- Installing the Oracle Solaris OS on a Cluster Node
- Securing Your Solaris Operating System
- Solaris Cluster Software Installation
- Time Synchronization
- Cluster Management
- Cluster Monitoring
- Service-Level Management and Telemetry
- Patching and Upgrading Your Cluster
- Backing Up Your Cluster
- Creating New Resource Types
- Tuning and Troubleshooting
Solaris Cluster Software Installation
After you have installed and secured the Oracle Solaris OS, you can install the Solaris Cluster software. If you use Solaris JumpStart, then you can set up the JumpStart server to install the Solaris Cluster software as part of the postinstallation scripts. This Solaris Cluster software installation process installs only the relevant packages for you and does not actually configure the software. To achieve this level of automation, you can add your own scripts to the JumpStart framework. Many installations performed by Sun Professional Services use the freely available JumpStart Enterprise Toolkit (JET). JET enables you to create individual modules to perform specific tasks such as installing or configuring software. One such module, available as part of certain Sun Professional Services engagements, can install and perform a basic configuration of the Solaris Cluster software.
The installation process has two parts: installing the software and configuring the software. The latter requires your nodes to be rebooted as part of that process. Software installation is performed through the installer program found on the installation media.
The installer program can be run in both character mode and as a full graphical user interface (GUI). To run the GUI installer program, ideally use ssh with X forwarding enabled. If you choose not to use ssh, you can use telnet or rlogin in combination with the xhost command to allow the cluster client node to display on the X server display you are using. If you use telnet or rlogin, you must set the DISPLAY environment variable to the workstation from which you are accessing the cluster.
When run from the command line, the installer program can be supplied with a text-based "response" file to allow automation of the Solaris Cluster software installation.
Example 4.3. Starting the Solaris Cluster Software installer Program
Use the -X flag to ssh to forward the X11 protocol to your local display.
admin_console# ssh -X root@phys-earth1 Password: Last login: Thu Nov 12 08:19:29 2009 from admin_console. Sun Microsystems Inc. SunOS 5.10 Generic January 2005
Check that ssh is configured to forward correctly.
cluster1# grep X11F /etc/ssh/sshd_config X11Forwarding yes
Change to the Solaris Cluster media directory and run the installer.
cluster1# cd DVD-mount-point cluster1# ls Copyright License README Solaris_sparc Solaris_x86 cluster1# cd Solaris_sparc/ cluster1# ls -l total 28 drwxr-xr-x 9 root root 9 Aug 6 16:17 Product -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 10892 Jan 8 2009 installer -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 84 Jan 8 2009 release_info cluster1# ./installer
Assuming you are installing from the installation media, after you have accepted the software license agreement, a wizard screen similar to Figure 4.2 is displayed.
Figure 4.2 Installation screen for the Solaris Cluster 3.2 01/09 software
In the wizard, select the check boxes for the software you have chosen to install. Note that the option to install the multilingual packages is checked by default, whereas with the text installer program, you must explicitly choose to install these packages. Follow the wizard instructions to complete the installation. You must perform this installation on all the nodes that will form your cluster.
After the packages have been installed on all the nodes, you can proceed with the configuration of the cluster itself by using the scinstall command. You have several configuration options to choose from. The simplest option configures the Solaris Cluster software on just one node. The most automated option automatically configures the Solaris Cluster software on all your cluster nodes from the single command.
As each node is configured, it is rebooted by the configuration process. Therefore, do not run this program unless your nodes can experience an outage at this time.
If the configuration is performed by a certified Solaris Cluster installer, he or she will follow Oracle System Installation standards methodology to complete the installation. Doing so mostly involves checking that certain settings have been made and that the appropriate patches have been installed. If you choose to install the cluster yourself, you must purchase a cluster validation service from Sun Services to ensure that your installation complies with the necessary standards for it to be supportable.
After all the cluster nodes have been correctly configured and validated, you can begin the process of creating the resource groups and resources that encapsulate the services you choose to make highly available.