InfoScale™ 9.0 Cluster Server Administrator's Guide - AIX

Last Published:
Product(s): InfoScale & Storage Foundation (9.0)
Platform: AIX
  1. Section I. Clustering concepts and terminology
    1. Introducing Cluster Server
      1. About Cluster Server
        1.  
          How VCS detects failure
        2. How VCS ensures application availability
          1.  
            About switchover and failover
      2. About cluster control guidelines
        1.  
          Defined start, stop, and monitor procedures
        2.  
          Ability to restart the application in a known state
        3.  
          External data storage
        4.  
          Licensing and host name issues
      3. About the physical components of VCS
        1.  
          About VCS nodes
        2.  
          About shared storage
        3.  
          About networking
      4. Logical components of VCS
        1.  
          About resources and resource dependencies
        2.  
          Categories of resources
        3.  
          About resource types
        4.  
          About service groups
        5. Types of service groups
          1.  
            About failover service groups
          2.  
            About parallel service groups
          3.  
            About hybrid service groups
        6.  
          About the ClusterService group
        7.  
          About the cluster UUID
        8.  
          About agents in VCS
        9.  
          About agent functions
        10. About resource monitoring
          1.  
            How intelligent resource monitoring works
          2.  
            About Open IMF
        11. Agent classifications
          1.  
            About bundled agents
          2.  
            About enterprise agents
          3.  
            About custom agents
        12.  
          VCS agent framework
        13. About cluster control, communications, and membership
          1.  
            About the high availability daemon (HAD)
          2.  
            About the HostMonitor daemon
          3.  
            About Group Membership Services and Atomic Broadcast (GAB)
          4.  
            About Low Latency Transport (LLT)
          5.  
            About the I/O fencing module
          6.  
            About the IMF notification module
        14. About security services
          1.  
            Digital certification structure
          2.  
            Components for secure communication
          3.  
            Restriction after failed user login attempts
        15. Components for administering VCS
          1.  
            About InfoScale Operations Manager
      5.  
        Putting the pieces together
    2. About cluster topologies
      1. Basic failover configurations
        1.  
          Asymmetric or active / passive configuration
        2.  
          Symmetric or active / active configuration
        3.  
          About N-to-1 configuration
      2. About advanced failover configurations
        1.  
          About the N + 1 configuration
        2.  
          About the N-to-N configuration
      3. Cluster topologies and storage configurations
        1.  
          About basic shared storage cluster
        2.  
          About campus, or metropolitan, shared storage cluster
        3.  
          About shared nothing clusters
        4.  
          About replicated data clusters
        5.  
          About global clusters
    3. VCS configuration concepts
      1.  
        About configuring VCS
      2.  
        VCS configuration language
      3. About the main.cf file
        1.  
          About the SystemList attribute
        2.  
          Initial configuration
        3.  
          Including multiple .cf files in main.cf
      4.  
        About the types.cf file
      5. About VCS attributes
        1.  
          About attribute data types
        2.  
          About attribute dimensions
        3.  
          About attributes and cluster objects
        4.  
          Attribute scope across systems: global and local attributes
        5.  
          About attribute life: temporary attributes
        6.  
          Size limitations for VCS objects
      6.  
        VCS keywords and reserved words
      7.  
        Disabling CmdServer
      8. VCS environment variables
        1.  
          Defining VCS environment variables
        2.  
          Environment variables to start and stop VCS modules
  2. Section II. Administration - Putting VCS to work
    1. About the VCS user privilege model
      1. About VCS user privileges and roles
        1.  
          VCS privilege levels
        2.  
          User roles in VCS
        3.  
          Hierarchy in VCS roles
        4.  
          User privileges for CLI commands
        5.  
          User privileges for cross-cluster operations
        6.  
          User privileges for clusters that run in secure mode
        7.  
          About the cluster-level user
      2.  
        How administrators assign roles to users
      3.  
        User privileges for OS user groups for clusters running in secure mode
      4.  
        VCS privileges for users with multiple roles
    2. Administering the cluster from the command line
      1. About administering VCS from the command line
        1.  
          Symbols used in the VCS command syntax
        2.  
          How VCS identifies the local system
        3.  
          About specifying values preceded by a dash (-)
        4.  
          About the -modify option
        5.  
          Encrypting VCS passwords
        6. Encrypting agent passwords
          1.  
            Generating a security key
          2.  
            Encrypting the agent password
          3.  
            Granting password encryption privileges to group administrators
          4.  
            Changing the security key
      2. About installing a VCS license
        1.  
          Installing and updating license keys using vxlicinst
        2.  
          Setting or changing the product level for keyless licensing
      3. Administering LLT
        1.  
          Displaying the cluster details and LLT version for LLT links
        2.  
          Adding and removing LLT links
        3.  
          Configuring aggregated interfaces under LLT
        4.  
          Configuring destination-based load balancing for LLT
      4.  
        Administering the AMF kernel driver
      5. Starting VCS
        1.  
          Starting the VCS engine (HAD) and related processes
        2.  
          Starting VCS in a customized environment
      6.  
        Stopping VCS
      7.  
        Stopping VCS without evacuating service groups
      8. Stopping the VCS engine and related processes
        1.  
          About stopping VCS without the -force option
        2.  
          About stopping VCS with options other than the -force option
        3.  
          About controlling the hastop behavior by using the EngineShutdown attribute
        4.  
          Additional considerations for stopping VCS
      9. Logging on to VCS
        1.  
          Running high availability commands (HA) commands as non-root users on clusters in secure mode
      10. About managing VCS configuration files
        1.  
          About multiple versions of .cf files
        2.  
          Verifying a configuration
        3.  
          Scheduling automatic backups for VCS configuration files
        4.  
          Saving a configuration
        5.  
          Setting the configuration to read or write
        6.  
          Displaying configuration files in the correct format
      11. About managing VCS users from the command line
        1.  
          Adding a user
        2.  
          Assigning and removing user privileges
        3.  
          Modifying a user
        4.  
          Deleting a user
        5.  
          Displaying a user
      12. About querying VCS
        1.  
          Querying service groups
        2.  
          Querying resources
        3.  
          Querying resource types
        4.  
          Querying agents
        5.  
          Querying systems
        6.  
          Querying clusters
        7.  
          Querying status
        8.  
          Querying log data files (LDFs)
        9.  
          Using conditional statements to query VCS objects
      13. About administering service groups
        1.  
          Adding and deleting service groups
        2. Modifying service group attributes
          1.  
            Modifying the SystemList attribute
        3.  
          Bringing service groups online
        4.  
          Taking service groups offline
        5.  
          Switching service groups
        6.  
          Migrating service groups
        7.  
          Freezing and unfreezing service groups
        8.  
          Enabling and disabling service groups
        9.  
          Enabling and disabling priority based failover for a service group
        10.  
          Clearing faulted resources in a service group
        11.  
          Flushing service groups
        12.  
          Linking and unlinking service groups
      14.  
        Administering agents
      15. About administering resources
        1.  
          About adding resources
        2.  
          Adding resources
        3.  
          Deleting resources
        4.  
          Adding, deleting, and modifying resource attributes
        5.  
          Defining attributes as local
        6.  
          Defining attributes as global
        7.  
          Enabling and disabling intelligent resource monitoring for agents manually
        8. Enabling and disabling IMF for agents by using script
          1.  
            Enabling and disabling IMF for all IMF-aware agents
          2.  
            Enabling and disabling IMF for a set of agents
          3.  
            Enabling and disabling AMF on a system
          4.  
            Viewing the configuration changes made by the script
          5.  
            Displaying the current IMF status of agents
        9. Linking and unlinking resources
