Installation Guide Active Circle Storage System Version 4.5 Active Circle

Transcription

1 Installation Guide Active Circle Storage System Version 4.5 Active Circle

2 Installation Guide: Active Circle Storage System Version 4.5 Published September 2016 Revision 3.0 Copyright 2018 Active Circle. All rights reserved. The software described in this document is furnished under a license agreement and may be used only in accordance with the terms of the agreement. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, transcribed, stored in a retrieval system, or translated into any language or computer language, in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, magnetic, optical, chemical, manual, or otherwise without the prior written permission of Active Circle. The Information in this document is subject to change without notice. Active Circle is a registered trademark of Active Circle SA. All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective companies. Active Circle S.A. 26, rue du Faubourg Poissonnière Paris FRANCE Tel:

3 Contents Introduction... v Part I. Prerequisites 1. Hardware Requirements... 1 Active Circle Node Server... 1 Peripherals... 1 Network Requirements... 1 Tape Drives and Libraries Software Requirements... 3 Supported Operating Systems... 3 Disk Space and Partition Considerations... 3 System Partitions and Swap Space... 3 Active Circle Partitions... 4 Operating System Installation... 5 General Installation Options... 5 Required Components... 6 Additional Packages... 7 Operating System Configuration... 8 Disabling Services... 8 Network Configuration Network Protocol Services Modifying the hosts file Language and Locale Disabling the Firewall Disabling SELinux Verifying NTP synchronization Verification and additional tools File System Configuration Local and Shared Partitions Formatting Partitions File System Checking Mounting Partitions Part II. Installing the Software 3. Installing in GNU/Linux Installation File Parameters Installing the First Node Installing Additional Nodes Declaring the Node in the Administration tool Running the installation on the second node Installing Multiple Nodes on a Single Machine (AML) Configuring Nodes in a WAN The Active Circle Service Starting the Active Circle Service Stopping the Active Circle Service Active Circle Service Extension Specifications Implementation The Administration Tool Installation Guide iii

4 Installation Guide Part III. Upgrading the Active Circle Software 6. Upgrading Active Circle Version and Patch Levels Installing the upgrade Part IV. Appendices Appendix A. Network bonding Appendix B. Network Port Ranges Appendix C. Installing the LTFS driver iv Installation Guide

5 Introduction This document provides all the information required for installing and updating the Active Circle storage system. The manual is divided into three parts: Part 1: Hardware and Software Prerequisites Part 2: Installing the Software Part 3: Upgrading the Software The installation package can be downloaded from the Active Circle FTP site. Contact your sales representative for more information. Before proceeding with the installation of the Active Circle software, please read the information provided in the "Prerequisites" part carefully. These chapters contain information essential to the proper configuration of a server prior to installation. For information about the configuration and management of the Active Circle system, please refer to the Active Circle Administration Guide. Installation Guide v

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7 Chapter 1. Hardware Requirements This chapter describes the hardware required to install the Active Circle system. The hardware requirements for an Active Circle system relate to the server systems where the software is to be installed. Active Circle Node Server An Active Circle Node is any server in your network running the Active Circle software, most often a node in your storage network. The software can be installed on any server running GNU/Linux. The table below lists the minimum hardware requirements for the Active Circle system. Element Architecture CPU RAM Networking Controllers Disks Remote Access Optical Drive UPS Configuration X86-32 bits / 64 bits One quad-core processor 32 GB 1-port Gigabit Ethernet internal network 1-port Gigabit Ethernet client interface Dedicated RAID 5 disk controller card, 512 MB Cache (non-volatile) Dedicated Tape Library controller card 8 disks in RAID 5 for the operating system, metadata and cache Dedicated interface to enable remote troubleshooting DVD±RW Uninterruptable power supply Peripherals It is important to make sure that the storage peripherals are compatible with the operating system: You need to install the drivers for all SCSI controllers, Fibre Channel controllers, network controllers, etc. These can be obtained from the manufacturer or from the distributor of the operating system. For SAN devices, you should use the drivers from the manufacturer instead of drivers supplied with the operating system. If you are using LTFS tape drives, you need to install the LTFS drivers on all the Active Circle nodes which have access to the tape library. For more information, see Appendix C, Installing the LTFS driver. Verify the Hardware Compatibility List (HCL) of the operating system. These verifications are especially important if you intend to use specific functionality such as hardware partitioning of a drive, virtual network interfaces, Fibre Channel multipathing, etc. Network Requirements Concerning the network configuration, Active Circle recommends the following: Installation Guide 1

8 Chapter 1. Hardware Requirements Ethernet 1 Gb/s Full Duplex for a LAN 2 Mb/s for a WAN connection between sites Where possible, you should provide two network interfaces for each node, each with its own IP configuration. This allows for optimizing the data flow by dividing it in two: One interface dedicated to communication and replication between nodes (metadata) The other dedicated to client access to the shares. Important Time Sychronization (NTP): All the nodes in a Circle must be synchronized with the same external time source via the Network Time Protocol (NTP), making sure that it is visible to all the nodes through your firewall. You can also use a router for synchronization as long as it supports NTP and is synchronized with a reliable source. Tape Drives and Libraries A tape library must be defined with the appropriate SCSI ID's for its various elements. Boot order: 1. Switch on the library first and wait until its initialization is complete 2. Start the server 3. Start the Active Circle service Testing the connections: Verify that the peripherals have been properly detected: cat /proc/scsi/scsi or the command lsscsi -g Carry out a mount/read/unmount test of the media on the drives. Check for any errors in the system logs: /var/log/messages 2 Installation Guide

