About This Guide

Feedback
Documentation Conventions

SUSE® Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension is an integrated suite of open source clustering technologies that enables you to implement highly available physical and virtual Linux clusters. For quick and efficient configuration and administration, the High Availability Extension includes several YaST modules as graphical user interface (GUI), the Web interface Hawk, and crmsh (the crm shell) as command line interface (CLI).

This guide is intended for administrators who need to set up, configure, and maintain High Availability (HA) clusters. Both approaches (graphical Web interface and CLI) are covered in detail to help the administrators choose the appropriate tool that matches their needs for performing the key tasks.

This guide is divided into the following parts:

Installation and Setup: Before starting to install and configure your cluster, make yourself familiar with cluster fundamentals and architecture, get an overview of the key features and benefits. Learn which hardware and software requirements must be met and what preparations to take before executing the next steps. Perform the installation and basic setup of your HA cluster using YaST.
Configuration and Administration: Add, configure and manage cluster resources, using either the Web interface (HA Web Konsole), or the crmsh command line interface. To avoid unauthorized access to the cluster configuration, define roles and assign them to certain users for fine-grained control. Learn how to make use of load balancing and fencing. In case you consider writing your own resource agents or modifying existing ones, get some background information on how to create different types of resource agents.
Storage and Data Replication: SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension ships with the cluster-aware file systems OCFS2 and GFS2 and the clustered Logical Volume Manager (cLVM). For replication of your data, use DRBD* to mirror the data of a High Availability service from the active node of a cluster to its standby node. Furthermore, a clustered Samba server also provides a High Availability solution for heterogeneous environments.
Appendix: Lists the new features and behavior changes of the High Availability Extension since the last release. Learn how to migrate your cluster to the most recent release version and find an example of setting up a simple testing resource.

Many chapters in this manual contain links to additional documentation resources. These include additional documentation that is available on the system as well as documentation available on the Internet.

For an overview of the documentation available for your product and the latest documentation updates, refer to http://www.suse.com/doc/.

1 Feedback #

Several feedback channels are available:

Bugs and Enhancement Requests

For services and support options available for your product, refer to http://www.suse.com/support/.

To report bugs for a product component, log into the SUSE Customer Center from http://www.suse.com/support/ and select My Support › Service Request.

User Comments

We want to hear your comments about and suggestions for this manual and the other documentation included with this product. Use the User Comments feature at the bottom of each page in the online documentation or go to http://www.suse.com/doc/feedback.html and enter your comments there.

Mail

For feedback on the documentation of this product, you can also send a mail to doc-team@suse.de. Make sure to include the document title, the product version, and the publication date of the documentation. To report errors or suggest enhancements, provide a concise description of the problem and refer to the respective section number and page (or URL).

2 Documentation Conventions #

The following typographical conventions are used in this manual:

/etc/passwd: directory names and filenames
placeholder: replace placeholder with the actual value
PATH: the environment variable PATH
ls, --help: commands, options, and parameters
user: users or groups
Alt, Alt–F1: a key to press or a key combination; keys are shown in uppercase as on a keyboard
File, File › Save As: menu items, buttons
amd64, em64t This paragraph is only relevant for the architectures amd64, em64t, and ipf. The arrows mark the beginning and the end of the text block.
Dancing Penguins (Chapter Penguins, ↑Another Manual): This is a reference to a chapter in another manual.

For an overview of naming conventions with regards to cluster nodes and names, resources, and constraints, see Appendix B, Naming Conventions.

Print this page