          1.  
            Configuring atleast resource dependency
        10.  
          Bringing resources online
        11.  
          Taking resources offline
        12.  
          Probing a resource
        13.  
          Clearing a resource
      16. About administering resource types
        1.  
          Adding, deleting, and modifying resource types
        2.  
          Overriding resource type static attributes
        3.  
          About initializing resource type scheduling and priority attributes
        4.  
          Setting scheduling and priority attributes
      17.  
        Administering systems
      18. About administering clusters
        1.  
          Configuring and unconfiguring the cluster UUID value
        2.  
          Retrieving version information
        3.  
          Adding and removing systems
        4.  
          Changing ports for VCS
        5.  
          Setting cluster attributes from the command line
        6.  
          About initializing cluster attributes in the configuration file
        7.  
          Enabling and disabling secure mode for the cluster
        8.  
          Migrating from secure mode to secure mode with FIPS
      19.  
        Using the -wait option in scripts that use VCS commands
      20.  
        Running HA fire drills
    3. Configuring applications and resources in VCS
      1.  
        Configuring resources and applications
      2. VCS bundled agents for UNIX
        1.  
          About Storage agents
        2.  
          About Network agents
        3.  
          About File share agents
        4.  
          About Services and Application agents
        5.  
          About VCS infrastructure and support agents
        6.  
          About Testing agents
      3. Configuring NFS service groups
        1. About NFS
          1.  
            NFS terminology
          2.  
            About managing and configuring NFS
        2. Configuring NFS service groups
          1. Configuring for a single NFS environment
            1.  
              Creating the NFS exports service group
          2. Configuring for a multiple NFS environment
            1.  
              Creating the NFS service group for a multiple NFS environment
            2.  
              Creating the NFS exports service group for a multiple NFS environment
          3. Configuring NFS with separate storage
            1.  
              Creating the NFS service group
            2.  
              Creating the NFS storage service group
            3.  
              Creating the NFS exports service group
          4. Configuring all NFS services in a parallel service group
            1.  
              Creating the NFS service group
            2.  
              Creating the NFS exports service group
        3. Sample configurations
          1.  
            Sample configuration for a single NFS environment without lock recovery
          2.  
            Sample configuration for a single NFS environment with lock recovery
          3.  
            Sample configuration for a single NFSv4 environment
          4.  
            Sample configuration for a multiple NFSv4 environment
          5.  
            Sample configuration for a multiple NFS environment without lock recovery
          6.  
            Sample configuration for a multiple NFS environment with lock recovery
          7.  
            Sample configuration for configuring NFS with separate storage
          8.  
            Sample configuration when configuring all NFS services in a parallel service group
      4. About configuring the RemoteGroup agent
        1. About the ControlMode attribute
          1.  
            About the OnOff mode
          2.  
            About the MonitorOnly mode
          3.  
            About the OnlineOnly mode
        2. About the ReturnIntOffline attribute
          1.  
            About the RemotePartial option
          2.  
            About the RemoteOffline option
          3.  
            About the RemoteFaulted option
        3.  
          Configuring a RemoteGroup resource
        4. Service group behavior with the RemoteGroup agent
          1.  
            Bringing the Apache service group online
          2.  
            Unexpected offline of the database service group
          3.  
            Taking the Apache service group offline
          4.  
            Configuring RemoteGroup resources in parallel service groups
      5. About configuring Samba service groups
        1.  
          Sample configuration for Samba in a failover configuration
      6.  
        Configuring the Coordination Point agent
      7.  
        About migration of data from LVM volumes to VxVM volumes
      8. About testing resource failover by using HA fire drills
        1.  
          About HA fire drills
        2.  
          About running an HA fire drill
  3. Section III. VCS communication and operations
    1. About communications, membership, and data protection in the cluster
      1. About cluster communications
        1.  
          About intra-system communications
        2. About inter-system cluster communications
          1.  
            About Group Membership Services/Atomic Broadcast (GAB)
          2.  
            About Low Latency Transport (LLT)
      2. About cluster membership
        1. Initial joining of systems to cluster membership
          1.  
            Seeding a new cluster
          2.  
            Seeding a cluster using the GAB auto-seed parameter through I/O fencing
          3.  
            Manual seeding of a cluster
        2.  
          Ongoing cluster membership
      3. About membership arbitration
        1. About membership arbitration components
          1.  
            About the fencing module
          2.  
            About coordination points
          3.  
            About preferred fencing
          4.  
            How the fencing module starts up
          5.  
            How membership arbitration works
          6.  
            How preferred fencing works
        2. About server-based I/O fencing
          1.  
            I/O fencing enhancements provided by CP server
        3. About majority-based fencing
          1.  
            How majority-based I/O fencing works
          2.  
            Deciding cluster majority for majority-based I/O fencing mechanism
        4.  
          About making CP server highly available
        5.  
          About the CP server database
        6.  
          Recommended CP server configurations
        7. About the CP server service group
          1.  
            About the Quorum agent for CP server
        8.  
          About the CP server user types and privileges
        9. About secure communication between the VCS cluster and CP server
          1.  
            How secure communication works between the CP servers and the VCS clusters using the HTTPS protocol
      4. About data protection
        1.  
          About SCSI-3 Persistent Reservation
      5.  
        About I/O fencing configuration files
      6. Examples of VCS operation with I/O fencing
        1.  
          About the I/O fencing algorithm
        2.  
          Example: Two-system cluster where one system fails
        3.  
          Example: Four-system cluster where cluster interconnect fails
        4.  
          How I/O fencing works in different event scenarios
      7. About cluster membership and data protection without I/O fencing
        1.  
          About jeopardy
        2.  
          About Daemon Down Node Alive (DDNA)
      8. Examples of VCS operation without I/O fencing
        1. Example: Four-system cluster without a low priority link
          1.  
            Cluster interconnect link failure
          2.  
            Cluster interconnect link failure followed by system failure
          3.  
            All high priority cluster interconnect links fail
        2. Example: Four-system cluster with low priority link
          1.  
            Cluster interconnect link failure
          2.  
            Cluster interconnect link failure followed by system failure
          3.  
            All high priority cluster interconnect links fail
      9.  
        Summary of best practices for cluster communications
    2. Administering I/O fencing
      1.  
        About administering I/O fencing
      2. About the vxfentsthdw utility
        1.  
          General guidelines for using the vxfentsthdw utility
        2.  
          About the vxfentsthdw command options
        3. Testing the coordinator disk group using the -c option of vxfentsthdw
          1.  
            Removing and replacing a failed disk
        4.  
          Performing non-destructive testing on the disks using the -r option
        5.  
          Testing the shared disks using the vxfentsthdw -m option
        6.  
          Testing the shared disks listed in a file using the vxfentsthdw -f option
        7.  
          Testing all the disks in a disk group using the vxfentsthdw -g option
        8.  
          Testing a disk with existing keys
        9.  
          Testing disks with the vxfentsthdw -o option
      3. About the vxfenadm utility
        1.  
          About the I/O fencing registration key format
        2.  
          Displaying the I/O fencing registration keys
        3.  
          Verifying that the nodes see the same disk
      4. About the vxfenclearpre utility
        1.  
          Removing preexisting keys
      5. About the vxfenswap utility
        1.  
          Replacing I/O fencing coordinator disks when the cluster is online
        2.  
          Replacing the coordinator disk group in a cluster that is online
        3.  
          Adding disks from a recovered site to the coordinator disk group
        4.  
          Refreshing lost keys on coordinator disks
      6. About administering the coordination point server
        1.  
          CP server operations (cpsadm)
        2.  
          Cloning a CP server
        3.  