9 Chapter 2. Software Requirements This chapter describes the software required to install the Active Circle system. The procedures for installing the software on each of the supported operating systems are described in the following sections of this document. Supported Operating Systems The Active Circle software is developed on the Java platform and by default installs its own runtime environment. The currently supported operating systems are: Operating System GNU/Linux GNU/Linux Minimum Version CentOS Linux 6 (free distribution) Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 (commercial distribution) The following sections describe the requirements and recommendations for the operating system, the installation options, and the system configuration necessary for running the Active Circle sofware. Disk Space and Partition Considerations There are two categories of partitions to consider; the system partitions and the partitions reserved for Active Circle. System Partitions and Swap Space The sizes of the operating system partitions will vary according to the configuration, the below are recommended sizes: Mount Point Size Type /boot 100 MB ext2 / 60 GB ext3/ext4 (None) SWAP = (2 x CELLMEM + 4GB) # RAM swap Important The use of LVM volumes is not supported with Active Circle. Swap Space Calculation The required swap space depends on the RAM of the system and the node heap memory (CELLMEM) you want to allocate. The formula shown in the tabble above means that the virtual system memory (meaning the combined size of the server RAM and its swap space) should be at least twice the node heap memory plus 4 GB. The Active Circle setup program will check if the defined swap area is sufficient, according to this equation. If it is not, Active Circle setup will automatically attempt to create a swap file under the Active Circle cache directory. Installation Guide 3

10 Chapter 2. Software Requirements Example 2.1. Calculating required swap space In this example, the server configuration has 16 GB of RAM and you want a swap space for the operating system of 2 GB. During the Active Circle installation, you want to allocate 7 GB of node heap memory (CELLMEM). Using the formula: SWAP requirement = (2x7 + 4) # 16 = 2 The result means the swap space needs to be 2 GB. This is what has already been planned, so no increase is necessary. If the formula had rendered a figure greater than your current/ planned swap space, you (or Active Circle setup) would have to increase overall swap space to at least match this figure. Example 2.2. Maximum node heap memory allocation for a given virtual memory size In this example, the server has 20 GB of virtual memory (16 GB of RAM plus 4 GB of swap space). What is the maximum possible node heap memory allocation (CELLMEM) without increasing the swap space? Rearranging and using the formula: CELLMEM = (RAM + SWAP # 4GB) / 2 CELLMEM = ( # 4) / 2 = 8 This means that any node heap memory allocation exceeding 8 GB would require an increase in swap space. Active Circle Partitions The partitions to be reserved for Active Circle can be created after the installation of the operating system. Careful consideration should be taken in deciding the size of these partitions, as they will depend on the expected usage. Please consult with an Active Circle systems engineer before creating these partitions. The mount points being used are /activecircle and /cache for the system, and /data1, /data2, etc. for the data partitions (names used in this guide, you may use other names). The data partitions can be local or shared partitions. These partitions need to be formatted with special options which are described under File System Configuration. Examples of Active Circle partition sizes and considerations: /activecircle /cache Minimum 100 GB to more than 500 GB. Consider the total number of files and their size for the whole system. The needed size for the metadata volume depends on the amount of files (or versions of files in case the versioning functionality is used) that will be archived: 100 GB for up to 10 million files 300 GB for up to 50 million files 500 GB for up to 100 million files If the archiving need is more than 100 million files, please consult with Active Circle. 200 GB to more than 4 TB, depending on the usage: The cache should be large enough to hold 1,5 times the total volume of files read and written in the short term (1 to 7 days). If very large files are being stored (hundreds of gigabytes), the cache must hold at least 1,5 times the size of the largest files that will be deposited. 4 Installation Guide

11 Chapter 2. Software Requirements In a configuration with tape archiving without disk storage, the cache holds all the data waiting to be archived. /data1, /data2... Minimum 1 TB maximum 16 TB. You can create several data partitions if you need (the names shown here are examples). Consider the expected disk storage volume. Each of these mount points will be declared in the system and attached to an Active Circle disk pool. Each data partition should correspond to a disk volume, and each volume should be exclusively reserved for Active Circle use. For shared storage in a SAN environment, a shared partition must fill the whole volume of a dedicated LUN, as the device SCSI ID is used to identify the volume the partition is located on. Note The sizes of partitions given above are examples and should be adjusted according to the configuration of your system. Operating System Installation To make Active Circle work properly and most efficiently, certain operating system components need to be installed. Other options need to be removed or disabled. This section describes which options to include and exclude before installing Active Circle. The order of installation and package naming below are based on CentOS Linux 6 and apply in general, although software package names and categories may vary between different operating system distributions. The components listed may also be added, deleted or configured after the operating system has been installed, using the operating system's built-in functionality for adding and removing software (there are some general instructions for this at the end of this section). General Installation Options Language: English Keyboard: Your keyboard Storage: Basic Storage Devices Note If you will be installing SAN devices, you should use the drivers from the manufacturer of the SAN system instead of the generic drivers that come with the operating system. Therefore you should always select Basic Storage Devices during the installation of the operating system. Hostname: Server name (if known, can be skipped during installation) Network Configuration: Manual Configuration (may be performed after installation, as described below). The general setup for the network is the following: Define a fixed IP address with hostname, gateway and DNS server Deactivate IPv6 Installation Guide 5

