Managing Serviceguard Fifteenth Edition, reprinted May 2008

Building an HA Cluster Configuration
Preparing Your Systems
Chapter 5202
Ensuring that the Root User on Another Node Is Recognized
The HP-UX root user on any cluster node can configure the cluster. This
requires that Serviceguard on one node be able to recognize the root user
on another.
Serviceguard uses the identd daemon to verify user names, and, in the
case of a root user, verification succeeds only if identd returns the
username root. Because identd may return the username for the first
match on UID 0, you must check /etc/passwd on each node you intend
to configure into the cluster, and ensure that the entry for the root user
comes before any other entry with a UID of 0.
About identd HP strongly recommends that you use identd for user
verification, so you should make sure that each prospective cluster node
is configured to run it. identd is usually started by inetd from
/etc/inetd.conf.
NOTE If the -T option to identd is available on your system, you should set it to
120 (-T120); this ensures that a connection inadvertently left open will
be closed after two minutes. The identd entry in /etc/inetd.conf
should look like this:
auth stream tcp6 wait bin /usr/lbin/identd identd -T120
Check the man page for identd to determine whether the -T option is
supported for your version of identd
(It is possible to disable identd, though HP recommends against doing
so. If for some reason you have to disable identd, see “Disabling identd”
on page 273.)
For more information about identd, see the white paper Securing
Serviceguard at http://docs.hp.com -> High Availability ->
Serviceguard -> White Papers, and the identd (1M) manpage.