          Adding and removing VCS cluster entries from the CP server database
        4.  
          Adding and removing a VCS cluster node from the CP server database
        5.  
          Adding or removing CP server users
        6.  
          Listing the CP server users
        7.  
          Listing the nodes in all the VCS clusters
        8.  
          Listing the membership of nodes in the VCS cluster
        9.  
          Preempting a node
        10.  
          Registering and unregistering a node
        11.  
          Enable and disable access for a user to a VCS cluster
        12.  
          Starting and stopping CP server outside VCS control
        13.  
          Checking the connectivity of CP servers
        14.  
          Adding and removing virtual IP addresses and ports for CP servers at run-time
        15.  
          Taking a CP server database snapshot
        16.  
          Replacing coordination points for server-based fencing in an online cluster
        17.  
          Refreshing registration keys on the coordination points for server-based fencing
        18. About configuring a CP server to support IPv6 or dual stack
          1.  
            Configuring a new CP server to support pure IPv6
          2.  
            Configuring an existing CP server to support IPv6 or dual stack
        19.  
          Deployment and migration scenarios for CP server
      7. About migrating between disk-based and server-based fencing configurations
        1.  
          Migrating from disk-based to server-based fencing in an online cluster
        2.  
          Migrating from server-based to disk-based fencing in an online cluster
        3. Migrating between fencing configurations using response files
          1.  
            Sample response file to migrate from disk-based to server-based fencing
          2.  
            Sample response file to migrate from server-based fencing to disk-based fencing
          3.  
            Sample response file to migrate from single CP server-based fencing to server-based fencing
          4.  
            Response file variables to migrate between fencing configurations
      8.  
        Enabling or disabling the preferred fencing policy
      9.  
        About I/O fencing log files
    3. Controlling VCS behavior
      1. VCS behavior on resource faults
        1.  
          Critical and non-critical resources
        2. VCS behavior diagrams
          1.  
            Example scenario 1: Resource with critical parent faults
          2.  
            Example scenario 2: Resource with non-critical parent faults
          3.  
            Example scenario 3: Resource with critical parent fails to come online
          4.  
            Example scenario 4: Resource with atleast resource dependency faults
      2. About controlling VCS behavior at the service group level
        1.  
          About the AutoRestart attribute
        2.  
          About controlling failover on service group or system faults
        3.  
          About defining failover policies
        4. About AdaptiveHA
          1.  
            Enabling AdaptiveHA for a service group
          2.  
            Considerations for setting FailOverPolicy to BiggestAvailable
          3.  
            Limitations on AdaptiveHA
          4.  
            Manually upgrading the VCS configuration file to the latest version
        5.  
          About system zones
        6.  
          About sites
        7.  
          Load-based autostart
        8.  
          About freezing service groups
        9.  
          About controlling Clean behavior on resource faults
        10.  
          Clearing resources in the ADMIN_WAIT state
        11.  
          About controlling fault propagation
        12. Customized behavior diagrams
          1.  
            Example scenario: Resource with a critical parent and ManageFaults=NONE
          2.  
            Example scenario: Resource with a critical parent and FaultPropagation=0
        13. About preventing concurrency violation
          1.  
            Enabling or preventing resources to start outside VCS control
          2.  
            Limitations of ProPCV
        14. VCS behavior for resources that support the intentional offline functionality
          1.  
            About the IntentionalOffline attribute
          2.  
            About the ExternalStateChange attribute
        15. VCS behavior when a service group is restarted
          1.  
            VCS behavior when non-persistent resources restart
          2.  
            VCS behavior when persistent resources transition from faulted to online
      3. About controlling VCS behavior at the resource level
        1. Resource type attributes that control resource behavior
          1.  
            About the RestartLimit attribute
          2.  
            About the OnlineRetryLimit attribute
          3.  
            About the ConfInterval attribute
          4.  
            About the ToleranceLimit attribute
          5.  
            About the FaultOnMonitorTimeouts attribute
        2. How VCS handles resource faults
          1.  
            VCS behavior when an online resource faults
          2.  
            VCS behavior when a resource fails to come online
        3.  
          VCS behavior after a resource is declared faulted
        4. VCS behavior when a resource is restarted
          1.  
            VCS behavior when online agent function fails to bring a resource online
          2.  
            VCS behavior when a resource goes offline
        5. About disabling resources
          1.  
            When to disable a resource
          2.  
            Limitations of disabling resources
          3.  
            Additional considerations for disabling resources
          4.  
            How disabled resources affect group states
      4.  
        Changing agent file paths and binaries
      5. VCS behavior on loss of storage connectivity
        1.  
          Disk group configuration and VCS behavior
        2.  
          How VCS attributes control behavior on loss of storage connectivity
        3.  
          VCS behavior when a disk group is disabled
        4.  
          Recommendations to ensure application availability
      6. Service group workload management
        1.  
          About enabling service group workload management
        2. System capacity and service group load
          1.  
            Static load versus dynamic load
          2.  
            About overload warning
        3.  
          System limits and service group prerequisites
        4.  
          About capacity and limits
      7. Sample configurations depicting workload management
        1.  
          System and Service group definitions
        2. Sample configuration: Basic four-node cluster
          1.  
            About AutoStart operation
          2.  
            About the failure scenario
          3.  
            About the cascading failure scenario
        3. Sample configuration: Complex four-node cluster
          1.  
            About the AutoStart operation
          2.  
            About the normal operation
          3.  
            About the failure scenario
          4.  
            About the cascading failure scenario
        4. Sample configuration: Server consolidation
          1.  
            About the AutoStart operation
          2.  
            About the normal operation
          3.  
            About the failure scenario
          4.  
            About the cascading failure scenario
    4. The role of service group dependencies
      1. About service group dependencies
        1. About dependency links
          1.  
            Dependency categories
          2.  
            Dependency location
          3.  
            Dependency rigidity
        2.  
          About dependency limitations
      2. Service group dependency configurations
        1. About failover parent / failover child
          1.  
            About failover parent / parallel child
          2.  
            About parallel parent / failover child
          3.  
            About parallel parent / parallel child
      3.  
        Frequently asked questions about group dependencies
      4.  
        About linking service groups
      5. About linking multiple child service groups
        1.  
          Dependencies supported for multiple child service groups
        2.  
          Dependencies not supported for multiple child service groups
      6. VCS behavior with service group dependencies
        1.  
          Online operations in group dependencies
        2.  
          Offline operations in group dependencies
        3.  
          Switch operations in group dependencies
  4. Section IV. Administration - Beyond the basics
    1. VCS event notification
      1. About VCS event notification
        1.  
          Event messages and severity levels
        2.  
          About persistent and replicated message queue
        3.  
          How HAD deletes messages
      2. Components of VCS event notification
        1. About the notifier process
          1.  
            Example of notifier command
        2. About the hanotify utility
          1.  
            Example of hanotify command
      3. About VCS events and traps
        1.  
          Events and traps for clusters
        2.  
          Events and traps for agents
        3.  
          Events and traps for resources
        4.  
          Events and traps for systems
        5.  
          Events and traps for service groups
        6.  
          SNMP-specific files
        7. Trap variables in VCS MIB
          1.  
            About severityId
          2.  
            EntityType and entitySubType
          3.  
            About entityState
      4. About monitoring aggregate events
        1.  
          How to detect service group failover
        2.  
          How to detect service group switch
      5.  
        About configuring notification
    2. VCS event triggers
      1.  