12 Chapter 2. Software Requirements Deactivation of NetworkManager recommended Bonding is supported (see Appendix A, Network bonding) If multiple network adapters are configured, it is possible to reserve one adapter for replication and metadata transfers (this implies some limitations, and you should consult with an Active Circle engineer to obtain the most suitable configuration) Hard drive partitioning: Create Custom Layout (see Disk Space and Partition Considerations for recommended settings) Bootloader: Use default settings Software Components: Minimal installation with the selection of specific components and packages as listed in the next section. Date and Time: Enable Network Time Protocol (NTP) Specify at least two time servers with the same source, and make sure the same time servers are configured on all the Active Circle node servers Create user for remote support: User name: acsupport User type: non-administrative This user will be used by Active Circle Support to perform remote maintenance Security: Disable Firewall and SELinux if the option is presented during installation. Required Components When installing one of the supported distributions of GNU/Linux, use the custom software selection mode, which lets you select the components and packages to install. The basic installaton type should be Minimal. Then add components and packages according to the table below. Table 2.1. Components and packages to install Subsystem Component Package Base System Base Console Internet Tools Directory Client Legacy Unix compatibility Network file system client Networking tools Performance Tools dos2unix zsh ftp lftp openldap-clients ksh telnet (no optional packages) arptables arpwatch iptraf nc stunnel wireshark sg3_utils 6 Installation Guide

13 Chapter 2. Software Requirements Subsystem Component Package Servers Backup Server System administration tools mt-st mtx lsscsi tree System Management SNMP Support (no optional packages) Desktops Desktop Fonts Graphical Admin. Tools Remote Desktop Clients X Window System (no optional packages) (no optional packages) (no optional packages) rdesktop tigervnc tsclient vinagre (no optional packages) Applications Internet Browser (no optional packages) Development Development tools make gcc If you use another operating system than CentOS Linux 6, the names and structure of the subsystems, components and packages may be different. In any case you should make sure you install the equivalent functionality in the Linux version you use. The required file system utilities are normally installed by default by the operating system, and are not specifically listed above. You should verify that your distribution contains necessary packages like e4fsprogs or e2fsprogs (or equivalent). Installing software packages You can also install packages after the operating system has been installed. To add or verify a software package, you can use the operating system's application for searching, adding and removing software. You may also use the command line interface directly to manage packages. The main commands for installing and verifying software packages on various distributions are listed below. These commands also let you verify if the package is installed properly and in which version. Fedora, RedHat, CentOS: yum install packagename Debian, Ubuntu: apt-get install packagename OpenSUSE, SUSE Linux Enterprise: zypper install packagename Additional Packages Implementations based on the Debian and SuSE distributions may require the installation of the following additional packages. For any distribution, you should verify that these have been installed. LSB (Linux Standard Base, named redhat-lsb on Fedora, lsb-base, lsb-core and lsb-release on Debian). The tcsh shell Installation Guide 7

14 Chapter 2. Software Requirements The commands bzip2, tail, head, grep and sed The which command. Install the GNU version for any distributions based on Debian (Ubuntu, etc.). Link: ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/which/ For information on how to verify or install packages, see above. The source files for specific Debian/Suse distributions can be found at the following web sites: or Operating System Configuration Several system settings need to be customized for use with Active Circle. This includes services, networking, security options and time servers. This can be done during operating system installation, manually or through an installation script, after the first boot, or by using configuration tools and commands on the system after installation. The following items will need to be configured as described in the sections below: Disabling Services Network Configuration Network Protocol Services Modifying the hosts file Language and Locale Disabling the Firewall Disabling SELinux Verifying NTP synchronization Verification and additional tools Tip To maintain firewall protection, the range of ports used by Active Circle can be authorised on the firewall. For more information, see Appendix B, Network Port Ranges. Disabling Services The following is a list of components which should not be running on the system where you want to install the Active Circle software. If you have followed the installation steps in the previous sections, some of these are already disabled or not installed on your system, and for those no action needs to be taken. Services on this list that are installed and running need to be disabled (see instructions below the table). Table 2.2. Services and components to deactivate Type of service Network services Service name ifplugd openvpn avahi (avahi-daemon) portmap ip6tables 8 Installation Guide

15 Chapter 2. Software Requirements Type of service Mail server Web server SELinux package Other Service name NFS server FTP server Samba server NetworkManager* sendmail postfix httpd* setroubleshoot bluetooth cups kdump yum-updatesd *Notes: NetworkManager: Active Circle recommends configuring networking without NetworkManager. Manual configuration using the network interface configuration files is described below. httpd: Active Circle installs its own web server using port 80. Other web servers should therefore be disabled on a dedicated Active Circle node server. If you need to run another web server on the node in addition to the Active Circle web server, you should configure other ports to work with that web server. To verify if a service is running, use this command: service servicename status Example: service bluetooth status To stop a running service, type: service servicename stop If you receive the message error reading information on service xxxxxx: No such file or directory, you can ignore it. It simply means the service cannot be disabled because it is not installed. Disabling services using CHKCONFIG Instead of just stopping services in the current session, you should prevent the services from starting when the operating system starts. The command to verify and change the start-up behaviour (runlevel) of a service is called chkconfig. Checking the service runlevel: chkconfig --list servicename Example: chkconfig --list bluetooth If any of the runlevels (1 through 6) listed by the command have the value "on", the service is defined to start automatically when the system starts. Use this command to permanently turn off a service: chkconfig servicename off Examples: chkconfig avahi-daemon off chkconfig bluetooth off chkconfig kdump off Installation Guide 9

