[Xen-users] Re: Redundant server setup

[Matthew Palmer <mpalmer@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, May 11, 2006 at 11:13:48PM +0200, John wrote:
> Hello all,
> 
> I would like your advise/opinion on setting up a redundant Xen
> infrastructure. We have two identical boxes now running xen: vs01 and
> vs02 - interconnected with a cross cable on eth1.
> 
> What I would like to realize is my virtual hosts not being dependent on
> (a) physical hardware and (b) potential Xen failures due to
> misconfiration anywhere in the machine. 
> 
> All virtual servers are running on vs01 and I plan to rsync
> the whole /etc/xen directory to vs02 every night. I tried using scp and that
> worked OK. 
> 
> Would this be a good setup to realize redundancy? 

Not particularly.

What you want is drbd syncing your block devices, with heartbeat maintaining
the "services" of your domUs.  That'll save you from hardware failures, and
really nasty Xen misconfigurations (of the "I b0rk3d my grub" severity).  It
won't save you from minor stuff-ups, like giving a domU the wrong bridge --
but then again, there's not much that will manage to save yourself from
yourself like that.

To ensure that configurations are properly synced across dom0s, I'd highly
recommend a structured configuration management system like Puppet.  The
domUs can be managed using the same tool, as well.

- Matt

-- 
I don't do veggies if I can help it.                    -- stevo
If you could see your colon, you'd be horrified.        -- Iain Broadfoot
If he could see his colon, he'd be management.          -- David Scheidt

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