Setting Up Network Multipathing

Before setting up network multipathing, refer to the Administering Network Multipathing section in the IP Network Multipathing Administration Guide on docs.sun.com.

To Configure HADB Host Machines that Already Use IP Multipathing

1. Set network interface failure detection time.

   For HADB to properly support multipathing failover, the network interface failure detection time must not exceed one second (1000 milliseconds), as specified by the FAILURE_DETECTION_TIME parameter in /etc/default/mpathd. Edit the file and change the value of this parameter to 1000 if the original value is higher:

   FAILURE_DETECTION_TIME=1000

   To put the change into effect, use this command:

   pkill -HUP in.mpathd

2. Set up IP addresses to use with HADB.

   As described in the IP Network Multipathing Administration Guide, multipathing involves grouping physical network interfaces into multipath interface groups. Each physical interface in such a group has two IP addresses associated with it:

   • a physical interface address used for transmitting data.

   • a test address for Solaris internal use only.

   Specify only one physical interface address from the multipath group when you use hadbm create --hosts.

Example 2–1 Setting up Multipathing

Suppose there are two host machines named host1 and host2. If they each have two physical network interfaces, then set up the two interfaces as a multipath group. Run ifconfig -a on each host.

The output on host1 is:

bge0: flags=1000843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST,IPv4>
mtu 1500 index 5 inet 129.159.115.10 netmask ffffff00 broadcast 129.159.115.255 
groupname mp0

bge0:1: flags=9040843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST,DEPRECATED,IPv4,NOFAILOVER>
mtu 1500 index 5 inet 129.159.115.11 netmask ffffff00 broadcast 129.159.115.255

bge1: flags=1000843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST,IPv4> 
mtu 1500 index 6 inet 129.159.115.12 netmask ffffff00 broadcast 129.159.115.255 
groupname mp0

bge1:1: flags=9040843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST,DEPRECATED,IPv4,NOFAILOVER> 
mtu 1500 index 6 inet 129.159.115.13 netmask ff000000 broadcast 129.159.115.255

The output on host2 is:

bge0: flags=1000843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST,IPv4> 
mtu 1500 index 3 inet 129.159.115.20 netmask ffffff00 broadcast 129.159.115.255 
groupname mp0

bge0:1: flags=9040843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST,DEPRECATED,IPv4,NOFAILOVER> 
mtu 1500 index 3 inet 129.159.115.21 netmask ff000000 broadcast 129.159.115.255

bge1: flags=1000843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST,IPv4> 
mtu 1500 index 4 inet 129.159.115.22 netmask ffffff00 broadcast 129.159.115.255 
groupname mp0

bge1:1: flags=9040843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST,DEPRECATED,IPv4,NOFAILOVER> 
mtu 1500 index 4 inet 129.159.115.23 netmask ff000000 broadcast 129.159.115.255

In this example, the physical network interfaces on both hosts are listed after bge0 and bge1. Those listed after bge0:1 and bge1:1 are multipath test interfaces (marked DEPRECATED in the ifconfig output), as described in the IP Network Multipathing Administration Guide.

To set up HADB in this environment, select one physical interface address from each host. In this example, HADB uses IP address 129.159.115.10 from host1 and 129.159.115.20 from host2. To create a database with one database node per host, use the command hadbm create --hosts. For example

hadbm create --hosts 129.159.115.10,129.159.115.20

To create a database with two database nodes on each host, use the command:

hadbm create --hosts 129.159.115.10,129.159.115.20,
129.159.115.10,129.159.115.20

In both cases, you must configure the agents on host1 and host2 with separate parameters to specify which interface on the machines the agents should use. So, on host1 use:

ma.server.mainternal.interfaces=129.159.115.10

And on host2 use:

ma.server.mainternal.interfaces=129.159.115.20

For information on the ma.server.mainternal.interfaces variable, see Configuration File.