16 Chapter 2. Software Requirements chkconfig NetworkManager off chkconfig sendmail off chkconfig setroubleshoot off chkconfig yum-updatesd off service portmap stop chkconfig portmap off You need to reboot the machine for these changes to take effect. Network Configuration Active Circle recommends configuring networking on the server to not use NetworkManager. Instead, networking should be configured by editing the network interface configuration file: /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 where eth0 is the name of the interface being used. The information in this file should specify a static (fixed) IP address and disable NetworkManager (NM_CONTROLLED=no). The following values should be set: DEVICE=eth0 HWADDR=XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX NM_CONTROLLED=no ONBOOT=yes TYPE=Ethernet BOOTPROTO=static IPADDR=xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx NETMASK=xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx GATEWAY=xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx DNS1=xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx IPV6INIT=no USERCTL=no Replace xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx with the proper IP addresses for your network. Verify that the file /etc/sysconfig/network contains the following lines: NETWORKING=yes HOSTNAME=XXXXXXXXX If the hostname is not already specified in this file, you should add it. The GATEWAY may be specified in this file to apply to all the network interfaces instead of in each individual interface configuration file. Restart the networking service in order for the changes to take effect: service network restart Note Bonding is supported (see Appendix A, Network bonding). If multiple network adapters are configured, it is possible to reserve one adapter for replication and metadata transfers (this implies some limitations, and you should consult with an Active Circle engineer to obtain the most suitable configuration). 10 Installation Guide

17 Chapter 2. Software Requirements Network Protocol Services Since the Active Circle system implements its own version of the protocols CIFS, NFS, and FTP, it is recommended that the following services be deactivated if they have been installed. Samba server FTP server NFS server NFS port mapping Running any of these services on a node may prevent Active Circle from functioning properly. Important The presence of an NFS mount point in the file /etc/fstab can cause the local portmap service to start regardless of its configuration. In order to prevent this, you must use the noauto option on the NFS mount point in /etc/fstab. Modifying the hosts file The hosts file is used by the operating system to map hostnames to IP addresses. It is normally located in /etc/hosts. You should modify this file by replacing the default line (that starts with ::1) and the localhost line by the following: localhost.localdomain localhost xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx hostname where hostname is the name of the server and xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx is the IP address of the network interface in use. You can verify the hostname by typing hostname at the command line. Note If you need to change the hostname, modify it in the files /etc/hosts and / etc/sysconfig/network. Restart the server for the changes to take effect. Language and Locale The system-level character encoding must be UTF-8. You can check the value using the command: echo $LANG. This variable is located in the following file: In a CentOS/RedHat system: /etc/sysconfig/i18n We recommend adding the variable LANG=en_US.UTF-8 to the above file if it doesn't exist. On GNU/Linux, the Active Circle installation program forces the system LANG variable to UTF-8. To verify that the changes have been made, run the command locale. Disabling the Firewall For Active Circle to function properly, the firewall should be disabled on the system. To do this, execute the following commands on the command line: Installation Guide 11

18 Chapter 2. Software Requirements chkconfig iptables off chkconfig ip6tables off The chkconfig command will prevent the services from starting when the system starts. Next, you need to edit the file /etc/sysconfig/system-config-firewall. In this file, replace the value --enabled with --disabled. Verify that the modifications have taken effect by executing the following command: systemconfig-firewall. This will run the firewall configuration program, which should display the status The firewall is disabled. Disabling SELinux For Active Circle to function properly, the SELinux component should be disabled on the system. To do this, you need to edit the file /etc/selinux/config. In this file, replace the line SELINUX=enforcing with SELINUX=disabled. Note For the change to the SELinux configuration to take effect, you must reboot the computer. After a system restart, you can verify that the modifications have taken effect by executing the following command: sestatus. This should return the following status message: SELinux status: disabled Verifying NTP synchronization Important The time synchronization service ntpd (the Network Time Protocol daemon) is essential. All of the nodes in your Circle MUST be synchronized to the same NTP time server in order for the Active Circle file system to function correctly. Check if ntpd is configured to start automatically at server start-up, using chkconfig: chkconfig --list ntpd ntpd 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off If the output looks like above, with runlevel 3 to 5 enabled, ntpd start-up is correctly configured. If not, run this command to enable it: chkconfig --level 345 ntpd on Verify that ntp synchronization is active, using the command ntpq -p: ntpq -p remote refid st t when poll reach delay... ================================================================== i u eriador.org u Installation Guide

19 Chapter 2. Software Requirements *ntp.rack66.net u gollum.eriador u There should be an asterisk (*) in front of a reliable time server, and this server should not have a higher stratum value (column st) than any of the other servers (lower is better). The signs in the first column mean: * is the server currently being used + is a possible time synchronization candidate # is a server that has been eliminated by the server selection algorithm A server without a sign in front is either inaccessible or offline If this is not the case, verify that the time servers are accessible using ping. If the servers are not accessible, you should add a list of reliable time servers to the file /etc/ntp.conf, for example: server server-time.com server chronos.dtc.eu Apply the change to the system by restarting the ntpd service: /etc/init.d/ntpd restart You can force synchronizaton with a server using this command: ntpdate -u server_name Verification and additional tools To verify the communication between the nodes you are about to install Active Circle on, you can use these commands: ifconfig ping It is recommended to install additional software such as FileZilla and NX to provide remote access to the system for product support purposes. Reboot the system and check that the network configuration is working properly before proceeding to install Active Circle. Installation Guide 13