        About VCS event triggers
      2. Using event triggers
        1.  
          Performing multiple actions using a trigger
      3. List of event triggers
        1.  
          About the dumptunables trigger
        2.  
          About the globalcounter_not_updated trigger
        3.  
          About the injeopardy event trigger
        4.  
          About the loadwarning event trigger
        5.  
          About the multinicb event trigger
        6.  
          About the nofailover event trigger
        7.  
          About the postoffline event trigger
        8.  
          About the postonline event trigger
        9.  
          About the preonline event trigger
        10.  
          About the resadminwait event trigger
        11.  
          About the resfault event trigger
        12.  
          About the resnotoff event trigger
        13.  
          About the resrestart event trigger
        14.  
          About the resstatechange event trigger
        15.  
          About the sysoffline event trigger
        16.  
          About the sysup trigger
        17.  
          About the sysjoin trigger
        18.  
          About the unable_to_restart_agent event trigger
        19.  
          About the unable_to_restart_had event trigger
        20.  
          About the violation event trigger
    3. Virtual Business Services
      1.  
        About Virtual Business Services
      2.  
        Features of Virtual Business Services
      3.  
        Sample virtual business service configuration
      4.  
        About choosing between VCS and VBS level dependencies
  5. Section V. Cluster configurations for disaster recovery
    1. Connecting clusters–Creating global clusters
      1.  
        How VCS global clusters work
      2. VCS global clusters: The building blocks
        1.  
          Visualization of remote cluster objects
        2.  
          About global service groups
        3. About global cluster management
          1.  
            About the wide-area connector process
          2.  
            About the wide-area heartbeat agent
          3.  
            Sample configuration for the wide-area heartbeat agent
        4. About serialization - The Authority attribute
          1.  
            About the Authority and AutoStart attributes
        5.  
          About resiliency and "Right of way"
        6.  
          VCS agents to manage wide-area failover
        7.  
          About the Steward process: Split-brain in two-cluster global clusters
        8.  
          Secure communication in global clusters
      3. Prerequisites for global clusters
        1.  
          Prerequisites for cluster setup
        2.  
          Prerequisites for application setup
        3.  
          Prerequisites for wide-area heartbeats
        4.  
          Prerequisites for ClusterService group
        5.  
          Prerequisites for replication setup
        6.  
          Prerequisites for clusters running in secure mode
      4.  
        About planning to set up global clusters
      5. Setting up a global cluster
        1.  
          Configuring application and replication for global cluster setup
        2. Configuring clusters for global cluster setup
          1.  
            Configuring global cluster components at the primary site
          2.  
            Installing and configuring VCS at the secondary site
          3.  
            Securing communication between the wide-area connectors
          4.  
            Gcoconfig utility support
          5.  
            Configuring remote cluster objects
          6.  
            Configuring additional heartbeat links (optional)
          7.  
            Configuring the Steward process (optional)
        3. Configuring service groups for global cluster setup
          1.  
            Configuring VCS service group for VVR-based replication
        4.  
          Configuring a service group as a global service group
      6. About IPv6 support with global clusters
        1.  
          Prerequisites for configuring a global cluster to support IPv6
        2.  
          Migrating an InfoScale Availability cluster from IPv4 to IPv6 when Virtual IP (ClusterAddress) is configured
        3.  
          Migrating an InfoScale Availability cluster to IPv6 in a GCO deployment
      7. About cluster faults
        1.  
          About the type of failure
        2.  
          Switching the service group back to the primary
      8. About setting up a disaster recovery fire drill
        1. About creating and configuring the fire drill service group manually
          1.  
            Creating the fire drill service group
          2.  
            Linking the fire drill and replication service groups
          3.  
            Adding resources to the fire drill service group
          4.  
            Configuring the fire drill service group
          5.  
            Enabling the FireDrill attribute
        2. About configuring the fire drill service group using the Fire Drill Setup wizard
          1.  
            Running the fire drill setup wizard
          2.  
            About configuring local attributes in the fire drill service group
        3.  
          Verifying a successful fire drill
        4.  
          Scheduling a fire drill
      9.  
        Multi-tiered application support using the RemoteGroup agent in a global environment
      10. Test scenario for a multi-tiered environment
        1.  
          About the main.cf file for cluster 1
        2.  
          About the main.cf file for cluster 2
        3.  
          About the main.cf file for cluster 3
        4.  
          About the main.cf file for cluster 4
    2. Administering global clusters from the command line
      1.  
        About administering global clusters from the command line
      2. About global querying in a global cluster setup
        1.  
          Querying global cluster service groups
        2.  
          Querying resources across clusters
        3.  
          Querying systems
        4.  
          Querying clusters
        5.  
          Querying status
        6.  
          Querying heartbeats
      3.  
        Administering global service groups in a global cluster setup
      4.  
        Administering resources in a global cluster setup
      5. Administering clusters in global cluster setup
        1.  
          Managing cluster alerts in a global cluster setup
        2.  
          Changing the cluster name in a global cluster setup
        3.  
          Removing a remote cluster from a global cluster setup
      6.  
        Administering heartbeats in a global cluster setup
    3. Setting up replicated data clusters
      1.  
        About replicated data clusters
      2.  
        How VCS replicated data clusters work
      3. About setting up a replicated data cluster configuration
        1.  
          About typical replicated data cluster configuration
        2.  
          About setting up replication
        3.  
          Configuring the service groups
        4.  
          Configuring the service group dependencies
      4. About migrating a service group
        1.  
          Switching the service group
      5.  
        About setting up a fire drill
    4. Setting up campus clusters
      1.  
        About campus cluster configuration
      2.  
        VCS campus cluster requirements
      3.  
        Typical VCS campus cluster setup
      4. How VCS campus clusters work
        1.  
          About I/O fencing in campus clusters
      5. About setting up a campus cluster configuration
        1.  
          Preparing to set up a campus cluster configuration
        2.  
          Configuring I/O fencing to prevent data corruption
        3.  
          Configuring VxVM disk groups for campus cluster configuration
        4.  
          Configuring VCS service group for campus clusters
      6.  
        Fire drill in campus clusters
      7.  
        About the DiskGroupSnap agent
      8. About running a fire drill in a campus cluster
        1.  
          Configuring the fire drill service group
        2.  
          Running a successful fire drill in a campus cluster
  6. Section VI. Troubleshooting and performance
    1. VCS performance considerations
      1. How cluster components affect performance
        1.  
          How kernel components (GAB and LLT) affect performance
        2.  
          How the VCS engine (HAD) affects performance
        3. How agents affect performance
          1.  
            Monitoring resource type and agent configuration
        4.  
          How the VCS graphical user interfaces affect performance
      2. How cluster operations affect performance
        1.  
          VCS performance consideration when booting a cluster system
        2.  
          VCS performance consideration when a resource comes online
        3.  
          VCS performance consideration when a resource goes offline
        4.  
          VCS performance consideration when a service group comes online
        5.  
          VCS performance consideration when a service group goes offline
        6.  
          VCS performance consideration when a resource fails
        7.  
          VCS performance consideration when a system fails
        8.  
          VCS performance consideration when a network link fails
        9. VCS performance consideration when a system panics
          1.  
            About GAB client process failure
          2.  
            About GAB client registration monitoring
          3.  
            About network failure and GAB IOFENCE message
          4.  
            About quick reopen
        10.  
          VCS performance consideration when a service group switches over
        11.  
          VCS performance consideration when a service group fails over
      3. About scheduling class and priority configuration
        1.  
          About priority ranges
        2.  
          Default scheduling classes and priorities
        3.  
