Installation guide

Compared to other cluster concepts, the management and operation is straightforward. With

classic application clusters, the complexity of management is proportional to the number of

nodes in the cluster. Any change must be rolled out on every node.

With a diskless shared root cluster, one can change information on any node and the change

will be observed by all nodes automatically. No error-prone replication processes are required

to submit changes on any node. Software updates can be made on one node and all other

nodes will immediately benefit from the changes. This ensures that all cluster nodes are equal

and any node can become a single point of control.

Diskless shared root cluster configurations reduce the complexity of cluster configurations to

that of local servers.

5 Operating System Installation

Reference the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Installation Guide for the specific details regarding

the acquisition and installation of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The guide includes information

specific to the platform on which the installation will take place (x86, AMD64, Intel® 64 and

Itanium) so be sure to read the appropriate section for your platform.

Once the platform specific information has been understood and the hardware configuration

has been performed to accommodate a cluster, install Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3 on the

server(s) using the preferred method.

The install process will guide the user through the OS installation. The Red Hat Enterprise

Linux Installation Guide will provide details regarding each of the screens that will be

presented during the installation process.

Please refer to the Installation section of Configuring and Managing a Red Hat Cluster to

make sure the required cluster software packages will be installed.

If a local root installation is preferred, the installation process must be performed on each

cluster member whereas for a shared root configuration, only one server need be installed.

5.1 OS Customizations

5.1.1 NTP

The synchronization of system clocks in a cluster becomes infinitely more important when

storage is shared among members. System times can by synchronized to a network time

server via the Network Time Protocol (NTP) by using the ntpd service.

5.1.2 ACPI

Please reference the Configuring ACPI For Use with Integrated Fence Devices section in

Configuring and Managing a Red Hat Cluster. As described there, disabling ACPI Soft-Off

allows an integrated fence device to shut down a server immediately rather than attempting a

clean shutdown. Soft-Off allows some components to remain powered so the system can be

roused from input from the keyboard, clock, modem, LAN, or USB device and subsequently

takes longer to fully shutdown. If a cluster member is configured to be fenced by an integrated