20 Chapter 2. Software Requirements File System Configuration This section describes how to configure the file systems on the partitions to be used by the Active Circle software for maximum performance. This configuration should be performed prior to the installation of the Active Circle software. Active Circle recommends using the ext4 file system in GNU/Linux for improved performance. Local and Shared Partitions The Active Circle Storage System implements two types of storage partitions (the partitions being referred to as /data1 and /data2 in this manual): Local Partition: File system partitions on disk storage which is attached directly to a specific Active Circle node server. Local partitions will be included in a local disk pool that is only available to the node the storage device is attached to. A local partition is defined and mounted on the local server by the operating system when the server starts. The /activecircle and /cache partitions will always be defined and mounted as local partitions. Shared Partition: Shared partitions are file system partitions located on disk volumes in a SAN architecture or available as exported NFS volumes. Shared partitions need to be included in shared disk pools for use in Active Circle, and they will be available to all the nodes that belong to the shared pool. Shared partitions are defined in a similar way to local partitions, but they are not mounted by the operating system when the server starts. Mounting of shared partitions is handled automatically by the Active Circle software on the server that the system selects as the leader node in the shared disk pool. Formatting Partitions Local and shared partitions can be formatted and labeled using the same options, as described below. One of the important differences is that shared partitions should not be mounted, neither manually nor during server start up. Creation and configuration of shared partitions can be done from any server with access to the shared storage, and possibly through the administration interface of the shared storage (SAN) device. In the following procedures, the differences between local and shared partition setup will be noted where appropriate. Important When creating shared partitions, each partition must correspond to a LUN representing a single disk volume. Active Circle uses SCSI IDs (and the SCSI commands RESERVE and RELEASE) to manage access to shared partitions, which means that each partition must correspond to a separate device (or a device mapping in a multipath environment). The shared disk volumes must not be divided into further partitions using the operating system, as multiple partitions per volume is not allowed for shared storage configurations in Active Circle. The whole volume must be reserved for Active Circle use, so the partitions should be the size of each volume. 14 Installation Guide

21 Chapter 2. Software Requirements Formatting Partitions to ext4 using mkfs In the following commands, the disk volume device is indicated by the letters v-z). /activecircle: mkfs t ext4 i L /activecircle /dev/sdv /cache: mkfs t ext4 i L /cache /dev/sdw /datan: mkfs -t ext4 -j -i L /data1 /dev/sdx mkfs -t ext4 -j -i L /data2 /dev/sdy mkfs -t ext4 -j -i L /data3 /dev/sdz (add more as needed) You can also use equivalent commands like mkfs.ext4 or mke4fs with corresponding options. Whenever you have formatted and labeled shared partitions, you must restart all the server machines (except the current one) that are supposed to access the partitions. The labels of the shared partitions will only be available to the other servers after they have been restarted. Important In the above example, if the partitions labeled /data1 or /data2 are shared partitions in a SAN environment, you must make sure that the label names are unique for the whole system. You cannot have several shared partitions (devices) with the same label on the network, unless you have a properly configured multipath environment where the label can refer to several devices through device mapping. The label must always refer to the same physical storage space. Formatting Partitions to ext3 While Active Circle recommends using the ext4 file system for optimum performance, you can also use ext3 partitions if your operating system does not have proper support for ext4. /activecircle: mkfs.ext3 -O dir_index i L /activecircle /dev/sdv /cache: mkfs.ext3 -O dir_index i (0)* -L /cache /dev/sdw (* if average file size is larger than 30 MB, otherwise ) /datan: mkfs.ext3 -O dir_index i m 1 -L /datan -T largefile4 / dev/sdx Whenever you have formatted and labeled shared partitions, you must restart all the server machines (except the current one) that are supposed to access the partitions. The labels of the shared partitions will only be available to the other servers after they have been restarted. Installation Guide 15

22 Chapter 2. Software Requirements Note By default, five percent of a newly created partition is reserved for use by the root user. For pure data partitions, this is just lost space. The option -m 1 sets the value of reserved space to 1% instead of 5% by default. File System Checking In configurations with many large shared partitions, automatically forced full file system checks may take a long time, especially if several partitions are checked at the same time. This can have a serious negative impact on system performance and availability. It is therefore strongly recommended to configure the partitions to minimize both the frequency and the concurrence of such full checks. The checking is performed using the fsck utility. To set the options for when fsck should run full checks, use the tune2fs command with the -c and -i options: Partition 1: Partition 2: Partition 3: Partition nn: Explanation of the options: tune2fs -c 200 -i 200d /device/path1 tune2fs -c 201 -i 201d /device/path2 tune2fs -c 203 -i 203d /device/path3 tune2fs -c 2nn -i 2nnd /devicepath_nn -c Specifies the number of mounts between each file system check by fsck -i Specifies the number of days between each file system check by fsck As shown in the command examples, the values should be staggered for each partition, to avoid several partitions being checked at the same time. Run the tune2fs command for as many partitions as you need, while increasing the values by one for each partition. The settings specified above will make sure that an automatic forced full check on a partition will only be performed if there are at least 200 mounts or 200 days since the last check. The system will still perform a regular file system check using fsck every time a shared partition is reserved. If errors are found, a forced full check will be initiated or the administrator will be notified. Mounting Partitions Important In this section, all references to the data partitions (/data1, /data2) apply only to local partitions. Shared data partitions should never be mounted manually, nor be defined in the fstab file. Create the mount points (you can create as many data partitions as you need): mkdir /activecircle mkdir /cache mkdir /data1 (only if local partition) mkdir /data2 (only if local partition) You should place entries in the file /etc/fstab to mount the Active Circle partitions automatically when the operating system starts up (local partitions only). 16 Installation Guide

