure adds the IP Address
resource 192.168.1.135 to cluster myclust.

1. At the Add a Resource page for

cluster myclust, click the drop-down box

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 under Select a Resource Type and select IP
Address
2. For IP Address, enter 192.168.1.135.
3. Leave the Monitor Link checkbox selected to
enable link status monitoring of the IP
address resource.
4. Click Submit. Clicking Submit displays a
verification page. Verifying that you want to
add this resource displays a progress page
followed by the display of Resources page,
which displays the resources that have been
configured for the cluster.
a) Service processing view

Once we click the submit button the cluster service

will be processed as in the above snap shot.

b) Cluster service page view

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 The above snap view is the page we will be landed
after successful creation of cluster service

5.3 Testing the shared ip accessibility

Now the shared ip is ready, let we test the
accessibility for the cluster.

1) Use any of source terminal emulator

application like putty, xterm etc...Here we
use putty.

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 2) Run the putty application, input our shared ip
in that hostname or ip address column and
select the connection type as SSH.
3) Then Click open, by pressing the open button
the connection to the 192.168.1.135 will be
established.
4) The terminal will prompt for login name and
a password. After the authentication is
success we will be placed in the cluster node
5) To make sure that we landed in cluster node,
use the ifconfig command .the output of the
ifconfig command will result in the ip address
any of the cluster nodes

6. Service Relocation

 When the system crashes or rebooted,

the service running in the system are
to be served to the client with minimal
downtime.

 To attain this we need to select the

relocation policies from the
dropdown list box in add a service
page.

Let we consider the scenario that the cluster node

running a service suddenly crashed , so by this
time the service running in the system need to be
relocated with the minimal downtime .

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 i. Checking the status of the cluster using the
clustat command

Outputs the no. of nodes presented in the

cluster and cluster service running in the
respective machines.

ii. When the system crashed , the particular

systems service will be stopped for a
instance i.e. the service state started will
be changed to stopping which can be
observed from the below snap shot.

Here the cluster node 192.168.1.115 is

crashed or leaving from system so the
service running in this system is moved to
stopping state.

iii. After the stopping state of the service it

will be move to stopped state, this
stopped state remains for a while till
another node takes the responsibility i.e.
the relocation of the service occurs, which
can be observed from the below snap
shot.

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 When the crashing of the system or
cluster node leaving the cluster is
confirmed, the service in the stopping
state is pushed out to the stopped state.

iv. When the relocation done the service

stopped in the crashed machine will be
relocated to the some other node in
cluster and pushed to the started state.
So the service will be available for clients.

Here the cluster node 192.168.1.107 takes the

responsbility of the crashed machine or the
machine not available in the cluster. The service
myip running in the 192.168.1.115 node is
relocated to the cluster node 192.168.1.107
and state of the service is pushed to running
state.

7. Apache HTTPD server as Cluster

Service:

The httpd server must be installed and

configured on all members in the assigned

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 failover domain, if used, or in the cluster. The
basic server configuration must be the same on
all members on which it runs for the service to
fail over correctly.

Checking for httpd package installed or not:-

#rpm –qa |grep httpd

7.1 Basic httpd server configuration:

The following steps provides the basic httpd

server configuration,

#cd /var/www/html
#mkdir –m 777 www.clustertesting.com
#cd /www.clustertesting.com
#vi index.html

(The index.html is the file used as the welcome

page for “www.clustertesting.com”)

#cd /etc/httpd/conf
#vi httpd.conf

(In this file edit following lines as

shown in the snap shot)

Then comment all of the lines presented in the

file” /etc/httpd/conf.d/welcome.conf “

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  Once the basic configuration is done, now
we can proceed with the httpd cluster
service configuration.

7.2 Cluster Service configuration:-

For cluster service configuration, we need to configure

the resources and then added to the service configuration
of Apache Httpd Server.

1) Select the Resource tab and click New. The Resource

properties dialog box with drop-down box is displayed.
a) From the drop-down list select Script option.

b) Give the Resource a name (for example, httpd-

script).

c) Specify /etc/rc.d/init.d/httpd in the User

Script field.
d) Click OK.

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 2) Select the Resource tab and click New. The Resource
properties dialog box with drop-down list box is
displayed from that select Ip address.

a) Then IP Address Resource Configuration properties

dialog box is displayed.
b) In the IP Address field, specify an IP address, which
the cluster infrastructure binds to the network
interface on the cluster system that runs the httpd
service (for example, 192.168.139.132).

c) Ensure that monitor link check box is checked out

d) Click Submit.

3) Select the Services tab and click New. The Service

properties dialog box is displayed.
a. Give the service a name (for example, httpd_service).
b. Check out the Automatically start this service check box
c. Choose httpd-domain from the Failover Domain
list.

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 d. Then choose Recovery policy as relocate form the
drop list
e. Click Add a resource to this service button and select
the resources which we have created in the above
two steps

f. Click OK.
g. Then select the httpd service and start it.
h. Navigate to the web server and check out for the
www.clustering.com as we configured

-END-

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