Novell Cluster Services 2.2 supports OES 11 SP2 services and file systems running on 64-bit SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 11 Service Pack (SP) 3. In addition to bug fixes, Novell Cluster Services provides the following enhancements and behavior changes in the OES 11 SP2 release.
When you change the nodes or failover order in a resource’s Preferred Nodes list, the change takes effect immediately when you click OK or Apply if the resource is running. Otherwise, it takes effect the next time the resource is brought online. Previously, the change did not occur until the cluster resource was taken offline and brought online. See Configuring Preferred Nodes and Failover Order for a Resource
in the OES 11 SP2: Novell Cluster Services for Linux Administration Guide.
With this new capability, changes for any resource attributes (such as the resource mode settings, preferred nodes list, and RME groups) other than the scripts take effect immediately.
Availability for prior releases: April 2013 Scheduled Maintenance for OES 11 SP1
When you modify the load, unload, and monitor scripts for a resource and click Apply or OK, the updated resource scripts can take effect in any of the following ways:
When an administrator takes the resource offline and then brings it online.
When the resource fails over to another node, if both the source and destination nodes have received the updated scripts from eDirectory.
When an administrator uses the cluster migrate command to load the resource on another node, if both the source and destination nodes have received the updated scripts from eDirectory.
Previously, script changes did not take effect until the resource was taken offline and then brought online.
For more information, see Applying Updated Resource Scripts by Offline/Online, Failover, or Migration
in the OES 11 SP2: Novell Cluster Services for Linux Administration Guide.
Availability for prior releases: April 2013 Scheduled Maintenance for OES 11 SP1
You can use the /opt/novell/ncs/bin/ncs_resource_scripts.pl script to modify resource scripts without using iManager. You can add, remove, or modify the commands in the script, or retrieve its scripts to search for information from the script. You can issue the command from the command line or in a script. This capability is very useful when you need to make the same script change to multiple resources in a cluster. See ncs_resource_scripts.pl (Modifying Resource Scripts Outside of iManager
in the OES 11 SP2: Novell Cluster Services for Linux Administration Guide.
Some clustered services rely on the eDirectory daemon (ndsd) to be running and available in order to function properly. In this release, NCS provides the ability to monitor the status of the eDirectory daemon (ndsd) at the NCS level. It is disabled by default. The monitor can be set independently on each node. On a node, if the eDirectory daemon does not respond to a status request within a specified timeout period, NCS can take one of three configurable remedy actions: an ndsd restart, a graceful node restart, or a hard node restart. See Configuring NCS to Monitor the eDirectory Daemon
in the OES 11 SP2: Novell Cluster Services for Linux Administration Guide.
You can get a report of logged events that occurred during a specified time range. The time range filter displays events that occurred during the interval of time before a specified date/time and after a specified date/time. The search includes the specified before and after values. For example, you might want to see events that occurred for a cluster resource before the date/time that a failover event was triggered and after the date/time of its previously known good state. See Viewing Events in the Cluster Event Log
in the OES 11 SP2: Novell Cluster Services for Linux Administration Guide.
The DotOutParser utility (/opt/novell/ncs/bin/dotoutparser.pl) prints summaries of failed or incomplete events that have been recorded in a specified /var/opt/novell/log/ncs/ <resource_name>.<script>.out log file. It also prints output (if any) from any commands that failed or got stuck. You can include ignored errors if desired. Line numbers allow you to easily refer the summary output to the source lines in the *.out file. You can omit the line numbers if desired. See DotOutParser Utility
in the OES 11 SP2: Novell Cluster Services for Linux Administration Guide.
The Clusters > My Clusters page in iManager provides the ability to manage the cluster with the IP address of a specified node (preferably the master node) if the master IP address for the Cluster object is experiencing problems. For example, a CIMOM error in iManager can prevent you from connecting to the master IP address, or an IP address conflict can prevent the Master IP Address Resource from coming online. See Viewing or Modifying the Cluster Master IP Address or Port
in the OES 11 SP2: Novell Cluster Services for Linux Administration Guide.
Novell Cluster Services added support for VLAN on NIC bonding. No modifications to scripts are required. You can use ethx or vlanx interfaces in any combination for nodes in a cluster.
Availability for prior releases: September 2013 Scheduled Maintenance for OES 11 SP1
In the DHCP_Template for DHCP cluster resources, the PID file location was changed to /var/lib/dhcp/var/run/dhcpd.pid. This is the location used by DHCP since OES 11 SP1. The change applies automatically to any newly created DHCP cluster resources.
The following line in the load script for the DHCP_Template was modified to use the $MOUNT_POINT variable that is defined at the beginning of the script:
exit_on_error /opt/novell/dhcp/bin/cluster_dhcpd.sh -m $MOUNT_POINT
For information about configuring DHCP cluster resources, see Configuring DHCP with Novell Cluster Services for the Linux File System
in the OES 11 SP3: Novell DNS/DHCP Services for Linux Administration Guide.
Availability for prior releases: The PID path change is available in the May 2013 Scheduled Maintenance for OES 11 SP1.