23 Chapter 2. Software Requirements When mounting the Active Circle partitions, the noatime option should be used for the partitions /activecircle and /cache. This option disables the updating of the last access time of the files, thereby avoiding the rewriting of their inodes each time the files are read. Active Circle entries for local partitions in /etc/fstab: LABEL=/activecircle /activecircle ext4 noatime 1 2 LABEL=/cache /cache ext4 noatime 1 2 LABEL=/data1 /data1 ext4 defaults 1 2 LABEL=/data2 /data2 ext4 defaults 1 2 If the file systems do not have labels, or in some SAN configurations (with "zoning"), you should specify the name of the device corresponding to the disk volume (x, y, n and z are variables that should be substituted depending on your disk configuration): /dev/sdxn /activecircle auto noatime 2 2 /dev/sdyn /cache auto noatime 2 4 /dev/sdz1 /data1 auto defaults 2 3 If the volume being referred to by the last line (containing "/data1") in the box above is a SAN volume, the line should only be included if the partition is not going to be shared. Installation Guide 17

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25 Chapter 3. Installing in GNU/Linux Installation File Parameters The installation distribution package is a binary file using this naming convention: ac[version]px-lin.bin where "[version]" is the Active Circle distribution version and "x" is the patch level of the release ("lin" indicates GNU/Linux). For example, a file named ac4.0.0.p1-lin.bin would be the installation file for Active Circle version 4.0.0, patch level 1 for GNU/Linux. Table 3.1. Active Circle Installation Parameters Option Function -s Install as a service. Active Circle will start automatically on start-up of the server. -f Force installation, do not ask for confirmation -t NAS temporary directory, or Cache. This location must exist. Default is /tmp for a new installation. -l Lower-case 'L'. Locate other nodes. List of IP addresses separated by a comma. The addresses will be written to the file /activecircle/.localvars on the node server (for more information, see Configuring Nodes in a WAN ). NB: the node list MUST NOT include the current node or localhost. -m node heap memory in MB (must not be greater than 75% of available memory). The default value is p Circle pack size in MB. The default value is 32. It can not be changed after the circle creation. Possible values: 8, 16, 32, 64, 128 or k Installation key for a new node. Required when adding a new node to an existing Circle (not used for the first node of a circle) -i Installation directory for Active Circle and its metadata -c The name of the new node. The node name is the identifier of the storage server in Active Circle, and it is usually the hostname of the server system. -d The name of the domain (and optionally sub-domain) to create. The new node will be added to this domain. If you want to create a sub-domain and add the node to it, specify the domain parameter in the following format, using a period as domain separator: -d sub-domain.domain -S Upper-case 'S'. Service name (default: activecircle). Used for multiple installations on the same server (GNU/Linux only) -r Perform upgrade of an already installed server -u Uninstall service script -v Show distribution version information Installation Guide 19

26 Chapter 3. Installing in GNU/Linux The installation file does not require a package management program such as RPM or DEB. It is recommended that you copy the installation file to the server where you intend to install the software for performance reasons. Important Verify that the installation file can be executed. Run this command to make it executable: chmod +x ac4.0.0p1-lin.bin Installing the First Node Setting up a circle involves installing two or more Active Circle nodes. The first node is installed independently, while the second node needs to be created through the first node and then be installed on the other server using a reference obtained at the first node. The installation of the first node allows you to define a number of general parameters that will apply to your Circle. Consequently, the installation process differs slightly from that of the subsequent nodes. Note The installation or upgrade procedure will be aborted: if there is less than 100 MB of free space available for the temporary directory (cache) if the MD5 integrity check of the installed files returns an error. Running the Initial Installation Copy the installation package file to the server you are installing the software on. Open a terminal window, change to the directory to which you copied the installation file and run the following command (replacing the parameter values according to your needs):./ac4.0.0p1-lin.bin -s -i /activecircle -m t /cache -d SubDomain- A1.Domain-A -c node-01 The parameters are explained in the previous section. The output will confirm the values of the parameters you specified: Setup Installation path: /activecircle Node name : node-01 Domain name : SubDomain-A1.Domain-A Circle pack size : 32 Startup script : on NAS temp dir : /cache Node heap memory : 4000 MB Locale : en_us.utf-8 Do you want to continue? [yes or no] 20 Installation Guide

27 Chapter 3. Installing in GNU/Linux If the information is correct, type yes and press Enter. Type no and press Enter to stop the installation. The following lines (or something very similar) appear: Installing Active Circle Linux version Machine hardware name: x86_64 Processor type : x86_64 Hardware platform : x86_64 Installing x86_64 Active Circle version Third-party product licenses installed in /activecircle/licenses. Active Circle Node setup I Starting... A series of messages will appear detailing the progress of the installation. When it is finished, you will see: I Node setup succeeded Active Circle setup completed To start Active Circle, type "service activecircle start" Or if it is a Debian-based distribution: I Node setup succeeded Active Circle setup completed To start Active Circle, type "/etc/init.d/activecircle start" For information about how to log in to Active Circle see Chapter 5, The Administration Tool Installing Additional Nodes Important Before installing the Active Circle software to a new node, you must first declare the new node in the Active Circle Administration Tool. When you add a new node to a Circle, a unique key to identify that node is generated by the system. This key is required when installing the software for a new node. Declaring the Node in the Administration tool Make sure Active Circle is already running on the initial node you installed. 1. Start the Active Circle Administration interface on the system where the first node is installed: /activecircle/admin/bin/admin & 2. Log on to an administrator session: Installation Guide 21