          About configuring priorities for LLT threads for AIX
      4.  
        CPU binding of HAD
      5. VCS agent statistics
        1.  
          Tracking monitor cycle times
        2.  
          VCS attributes enabling agent statistics
      6. About VCS tunable parameters
        1. About LLT tunable parameters
          1.  
            About LLT timer tunable parameters
          2.  
            About LLT flow control tunable parameters
          3.  
            Setting LLT tunable parameters
        2. About GAB tunable parameters
          1.  
            About GAB load-time or static tunable parameters
          2.  
            About GAB run-time or dynamic tunable parameters
        3. About VXFEN tunable parameters
          1.  
            Configuring the VXFEN module parameters
        4.  
          About AMF tunable parameters
    2. Troubleshooting and recovery for VCS
      1. VCS message logging
        1.  
          Log unification of VCS agent's entry points
        2.  
          Enhancing First Failure Data Capture (FFDC) to troubleshoot VCS resource's unexpected behavior
        3.  
          GAB message logging
        4.  
          Enabling debug logs for agents
        5.  
          Enabling debug logs for IMF
        6.  
          Enabling debug logs for the VCS engine
        7.  
          Enabling debug logs for VxAT
        8.  
          About debug log tags usage
        9. Gathering VCS information for support analysis
          1.  
            Verifying the metered or forecasted values for CPU, Mem, and Swap
        10.  
          Gathering LLT and GAB information for support analysis
        11.  
          Gathering IMF information for support analysis
        12.  
          Message catalogs
      2. Troubleshooting the VCS engine
        1.  
          HAD diagnostics
        2.  
          HAD restarts continuously
        3.  
          DNS configuration issues cause GAB to kill HAD
        4.  
          Seeding and I/O fencing
        5.  
          Preonline IP check
      3. Troubleshooting Low Latency Transport (LLT)
        1.  
          LLT startup script displays errors
        2.  
          LLT detects cross links usage
        3.  
          LLT link status messages
      4. Troubleshooting Group Membership Services/Atomic Broadcast (GAB)
        1.  
          GAB timer issues
        2.  
          Delay in port reopen
        3.  
          Node panics due to client process failure
      5. Troubleshooting VCS startup
        1.  
          "VCS:10622 local configuration missing"
        2.  
          "VCS:10623 local configuration invalid"
        3.  
          "VCS:11032 registration failed. Exiting"
        4.  
          "Waiting for cluster membership."
      6.  
        Troubleshooting Intelligent Monitoring Framework (IMF)
      7. Troubleshooting service groups
        1.  
          VCS does not automatically start service group
        2.  
          System is not in RUNNING state
        3.  
          Service group not configured to run on the system
        4.  
          Service group not configured to autostart
        5.  
          Service group is frozen
        6.  
          Failover service group is online on another system
        7.  
          A critical resource faulted
        8.  
          Service group autodisabled
        9.  
          Service group is waiting for the resource to be brought online/taken offline
        10.  
          Service group is waiting for a dependency to be met.
        11.  
          Service group not fully probed.
        12.  
          Service group does not fail over to the forecasted system
        13.  
          Service group does not fail over to the BiggestAvailable system even if FailOverPolicy is set to BiggestAvailable
        14.  
          Restoring metering database from backup taken by VCS
        15.  
          Initialization of metering database fails
        16.  
          Error message appears during service group failover or switch
      8. Troubleshooting resources
        1.  
          Service group brought online due to failover
        2.  
          Waiting for service group states
        3.  
          Waiting for child resources
        4.  
          Waiting for parent resources
        5.  
          Waiting for resource to respond
        6. Agent not running
          1.  
            Invalid agent argument list.
        7.  
          The Monitor entry point of the disk group agent returns ONLINE even if the disk group is disabled
      9. Troubleshooting sites
        1.  
          Online propagate operation was initiated but service group failed to be online
        2.  
          VCS panics nodes in the preferred site during a network-split
        3.  
          Configuring of stretch site fails
        4.  
          Renaming a Site
      10. Troubleshooting I/O fencing
        1.  
          Node is unable to join cluster while another node is being ejected
        2.  
          The vxfentsthdw utility fails when SCSI TEST UNIT READY command fails
        3.  
          Manually removing existing keys from SCSI-3 disks
        4.  
          System panics to prevent potential data corruption
        5.  
          Cluster ID on the I/O fencing key of coordinator disk does not match the local cluster's ID
        6. Fencing startup reports preexisting split-brain
          1.  
            Clearing preexisting split-brain condition
        7.  
          Registered keys are lost on the coordinator disks
        8.  
          Replacing defective disks when the cluster is offline
        9.  
          The vxfenswap utility exits if rcp or scp commands are not functional
        10. Troubleshooting CP server
          1.  
            Troubleshooting issues related to the CP server service group
          2.  
            Checking the connectivity of CP server
        11. Troubleshooting server-based fencing on the VCS cluster nodes
          1.  
            Issues during fencing startup on VCS cluster nodes set up for server-based fencing
        12. Issues during online migration of coordination points
          1.  
            Vxfen service group activity after issuing the vxfenswap command
      11. Troubleshooting notification
        1.  
          Notifier is configured but traps are not seen on SNMP console.
      12. Troubleshooting and recovery for global clusters
        1.  
          Disaster declaration
        2.  
          Lost heartbeats and the inquiry mechanism
        3. VCS alerts
          1.  
            Types of alerts
          2.  
            Managing alerts
          3.  
            Actions associated with alerts
          4.  
            Negating events
          5.  
            Concurrency violation at startup
      13.  
        Troubleshooting the steward process
      14. Troubleshooting licensing
        1.  
          Validating license keys
        2. Licensing error messages
          1.  
            [Licensing] Insufficient memory to perform operation
          2.  
            [Licensing] No valid VCS license keys were found
          3.  
            [Licensing] Unable to find a valid base VCS license key
          4.  
            [Licensing] License key cannot be used on this OS platform
          5.  
            [Licensing] VCS evaluation period has expired
          6.  
            [Licensing] License key can not be used on this system
          7.  
            [Licensing] Unable to initialize the licensing framework
          8.  
            [Licensing] QuickStart is not supported in this release
          9.  
            [Licensing] Your evaluation period for the feature has expired. This feature will not be enabled the next time VCS starts
      15. Troubleshooting secure configurations
        1.  
          FIPS mode cannot be set
        2.  
          Broker does not start
        3.  
          AT initialization fails
  7. Section VII. Appendixes
    1. Appendix A. VCS user privileges—administration matrices
      1.  
        About administration matrices
      2. Administration matrices
        1.  
          Agent Operations (haagent)
        2.  
          Attribute Operations (haattr)
        3.  
          Cluster Operations (haclus, haconf)
        4.  
          Service group operations (hagrp)
        5.  
          Heartbeat operations (hahb)
        6.  
          Log operations (halog)
        7.  
          Resource operations (hares)
        8.  
          System operations (hasys)
        9.  
          Resource type operations (hatype)
        10.  
          User operations (hauser)
    2. Appendix B. VCS commands: Quick reference
      1.  
        About this quick reference for VCS commands
      2.  
        VCS command line reference
    3. Appendix C. Cluster and system states
      1. Remote cluster states
        1.  
          Examples of cluster state transitions
      2. System states
        1.  
          Examples of system state transitions
    4. Appendix D. VCS attributes
      1.  
        About attributes and their definitions
      2.  
        Resource attributes
      3.  
        Resource type attributes
      4.  
        Service group attributes
      5.  
        System attributes
      6.  
        Cluster attributes
      7.  
        Heartbeat attributes (for global clusters)
      8.  
        Remote cluster attributes
      9.  
        Site attributes
    5. Appendix E. Accessibility and VCS
      1.  
        About accessibility in VCS
      2. Navigation and keyboard shortcuts
        1.  
          Navigation in the Java Console
        2.  
          Navigation in the Web console
      3.  
        Support for accessibility settings
      4.  
        Support for assistive technologies
    6. Appendix F. InfoScale event logging
      1.  
        EO-compliant logging
      2.  
        Extended event logging
      3.  
        Custom permissions for InfoScale log files
      4.  
        Setting custom permissions for InfoScale log files
      5.  
        Log forwarding