NCP Server was modified to refresh its OpenSLP registration of cluster resource virtual NCP servers, based on the setting for the eDirectory advertise-life-time (n4u.nds.advertise-life-time) parameter. The n4u.nds.advertise-life-time parameter is set by default to 3600 seconds (1 hour) and has a valid range of 1 to 65535 seconds. Previously, NCP Server re-registered the virtual NCP servers with SLP every 30 minutes regardless of the eDirectory advertise-life-time setting. For information about setting the eDirectory advertise-life-time parameter in a cluster, see SLP
in the OES 11 SP2: Novell Cluster Services for Linux Administration Guide.
Availability for prior releases: May 2013 Scheduled Maintenance for OES 11 and OES 11 SP1
For NCP-enabled LVM volumes, the NSSMU utility and nlvm create linux volume command have been modified to enforce the NCP length restriction of 14 characters, and to use uppercase letters for the name in the Novell Cluster Services cluster resource scripts for a shared LVM volume. Previously, a new LVM volume cluster resource would go comatose immediately after creation if the name specified with the NCP_VOLUME parameter in the script was more than 14 characters or if it included lowercase letters. See Creating an LVM Volume Group Cluster Resource with NSSMU
and Creating an LVM Volume Group Cluster Resource with NLVM Commands
in the OES 11 SP2: Novell Cluster Services for Linux Administration Guide.
Availability for prior releases: November 2012 Scheduled Maintenance for OES 11 SP1
NSS management tools have been modified so that it is not necessary to stop NCS from running in order to disable the Shareable for Clustering setting for a device. The device should not contribute space to an SBD partition or to a shared pool or a cluster-enabled pool that is used in any cluster resource. This change is consistent with how unsharing a device works on OES 2 SP3 and earlier. See Stopping Novell Cluster Services
in the OES 11 SP2: Novell Cluster Services for Linux Administration Guide.
Availability for prior releases: September 2013 Scheduled Maintenance for OES 11 SP1
The Linux Device Mapper - Multipath software deprecated some attributes and modified some default settings for attributes in the /etc/multipath.conf file in SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP3. After upgrading to SLES 11 SP3, the multipathd daemon might not work with your existing multipath configuration file. Ensure that you verify your /etc/multipath.conf file before you start the multipathd daemon after an upgrade to OES 11 SP2. For information about the latest attributes and default settings, see the multipath.conf(5) man page after you install or upgrade the server.
Key changes to the /etc/multipath.conf file:
udev_dir
The udev_dir attribute is deprecated. After you upgrade to SLES 11 SP3, you must remove or comment out the following line from the defaults section of your /etc/multipath.conf file:
udev_dir /dev
getuid_callout
In the defaults section of the /etc/multipath.conf file, the getuid_callout attribute is deprecated and replaced by the uid_attribute attribute. This is a udev attribute that provides a unique path identifier. The default value is ID_SERIAL.
After you upgrade to SLES 11 SP3, modify the attributes in the defaults section of your /etc/multipath.conf file as follows:
Remove or comment out the following line from the defaults section:
getuid_callout "/lib/udev/scsi_id --whitelisted --device=/dev/%n"
Add the following line to the defaults section:
uid_attribute "ID_SERIAL"
path_selector
In the defaults section of the /etc/multipath.conf file, the default value for the path_selector attribute was changed from "round-robin 0" to "service-time 0". The service-time option chooses the path for the next bunch of I/O based on the amount of outstanding I/O to the path and its relative throughput.
After you upgrade to SLES 11 SP3, you can modify the attribute value in the defaults section of your /etc/multipath.conf file to use the recommended default:
path_selector "service-time 0"
user_friendly_names
The user_friendly_names attribute can be configured in the devices section and in the multipaths section.
max_fds
The default setting for the max_fds attribute was changed to max. This allows the multipath daemon to open as many file descriptors as the system allows when it is monitoring paths.
After you upgrade to SLES 11 SP3, you can modify the attribute value in your /etc/multipath.conf file:
max_fds "max"
These key changes are shown in the following defaults section for the /etc/multipath.conf file. This example comments out the old settings and adds the new or revised settings:
defaults {
verbosity 2
# udev_dir is deprecated in SLES 11 SP3
# udev_dir /dev
polling_interval 10
# path_selector default value is service-time in SLES 11 SP3
# path_selector "round-robin 0"
path_selector "service-time 0"
path_grouping_policy "failover"
# getuid_callout is deprecated in SLES 11 SP3 and replaced with uid_attribute
# getuid_callout "/lib/udev/scsi_id --whitelisted --device=/dev/%n"
# uid_attribute is new in SLES 11 SP3
uid_attribute "ID_SERIAL"
prio "const"
prio_args ""
features "0"
path_checker "directio"
alias_prefix "mpath"
# rr_min_io was deprecated in SLES 11 SP2
# rr_min_io 100
# rr_min_io_rq is new in SLES 11 SP2
rr_min_io_rq 1
# max_fds default is max in SLES 11 SP3
# max_fds 8124
max_fds "max"
rr_weight "uniform"
queue_without_daemon "yes"
flush_on_last_del "no"
user_friendly_names "no"
fast_io_fail_tmo 5
bindings_file "/etc/multipath/bindings"
wwids_file "/etc/multipath/wwids"
log_checker_err "always"
retain_attached_hw_handler "no"
detect_prio "no"
failback "manual"
no_path_retry "fail"
}
For information about the requirements, configuration, and management of multipath I/O, see Managing Multipath I/O for Devices
in the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP3 Storage Administration Guide.