[Simh] VMS Cluster boot on an unique container

Boucher, François boucher.francois at uqam.ca
Thu Oct 20 14:16:35 EDT 2011


Hi!

I never succeeded to operate a cluster of machines that attaches directly
to the same disk drives file images, when a first node writes to the system
disk, the other node was not aware of the changes and it ended up in a filesystem
corruption.  Perhaps I did not found the correct way to create/configure some sort of 
dual-port scsi devices?

I did succeed to make a 4 member cluster of VAXes running VMS 5.5-2, 
the first VAX that boots (named EXTRA) boots off SYS0
then with MOP/DECNET I get the 3 other satellites to boot from
the system disk (SYS1, SYS2, SYS5) that EXTRA shares. 

To get there, you need to set and define your node characteristics,
and enable service on line QNA-0
(all under MCR NCP...)
$ mcr ncp show node livre chara


Node Volatile Characteristics as of 20-OCT-2011 13:59:15

Remote node =   1.17 (LIVRE)

Hardware address         = AA-00-04-00-11-04
Tertiary loader          = SYS$SYSTEM:TERTIARY_VMB.EXE
Load Assist Agent        = SYS$SHARE:NISCS_LAA.EXE
Load Assist Parameter    = DISK$XPL0:<SYS1.>


those above characteristics give the possibility to boot from device XQA0
via the network.  Those must be defined in your SYS0 node (EXTRA for me).
If you have a large number of disks ( more that 16), then you need to attach
disks on more than one simulator, and have the allocation_class parameter 
given a different number on each sim, to permit a device name differenciation 
i.e: $1$DUA0 on first node, $2$DUA0: on the other node, etc.

I have a dedicated ethernet interface per simulated vax node.

View of Cluster from system ID 1040  node: EXTRA           20-OCT-2011 14:04:14
lqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqwqqqqqqqqqk
x      SYSTEMS      x MEMBERS x
tqqqqqqqqwqqqqqqqqqqnqqqqqqqqqu
x  NODE  x SOFTWARE x  STATUS x
tqqqqqqqqnqqqqqqqqqqnqqqqqqqqqu
x EXTRA  x VMS V5.5 x MEMBER  x
x REGIE  x VMS V5.5 x MEMBER  x
x AGENT  x VMS V5.5 x MEMBER  x
x LIVRE  x VMS V5.5 x MEMBER  x
mqqqqqqqqvqqqqqqqqqqvqqqqqqqqqj

This setup is stable, used in a limited (15 users) production level environment.
( It is used to replaced a 4 node VAX6000-640 CI cluster with 30 disks on HSJ40s)

$ sh dev d

Device                  Device           Error    Volume         Free  Trans Mnt
 Name                   Status           Count     Label        Blocks Count Cnt
$1$DNFS0:      (EXTRA)  Online               0
$1$DUA0:       (EXTRA)  Mounted              0  XPL0           5081589   265   4
$1$DUA1:       (EXTRA)  Mounted              0  XPL1           4773056    16   4
$1$DUA2:       (EXTRA)  Mounted              0  XPL2           1790901     1   4
$1$DUA3:       (EXTRA)  Mounted              0  XPL3           4152564     1   4
$1$DUB0:       (EXTRA)  Mounted              0  XPL4           1784088     1   4
$1$DUB1:       (EXTRA)  Mounted              0  XPL5           2971136     1   4
$1$DUB2:       (EXTRA)  Mounted              0  XPL6           5037920     1   4
$1$DUB3:       (EXTRA)  Mounted              0  XPL7           6682480     6   4
$1$DUC0:       (EXTRA)  Mounted              0  XPL8           5143296     1   4
$1$DUC1:       (EXTRA)  Mounted              0  XPL9           6193545     1   4
$1$DUC2:       (EXTRA)  Mounted              0  SIG0           4448640     1   4
$1$DUC3:       (EXTRA)  Mounted              0  SIG1           7621800     1   4
$1$DUD0:       (EXTRA)  Mounted              0  SIG2           6523400     1   4
$1$DUD1:       (EXTRA)  Mounted              0  SIG4           7662944     1   4
$1$DUD2:       (EXTRA)  Online               0
$1$DUD3:       (EXTRA)  Online               0
$1$DYA0:       (EXTRA)  Online               0
$1$DYA1:       (EXTRA)  Online               0
$3$DUA0:       (REGIE)  Online               0
$3$DUA1:       (REGIE)  Mounted              0  GST0           7803450    58   4
$3$DUA2:       (REGIE)  Mounted              0  GST1           4774653     1   4
$3$DUA3:       (REGIE)  Mounted              0  GST2           5030984     1   4
$3$DUB0:       (REGIE)  Mounted              0  GST3           4047615    38   4
$3$DUB1:       (REGIE)  Mounted              0  GST4           3188790     1   4
$3$DUB2:       (REGIE)  Mounted              0  GST5           4643512     1   4
$3$DUB3:       (REGIE)  Mounted              0  GST6           4273912     1   4
$3$DUC0:       (REGIE)  Mounted              0  GST7           5676296     1   4
$3$DUC1:       (REGIE)  Mounted              0  GST8           4991736     1   4
$3$DUC2:       (REGIE)  Mounted              0  GST9           5110560     1   4
$3$DUC3:       (REGIE)  Mounted              0  GST10          6117712     1   4
$3$DUD0:       (REGIE)  Mounted              0  GST11          6100728     1   4
$3$DUD1:       (REGIE)  Mounted              0  GST12          1357120     1   4
$3$DUD2:       (REGIE)  Mounted              0  GST14          5467352     1   4
$3$DUD3:       (REGIE)  Mounted              0  GST15          4480552     1   4

I hope this helps!

François Boucher
Ingénieur, SITel, AlphaTeam
boucher.francois_at_uqam.ca

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