Cluster attributes

Table: Cluster attributes lists the cluster attributes.

Table: Cluster attributes

Cluster Attributes

Definition

AdministratorGroups

(user-defined)

List of operating system user account groups that have administrative privileges on the cluster. This attribute applies to clusters running in secure mode.

  • Type and dimension: string-keylist

  • Default: ""

Administrators

(user-defined)

Contains list of users with Administrator privileges.

  • Type and dimension: string-keylist

  • Default: ""

AutoAddSystemtoCSG

(user-defined)

Indicates whether the newly joined or added systems in cluster become part of the SystemList of the ClusterService service group if the service group is configured. The value 1 (default) indicates that the new systems are added to SystemList of ClusterService. The value 0 indicates that the new systems are not added to SystemList of ClusterService.

  • Type and dimension: integer-scalar

  • Default: 1

AutoClearQ

(System use only)

Lists the service groups scheduled to be auto-cleared. It also indicates the time at which the auto-clear for the group will be performed.

AutoStartTimeout

(user-defined)

If the local cluster cannot communicate with one or more remote clusters, this attribute specifies the number of seconds the VCS engine waits before initiating the AutoStart process for an AutoStart global service group.

  • Type and dimension: integer-scalar

  • Default: 150 seconds

BackupInterval

(user-defined)

Time period in minutes after which VCS backs up the configuration files if the configuration is in read-write mode.

The value 0 indicates VCS does not back up configuration files. Set this attribute to at least 3.

  • Type and dimension: integer-scalar

  • Default: 0

CID

(system defined)

The CID provides universally unique identification for a cluster.

VCS populates this attribute once the engine passes an hacf-generated snapshot to it. This happens when VCS is about to go to a RUNNING state from the LOCAL_BUILD state.

Once VCS receives the snapshot from the engine, it reads the file /etc/vx/.uuids/clusuuid file. VCS uses the file's contents as the value for the CID attribute. The clusuuid file's first line must not be empty. If the file does not exists or is empty VCS then exits gracefully and throws an error.

A node that joins a cluster in the RUNNING state receives the CID attribute as part of the REMOTE_BUILD snapshot. Once the node has joined completely, it receives the snapshot. The node reads the file /etc/vx/.uuids/clusuuid to compare the value that it received from the snapshot with value that is present in the file. If the value does not match or if the file does not exist, the joining node exits gracefully and does not join the cluster.

To populate the /etc/vx/.uuids/clusuuid file, run the /opt/VRTSvcs/bin/uuidconfig.pl utility.

See Configuring and unconfiguring the cluster UUID value.

You cannot change the value of this attribute with the haclus - modify command.

  • Type and dimension: string-scalar

  • Default: ""

ClusState

(system use only)

Indicates the current state of the cluster.

  • Type and dimension: integer-scalar

  • Default: Not applicable.

ClusterAddress

(user-defined)

Specifies the cluster's virtual IP address (used by a remote cluster when connecting to the local cluster).

  • Type and dimension: string-scalar

  • Default: ""

ClusterLocation

(user-defined)

Specifies the location of the cluster.

  • Type and dimension: string-scalar

  • Default: ""

ClusterName

(user-defined)

The name of cluster.

  • Type and dimension: string-scalar

  • Default: ""

ClusterOwner

(user-defined)

This attribute used for VCS notification. VCS sends notifications to persons designated in this attribute when an event occurs related to the cluster. Note that while VCS logs most events, not all events trigger notifications.

Make sure to set the severity level at which you want notifications to be sent to ClusterOwner or to at least one recipient defined in the SmtpRecipients attribute of the NotifierMngr agent.

  • Type and dimension: string-scalar

  • Default: ""

  • Example: "jdoe@example.com"

ClusterRecipients

(user-defined)

This attribute is used for VCS email notification. VCS sends email notification to persons designated in this attribute when events related to the cluster occur and when the event's severity level is equal to or greater than the level specified in the attribute.

Make sure to set the severity level at which you want notifications to be sent to ClusterRecipients or to at least one recipient defined in the SmtpRecipients attribute of the NotifierMngr agent.

  • Type and dimension: string-association

  • email id: The e-mail address of the person registered as a recipient for notification.

    severity: The minimum level of severity at which notifications must be sent.

ClusterTime

(system use only)

The number of seconds since January 1, 1970. This is defined by the lowest node in running state.

  • Type and dimension: string-scalar

  • Default: Not applicable

ClusterUUID

(system use only)

Unique ID assigned to the cluster by Availability Manager.

  • Type and dimension: string-scalar

  • Default: Not applicable

CompareRSM

(system use only)

Indicates if VCS engine is to verify that replicated state machine is consistent. This can be set by running the hadebug command.

  • Type and dimension: integer-scalar

  • Default: 0

ConnectorState

(system use only)

Indicates the state of the wide-area connector (wac). If 0, wac is not running. If 1, wac is running and communicating with the VCS engine.

  • Type and dimension: integer-scalar

  • Default: Not applicable.

CounterInterval

(user-defined)

Intervals counted by the attribute GlobalCounter indicating approximately how often a broadcast occurs that will cause the GlobalCounter attribute to increase.

The default value of the GlobalCounter increment can be modified by changing CounterInterval. If you increase this attribute to exceed five seconds, consider increasing the default value of the ShutdownTimeout attribute.

  • Type and dimension: integer-scalar

  • Default: 5

CounterMissAction

(user-defined)

Specifies the action that must be performed when the GlobalCounter is not updated for CounterMissTolerance times the CounterInterval. Possible values are LogOnly and Trigger. If you set CounterMissAction to LogOnly, the system logs the message in Engine Log and Syslog. If you set CounterMissAction to Trigger, the system invokes a trigger which has default action of collecting the comms tar file.

  • Type and dimension: string-scalar

  • Default: LogOnly

CounterMissTolerance

(user-defined)

Specifies the time interval that can lapse since the last update of GlobalCounter before VCS reports an issue. If the GlobalCounter does not update within CounterMissTolerance times CounterInterval, VCS reports the issue. Depending on the CounterMissAction.value, appropriate action is performed.

  • Type and dimension: integer-scalar

  • Default: 20

CredRenewFrequency

(user-defined)

The number of days after which the VCS engine renews its credentials with the authentication broker. For example, the value 5 indicates that credentials are renewed every 5 days; the value 0 indicates that credentials are not renewed.

  • Type and dimension: integer-scalar

  • Default = 0

DeleteOnlineResource

(user-defined)

Defines whether you can delete online resources. Set this value to 1 to enable deletion of online resources. Set this value to 0 to disable deletion of online resources.

You can override this behavior by using the -force option with the hares -delete command.

  • Type and dimension: integer-scalar

  • Default = 1

DumpingMembership

(system use only)

Indicates that the engine is writing or dumping the configuration to disk.

  • Type and dimension: vector

  • Default: Not applicable.

EngineClass

(user-defined)

The scheduling class for the VCS engine (HAD).

The attribute can take the following values:

RT, TS

where RT = realtime and TS = timeshare. For information on the significance of these values, see the operating system documentation.

  • Type and dimension: string-scalar

  • Default: RT

EnableFFDC

(user-defined)

Enables or disables FFDC logging. By default, FFDC logging is enabled.

  • Type and dimension: boolean-scalar

  • Default: 1

EnableVMAutoDiscovery

(user-defined)

Enables or disables auto discovery of virtual machines. By default, auto discovery of virtual machines is disabled.

  • Type and dimension: integer-scalar

  • Default: 0

EnablePBF

(user-defined)

Enables or disables priority based failover. When set to 1 (one), VCS gives priority to the online of high priority service group, by ensuring that its Load requirement is met on the system.

  • Type and dimension: boolean-scalar

  • Default: 0 (zero)

EnginePriority

(user-defined)

The priority in which HAD runs. Generally, a greater priority value indicates higher scheduling priority. A range of priority values is assigned to each scheduling class. For more information on the range of priority values, see the operating system documentation.

  • Type and dimension: string-scalar

  • Default: ""

EngineShutdown

(user-defined)

Defines the options for the hastop command. The attribute can assume the following values:

Enable - Process all hastop commands. This is the default behavior.

