Linux High Availability Clustering

Understand High Availability Clustering with Red Hat/CentOS! This course provides a solid foundation and practical experience using Pacemaker and Corosync to build resilient server environments. Learn how to design and implement a robust cluster with a hands-on KVM-based lab setup.

Course Content:

• Introduction to Clustering: Explore the fundamentals of clustering and different cluster types. Discover the key advantages of clustering servers for improved uptime and reliability.
• Core Concepts: Dive into essential concepts like resource and resource groups, and learn how to manage them effectively.
• High Availability Architecture: Understand failover, fencing, shared storage, and quorum – the building blocks of a highly available cluster.
• Lab Setup with KVM: Build your own KVM lab environment to practice cluster configuration and troubleshooting.
• Configuring a Basic Cluster: Step-by-step guide to setting up a functional cluster.
• Fencing Agents: Configure a fencing agent using KVM to prevent split-brain scenarios.
• Cluster Node Management: Learn to manage cluster nodes, including starting & stopping cluster services, enabling & disabling services, adding & removing nodes, and understanding standby & unstandby nodes.
• Quorum Operations: Master quorum operations and understand how quorum calculations work.
• Cluster Setup Switches: Implement crucial cluster setup switches like wait_for_all and auto_tie_breaker.
• Resource Creation & Configuration: Create and configure high-availability resources, including a clustered Apache service.
• Resource Management: Learn to manage resources, troubleshoot resource failures, and diagnose cluster network issues.
• Complex Resource Groups: Configure active/passive NFS resource groups.
• Constraint Management: Utilize various constraints (order, location, and colocation) to control resource placement.
• Two Node Cluster Troubleshooting: Address common issues in a two-node cluster, such as split-brain, fence death/fence racing, and startup delays.
• iSCSI Integration: Explore iSCSI fundamentals and configure an iSCSI server with different backing storage options (block, file, pscsi, ramdisk). Learn to create an iSCSI target.
• High Availability Logical Volumes (HA-LVM): Manage clustered LVM and HA-LVM for data redundancy.
• Shared Disk Management: Learn to share a disk (LUN) across all cluster nodes.
• Distributed Lock Manager (DLM): Utilize Distributed Lock Manager (DLM) for robust lock management.
• Global File System 2 (GFS2): Understand GFS2 concepts, create a GFS2 formatted cluster file system, and manage a GFS2 file system and resource within the cluster. Learn to grow & repair a GFS2 file system.

This course includes practical lab sessions to reinforce your understanding and develop essential skills in building and maintaining highly available systems.