28 Chapter 3. Installing in GNU/Linux Login: admin Password: 1234 (default, see the Active Circle Administration Guide for how to change this) 3. Create the second node: In the Nodes view, expand the domains tree. Right-click on the domain or sub-domain of the first node and select Create a Node from the context menu. Type the name of the new node and validate with the OK button. A key value is displayed by the application. Please keep this key (copy it by rightclicking on it with the mouse). Tip The Active Circle Administration Tool can also be started from any client system using a web browser. For more information, see Chapter 5, The Administration Tool. Running the installation on the second node Copy the Active Circle installation package file (the same as was used for installing the first node) to the server you are installing the software on. Open a terminal window on the server and execute the following command, replacing the parameter values according to your needs: 22 Installation Guide

29 Chapter 3. Installing in GNU/Linux./ac4.0.0.p1-lin.bin -s -i /activecircle -t /cache -m k [keyvalue] The keyvalue for the option -k is the unique key provided by the Administration tool during creation of the node you are installing on. The rest of the installation proceeds as described above in Running the Initial Installation. At the end of the process, you should receive the messages Node setup succeeded and Active Circle setup completed. You can use the Administration tool to check that you can access the newly created resources. For more information on how to configure nodes, please refer to the Active Circle Administration Guide. Installing Multiple Nodes on a Single Machine (AML) It is possible to install and run multiple Active Circle nodes to a single server. To do this, you must follow a specific installation procedure and conform to certain constraints when managing these nodes. This procedure applies to the product Active Media Library (AML). Note In Active Media Library (AML) configurations, you need to create an addtional partition for storing the metadata of the second node (since both nodes will be running on the same server). Name of partition: /bckactivecircle This partition should be configured the same way as the /activecircle partition (size, formatting, mounting and fstab entry). Constraints for Running Multiple nodes The installation of an additional node is only possible if you have previously run a standard installation on the target server; that is, without the option -S (upper-case 'S'). When installing the additional node(s), you must use the option -S to provide a name for the Active Circle service. As the first instance of Active Circle will have the default service name (activecircle), you must provide another name for the service, for example bckactivecircle (the name must not contain a space). All installations must use the same Java Run-time Environment. When upgrading, all the installations must be done at the same time in order for the links between installations (Java) to be re-established. Installation Examples When installing the initial node to the server, you must perform a standard installation (as described in Installing the first node above). For example:./ac4.0.0.p1-lin.bin -s -i /activecircle -m t /cache -d AML -c activenode Once you have installed the first node, you will first need to declare the additional node in the normal way through the Administration Tool as described under Installing addtional nodes. You can for example call this node backupnode The installation command for an additional node would resemble the following: Installation Guide 23

30 Chapter 3. Installing in GNU/Linux./ac4.0.0.p1-lin.bin -i /activecircle -m k keyvalue -s -S bckactivecircle Note Upgrade Examples The additional node uses the option -S (upper-case 'S') followed by a servicename argument. Remember that this name must be something other than activecircle. You must upgrade all the nodes on an individual server simultaneously. To do so, you would first upgrade the initial, standard installation (the one with the service name activecircle). This process is described in detail in Chapter 6, Upgrading Active Circle. An example command is provided below:./ac4.0.0p5-lin.bin -r When upgrading any additonal nodes on the server, you must do so by using the option - S service-name. For example:./ac4.0.0.p5-lin.bin -r -S active-circle-service-name Configuring Nodes in a WAN When nodes are located in different sub-networks and the routers forbid multicasting (which is typically the case in a WAN configuration), the nodes cannot be automatically recognized. To resolve this, you need to define the list of all the nodes of the Circle on each node. In a GNU/Linux environment, this is done by modifying the file /activecircle/.locators. The IP addresses of all the nodes of the Circle (except for the current server and localhost) must be listed between quotes and separated by commas. Example 3.1. Declaring IP addresses in /activecircle/.locators The following servers make up a circle of Active Circle nodes: and The first two servers are in a different subnet ( x) than the third ( x). On the server , this should be declared the following way in /activecircle/.locators, (remembering not to include the IP address of the current server): setenv LOCATORS , You can also specify the other nodes in a Circle with the -l option during installation (see Table 3.1, Active Circle Installation Parameters above). If you used the -l option during the installation of all your nodes, the /activecircle/.locators file on each server should already contain the necessary IP addresses. 24 Installation Guide