Disable - Reject all hastop commands.

DisableClusStop - Do not process the hastop -all command; process all other hastop commands.

PromptClusStop - Prompt for user confirmation before running the hastop -all command; process all other hastop commands.

PromptLocal - Prompt for user confirmation before running the hastop -local command; reject all other hastop commands.

PromptAlways - Prompt for user confirmation before running any hastop command.

  • Type and dimension: string-scalar

  • Default: Enable

FipsMode

(system use only)

Indicates whether FIPS mode is enabled for the cluster. The value depends on the mode of the broker on the system. If FipsMode is set to 1, FIPS mode is enabled. If FipsMode is set to 0, FIPS mode is disabled.

  • Type and dimension: integer -scalar

  • Default: Not applicable

You can verify the value of FipsMode as follows:

# haclus -value FipsMode

GlobalCounter

(system use only)

This counter increases incrementally by one for each counter interval. It increases when the broadcast is received.

VCS uses the GlobalCounter attribute to measure the time it takes to shut down a system. By default, the GlobalCounter attribute is updated every five seconds. This default value, combined with the 600-second default value of the ShutdownTimeout attribute, means if system goes down within 120 increments of GlobalCounter, it is treated as a fault. Change the value of the CounterInterval attribute to modify the default value of GlobalCounter increment.

  • Type and dimension: integer-scalar

  • Default: Not applicable

Guests

(user-defined)

List of operating system user accounts that have Guest privileges on the cluster.

This attribute is valid clusters running in secure mode.

  • Type and dimension: string-keylist

  • Default: ""

GuestGroups

(user-defined)

List of operating system user groups that have Guest privilege on the cluster.

  • Type and dimension: string-keylist

  • Default: Not applicable

DefaultGuestAccess

(user-defined)

Indicates whether any authenticated user should have guest access to the cluster by default. The default guest access can be:

  • 0: Guest access for privileged users only.

  • 1: Guest access for everyone.

  • Type and dimension: boolean-scalar

  • Default: 0

GroupLimit

(user-defined)

Maximum number of service groups.

  • Type and dimension: integer-scalar

  • Default: 200

HacliUserLevel

(user-defined)

This attribute has two, case-sensitive values:

NONE - hacli is disabled for all users regardless of role.

COMMANDROOT - hacli is enabled for root only.

Note:

The command haclus -modify HacliUserLevel can be executed by root only.

  • Type and dimension: string-scalar

  • Default: NONE

HostAvailableMeters

(System use only)

Lists the meters that are available for measuring system resources. You cannot configure this attribute in the main.cf file.

  • Type and dimension: string-association

    Keys are the names of parameters and values are the names of meter libraries.

  • Default: HostAvailableMeters = { CPU = "libmeterhost_cpu.so", Mem = "libmeterhost_mem.so", Swap = "libmeterhost_swap.so"}

HostMeters

(user-defined)

Indicates the parameters (CPU, Mem, or Swap) that are currently metered in the cluster.

  • Type and dimension: string-keylist

  • Default: HostMeters = {"CPU", "Mem", "Swap"}

    You can configure this attribute in the main.cf file. You cannot modify the value at run time.

    The keys must be one or more from CPU, Mem, or Swap.

LockMemory

(user-defined)

Controls the locking of VCS engine pages in memory. This attribute has the following values. Values are case-sensitive:

ALL: Locks all current and future pages.

CURRENT: Locks current pages.

NONE: Does not lock any pages.

On AIX, this attribute includes only one value, all, which is the default. This value locks text and data into memory (process lock).

  • Type and dimension: string-scalar

  • Default: ALL

LogClusterUUID

(user-defined)

Enables or disables logging of the cluster UUID in each log message. By default, cluster UUID is not logged.

  • Type and dimension: boolean-scalar

  • Default: 0

LogSize

(user-defined)

Indicates the size of engine log files in bytes.

Minimum value is = 65536 (equal to 64KB)

Maximum value = 134217728 (equal to 128MB)

  • Type and dimension: integer-scalar

  • Default: 134217728 (128 MB)

MeterControl

(user-defined)

Indicates the intervals at which metering and forecasting for the system attribute AvailableCapacity are done for the keys specified in HostMeters.

  • Type and dimension: integer-association

    This attribute includes the following keys:

  • MeterInterval

    Frequency in seconds at which metering is done by the HostMonitor agent. The value for this key can equal or exceed 30. The default value is 120 indicating that the HostMonitor agent meters available capacity and updates the System attribute AvailableCapacity every 120 seconds. The HostMonitor agent checks for changes in the available capacity for every monitoring cycle and when there is a change, the HostMonitor agent updates the values in the same monitoring cycle . The MeterInterval value applies only if Statistics is set to Enabled or MeterHostOnly.

  • ForecastCycle

    The number of metering cycles after which forecasting of available capacity is done. The value for this key can equal or exceed 1. The default value is 3 indicating that forecasting of available capacity is done after every 3 metering cycles. Assuming the default MeterInterval value of 120 seconds, forecasting is done after 360 seconds or 6 minutes. The ForecastCycle value applies only if Statistics is set to Enabled.

You can configure this attribute in main.cf. You cannot modify the value at run time. The values of MeterInterval and ForecastCycle apply to all keys of HostMeters.

MeterUnit

Represents units for parameters that are metered.

  • Type and dimension: string-association

  • Default: CPU=CPU, Mem = MB, Swap = MB}

You can configure this attribute in main.cf; if configured in main.cf, then it must contain units for all the keys as specified in HostMeters. You cannot modify the value at run time.

When Statistics is set to Enabled then service group attribute Load, and the following system attributes are represented in corresponding units for parameters such as CPU, Mem, or Swap:

  • AvailableCapacity

  • HostAvailableForecast

  • Capacity

  • ReservedCapacity

The values of keys such as Mem and Swap can be represented in MB or GB, and CPU can be represented in CPU, MHz or GHz.

MeterWeight

(user-defined)

Indicates the default meter weight for the service groups in the cluster. You can configure this attribute in the main.cf file, but you cannot modify the value at run time. If the attribute is defined in the main.cf file, it must have at least one key defined. The weight for the key must be in the range of 0 to 10. Only keys from HostAvailableMeters are allowed in this attribute.

  • Type and dimension: integer-association

  • Default: {CPU = 10, Mem = 5, Swp = 1}

Notifier

(system use only)

Indicates the status of the notifier in the cluster; specifically:

State - Current state of notifier, such as whether or not it is connected to VCS.

Host - The host on which notifier is currently running or was last running. Default = None

Severity - The severity level of messages queued by VCS for notifier. Values include Information, Warning, Error, and SevereError. Default = Warning

Queue - The size of queue for messages queued by VCS for notifier.

  • Type and dimension: string-association

  • Default: Different values for each parameter.

OpenExternalCommunicationPort

(user-defined)

Indicates whether communication over the external communication port for VCS is allowed or not. By default, the external communication port for VCS is 14141.

  • Type and dimension: string-scalar

  • Valid values: YES, NO

  • Default: YES

  • YES: The external communication port for VCS is open.

  • NO: The external communication port for VCS is not open.

Note:

When the external communication port for VCS is not open, RemoteGroup resources created by the RemoteGroup agent and users created by the hawparsetup command cannot access VCS.

OperatorGroups

(user-defined)

List of operating system user groups that have Operator privileges on the cluster.

This attribute is valid clusters running in secure mode.

  • Type and dimension: string-keylist

  • Default: ""

Operators

(user-defined)

List of users with Cluster Operator privileges.

  • Type and dimension: string-keylist

  • Default: ""

PanicOnNoMem

(user-defined)

Indicate the action that you want VCS engine (HAD) to take if it cannot receive messages from GAB due to low-memory.

  • If the value is 0, VCS exits with warnings.

  • If the value is 1, VCS calls the GAB library routine to panic the system.

  • Default: 0

PreferredFencingPolicy

The I/O fencing race policy to determine the surviving subcluster in the event of a network partition. Valid values are Disabled, System, Group, or Site.

Disabled: Preferred fencing is disabled. The fencing driver favors the subcluster with maximum number of nodes during the race for coordination points.

System: The fencing driver gives preference to the system that is more powerful than others in terms of architecture, number of CPUs, or memory during the race for coordination points. VCS uses the system-level attribute FencingWeight to calculate the node weight.

Group: The fencing driver gives preference to the node with higher priority service groups during the race for coordination points. VCS uses the group-level attribute Priority to determine the node weight.

Site: The fencing driver gives preference to the node with higher site priority during the race for coordination points. VCS uses the site-level attribute Preference to determine the node weight.

See About preferred fencing.

  • Type and dimension: string-scalar

  • Default: "Disabled"

PrintMsg

(user-defined)

Enables logging TagM messages in engine log if set to 1.

  • Type and dimension: boolean-scalar

  • Default: 0

ProcessClass

(user-defined)

Indicates the scheduling class processes created by the VCS engine. For example, triggers.

  • Type and dimension: string-scalar

  • Default = TS

ProcessPriority

(user-defined)

The priority of processes created by the VCS engine. For example triggers.

  • Type and dimension: string-scalar

  • Default: ""

ProtocolNumber

(System use only)

A cluster-level attribute that displays the cluster protocol number for the cluster.

  • Type and dimension: Integer-scalar

  • Default: Not applicable

ReadOnly

(user-defined)

Indicates that cluster is in read-only mode.

  • Type and dimension: integer-scalar

  • Default: 1

ResourceLimit

(user-defined)

Maximum number of resources.

  • Type and dimension: integer-scalar

  • Default: 5000

SecInfo256

(user-defined)

Enables the creation of secure passwords when this attribute is added to the main.cf file with the security key as the value of the attribute.

  • Type and dimension: string-scalar

  • Default: ""

See Encrypting agent passwords.

IV256

(user-defined)

Enables the creation of secure passwords when this attribute is added to the main.cf file. This initialization vector (IV) is a fixed-size input to a cryptographic primitive that is typically required to be random. It adds randomness to the beginning of the encryption process.

  • Type and dimension: string-scalar

  • Default: ""

Note:

This attribute is used to encrypt or decrypt passwords when the cluster protocol version is 10000 or earlier.

See Encrypting agent passwords.

IV256List

(user-defined)

Enables the creation of secure passwords by maintaining a list of key-value pairs. Each encrypted password is saved as a key along with the IV that was used to encrypt the password.

  • Type and dimension: string-association

  • Default: ""

This attribute gets added to or update in the main.cf file at the following events:

  • When a user gets added to a cluster using the hauser -add command in case of a non-secure cluster.

  • When you use the vcsencrypt -vcs or the vcsencrypt -agent command to encrypt the VCS password or an agent password respectively.

If you use any of these commands, you do not need to run haconf -dump to make the configuration read-only again; this task is handled in the background.

You cannot modify IV256List by using the haconf - modify command. However, you can use the vcsencrypt -delkey encryptedPasswordValue command to delete stale entries from this attribute.

Note:

This attribute and the -delkey option of the vcsencrypt command are applicable only with cluster protocol version 11000 or later.

See Encrypting agent passwords.

SecInfoLevel

(user-defined)

Denotes the password encryption privilege level.

  • Type and dimension: string-scalar

  • Default: R

See Encrypting agent passwords.

SecureClus

(user-defined)

Indicates whether the cluster runs in secure mode. The value 1 indicates the cluster runs in secure mode. This attribute cannot be modified when VCS is running.

  • Type and dimension: boolean-scalar

  • Default: 0

SiteAware

(user-defined)

Indicates whether sites are configured for a cluster or not.

  • Type and dimension: boolean-scalar

  • Default: 0

    Possible values are:

    • 1: Sites are configured.

    • 0: Sites are not configured.

You can configure a site from Arctera InfoScale Operations Manager . This attribute will be automatically set to 1 when configured using Arctera InfoScale Operations Manager. If site information is not configured for some nodes in the cluster, those nodes are placed under a default site that has the lowest preference.

See Site attributes.

SourceFile

(user-defined)

File from which the configuration is read. Do not configure this attribute in main.cf.

Make sure the path exists on all nodes before running a command that configures this attribute.

  • Type and dimension: string-scalar

  • Default: Not applicable.

Statistics

(user-defined)

Indicates if statistics gathering is enabled and whether the FailOverPolicy can be set to BiggestAvailable.

  • Type and dimension: string-scalar

  • Default: Enabled

    You cannot modify the value at run time.

    Possible values are:

    • Enabled: The HostMonitor agent meters host utilization and forecasts the available capacity for the systems in the cluster. With this value set, FailOverPolicy for any service group cannot be set to Load.

    • MeterHostOnly: The HostMonitor agent meters host utilization but it does not forecast the available capacity for the systems in the cluster. The service group attribute FailOverPolicy cannot be set to BiggestAvailable.

    • Disabled: The HostMonitor agent is not started. Both metering of host utilization and forecasting of available capacity are disabled. The service group attribute FailOverPolicy cannot be set to BiggestAvailable.

See Service group attributes.

Stewards

(user-defined)

The IP address and hostname of systems running the steward process.

  • Type and dimension: string-keylist

  • {}

SystemRebootAction

(user-defined)

Determines whether frozen service groups are ignored on system reboot.

  • Type and dimension: string-keylist

  • Default: ""

If the SystemRebootAction value is IgnoreFrozenGroup, VCS ignores service groups that are frozen (TFrozen and Frozen) and takes the remaining service groups offline. If the frozen service groups have firm dependencies or hard dependencies on any other service groups which are not frozen, VCS gives an error.

If the SystemRebootAction value is "", VCS tries to take all service groups offline. Because VCS cannot be gracefully stopped on a node where a frozen service group is online, applications on the node might get killed.

Note:

The SystemRebootAction attribute applies only on system reboot and system shutdown.

TypeLimit

(user-defined)

Maximum number of resource types.

  • Type and dimension: integer-scalar

  • Default: 100

UseFence

(user-defined)

Indicates whether the cluster uses SCSI-3 I/O fencing.

The value SCSI3 indicates that the cluster uses either disk-based or server-based I/O fencing. The value NONE indicates it does not use either.

  • Type and dimension: string-scalar

  • Default: NONE

UserNames

(user-defined)

List of VCS users. The installer uses admin as the default user name.

  • Type and dimension: string-association

  • Default: ""

VCSFeatures

(system use only)

Indicates which VCS features are enabled. Possible values are:

0 - No features enabled

1 - L3+ is enabled

2 - Global Cluster Option is enabled

Even though the VCSFeatures is an integer attribute, when you query the value with the haclus -value command or the haclus -display command, it displays as the string L10N for value 1 and DR for value 2.

  • Type and dimension: integer-scalar

  • Default: Not applicable.

VCSMode

(system use only)

Denotes the mode for which VCS is licensed.

Even though the VCSMode is an integer attribute, when you query the value with the haclus -value command or the haclus -display command, it displays as the string UNKNOWN_MODE for value 0 and VCS for value 7.

  • Type and dimension: integer-scalar

  • Default: Not applicable

WACPort

(user-defined)

The TCP port on which the wac (Wide-Area Connector) process on the local cluster listens for connection from remote clusters. Type and dimension: integer-scalar

  • Default: 14155

More Information

Scheduling automatic backups for VCS configuration files

About VCS event notification