31 Chapter 4. The Active Circle Service Starting the Active Circle Service After installation, the service must be started manually as described below. After the initial start, the Active Circle service should start automatically every time the node is restarted. If you have not installed Active Circle as a service, you must start the service manually using the second command described below. In Red Hat or CentOS environments, you can execute the command: service activecircle start In any GNU/Linux environment, you can execute the command: /etc/init.d/activecircle start Important You must start the service as root. If you do not, certain features will not be available, for example Shares and HA Cluster Services. Stopping the Active Circle Service To stop the service, use the command that corresponds to your environment: In Red Hat or CentOS environments, you can execute the command: service activecircle stop. In any GNU/Linux environment, you can execute the command: /etc/init.d/activecircle stop. Active Circle Service Extension Service extensions allow system administrators to configure a sequence of scripts to be executed immediately after the start-up of a node and/or immediately before shutting it down. This adds possibilities for users of the Active Circle storage system beyond basic mounting or unmounting shares. For example, it can be used at the start-up of the node to run preliminary tests on the state of shares to perform network tasks such as firewall, routing, or multicast configuration; the availability of hardware such as tape libraries; or to perform statistical analysis on Circle activity. At shutdown, it can be used for checking jobs, checking the number of exceptions, warnings, and errors, to name just a few possibilities. Important This system should not be used for running interactive commands requiring user input because the output is sent directly to a log file. When using this feature to run Active Circle commands, it is important to have previously run acconfig in order to configure the user login and password information and defined the default node and share against which to run the commands. Otherwise, the service start-up Installation Guide 25

32 Chapter 4. The Active Circle Service will wait for user input. For more information about the commands, please refer to the Active Circle Command Line Guide. Specifications The system works by executing the files located in particular directories. They are: [INSTALL_DIR]/service.d/start [INSTALL_DIR]/service.d/stop The executable files located in the start directory are executed AFTER the start-up of the Active Circle. The executable files located in the stop directory are executed BEFORE the shutdown of the node. Note Running the command service activecircle start (or its equivalent) on a node that is already running will not trigger the execution of the files in the start directory. Similarly, running the command service activecircle stop (or its equivalent) on a node that is stopped will not trigger the execution of the files in the stop directory. There are some constraints on which files are executed and how: Implementation The system supports any type of executable: script, command line, C program, Java program, etc. Only executable files are taken into account by the system. Clients can therefore store older versions of their scripts in sub-directories, if they so choose. Any executables found in sub-directories will not be executed. Executable files must not have spaces in their names. Files are executed sequentially according to their alphanumeric order in the directory. Files with names ending in a tilde "~" are ignored. For each file executed a line is displayed with the status of the operation (success or failure) depending on the return code. If one of the executables terminates with a return code other than 0 (zero), all subsequent commands are ignored and one of the following messages is displayed: Error executing service extension startup scripts (subsequent scripts won't be executed). Error executing service extension shutdown scripts (subsequent scripts won't be executed). This does not have an effect on the start-up or shutdown of the node. Perform these steps to implement the service extensions: 1. Create the directories for the executables: [INSTALL_DIR]/service.d/start [INSTALL_DIR]/service.d/stop [INSTALL_DIR]/service.d/logs 26 Installation Guide

33 Chapter 4. The Active Circle Service 2. Copy the executable files to the appropriate directories. Make sure that the files are executable, that they are in the proper (alphabetic) order of execution, and that their names respect the constraints listed above. The next time you use the command service activecircle start stop restart, the system will launch the scripts accordingly. The log files will be written to the directory [INSTALL_DIR]/service.d/logs and the name of each log file will begin with the run date. Installation Guide 27

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35 Chapter 5. The Administration Tool After the installation, you can verify that it is functioning properly by logging in. There are two ways you can access the Active Circle application: either by launching the client directly on the server where a Node is installed, or by using the web client. In GNU/Linux, you can run the start-up script /activecircle/admin/bin/admin. To access the web client, open a web browser, and enter the address of the server running the Active Circle software: The following page appears: Figure 5.1. Active Circle Web Page Click on Administration to launch the Administration Tool. Note To run the Administration Tool via a web browser, you must have the Java Web Start plug-in installed. If you do not have the plug-in, you can download it by clicking on the Java icon located at the bottom of the web page. Tip If you are connecting from a Microsoft Windows machine that is running the Windows firewall, be aware that this can sometimes interfere with the Administration Tool application. If this is the case, you should add the application to the list of exceptions in the firewall. Installation Guide 29

36 Chapter 5. The Administration Tool After launching the application, a message appears while the application searches for the requested Node. If a node is found, the login dialog appears: Figure 5.2. Login Dialog Active Circle has a built-in administrative account: admin with a default password of Enter these credentials and click OK. The Active Circle Administration Tool opens: Figure 5.3. Administration Tool Important For reasons of security, you should change the default password for the "admin" account. 30 Installation Guide

37 Chapter 6. Upgrading Active Circle This chapter describes how to perform an upgrade of the Active Circle software. The upgrade procedure depends on whether the upgrade is a new version or a patch. Version and Patch Levels Important All the Nodes of a Circle must be running the same major version of the Active Circle application. For example, you cannot have one Node running version and another running Consequently, to upgrade from one major version to another, you must first shut down all the Nodes in the Circle, upgrade the software on each server, and then restart the Nodes. While it is not possible to run different versions of Active Circle, you can run different patch levels. For example, you can upgrade from patch level 1 to patch level 2 of version 4.0.0, without having to shut down all the Nodes in the Circle. To see which version of the software is currently running on a given Node, select the Node in the Administration Tool and click on the Information tab. The Node in the below example is running version 4.0.0, patch level 1: Figure 6.1. Version and Patch Level You can also check the version of one or more nodes using the command acinfo --version on the Active Circle command line interface. If you do not specify any node names, the command will return the version of all the nodes in the circle: # acinfo --version Client version is 4.0.0_1 Node 'node-02' version is 4.0.0_1 Node 'node-01' version is 4.0.0_1 Tip Whenever upgrading the software you should read the release notes provided with the upgrade. Installation Guide 31