Sun Cluster 3.0-3.1 Hardware Administration Manual for Solaris OS

Chapter 5 Installing and Maintaining Public Network Hardware

This chapter contains information about how to maintain public network hardware. This chapter covers the following topics.

For conceptual information on cluster interconnects and public network interfaces, see your Sun Cluster concepts documentation.

For information on how to administer public network interfaces, see your Sun Cluster system administration documentation

Requirements When Using Jumbo Frames

If you are using Ethernet to implement the private interconnect and your cluster is configured with scalable services, then you must configure jumbo frames for both the public and the private networks. The private interconnect must be configured with the same or greater maximum transfer unit (MTU) as the public network.

If you are using SCI or Sun Fire Link to implement the private interconnect, you can use jumbo frames on the public network with no restrictions. For information about how to configure jumbo frames, see the Sun GigaSwift documentation.

All of your cluster interconnect paths must be configured with jumbo frames on when using jumbo frames.

Certain patches are required to use jumbo frames with Sun Cluster. Use the PatchPro tool (http://www.sun.com/PatchPro/) to get these patches.

Installing Public Network Hardware

This section covers installing cluster hardware during an initial cluster installation, before Sun Cluster software is installed.

Physically installing public network adapters to a node in a cluster is no different from adding public network adapters in a noncluster environment.

For the procedure about how to add public network adapters, see the documentation that shipped with your nodes and public network adapters.

Where to Go From Here

Install the cluster software and configure the public network hardware after you have installed all other hardware. To review the task map about how to install cluster hardware, see Installing Sun Cluster Hardware.

If your network uses jumbo frames, review the requirements in Requirements When Using Jumbo Frames and see the Sun GigaSwift documentation for information about how to configure jumbo frames.

Maintaining Public Network Hardware in a Running Cluster

The following table lists procedures about how to maintain cluster interconnect and public network hardware. The interconnect maintenance procedures in this section are for both Ethernet-based and PCI-SCI interconnects.

Table 5–1 Task Map: Maintaining Public Network Hardware

Task 

Information 

Add public network adapters. 

Adding Public Network Adapters

Replace public network adapters. 

Replacing Public Network Adapters

Remove public network adapters. 

Removing Public Network Adapters

Adding Public Network Adapters

Physically adding public network adapters to a node in a cluster is no different from adding public network adapters in a noncluster environment. For the procedure about how to add public network adapters, see the hardware documentation that shipped with your node and public network adapters.

Once the adapters are physically installed, Sun Cluster requires that they be configured in an IPMP group. For the procedure on configuring an IPMP group, see How to Configure Internet Protocol (IP) Network Multipathing Groups in Sun Cluster Software Installation Guide for Solaris OS.

If your network uses jumbo frames, review the requirements in Requirements When Using Jumbo Frames and see the Sun GigaSwift documentation for information about how to configure jumbo frames.

Where to Go From Here

To add a new public network adapter to an IP Network Multipathing group, see the IP Network Multipathing Administration Guide.

Replacing Public Network Adapters

For cluster-specific commands and guidelines about how to replace public network adapters, see your Sun Cluster system administration documentation.

For procedures about how to administer public network connections, see the IP Network Multipathing Administration Guide.

For the procedure about removing public network adapters, see the hardware documentation that shipped with your node and public network adapters.

Where to Go From Here

To add the new public network adapter to a IP Network Multipathing group, see your Sun Cluster system administration documentation.

Removing Public Network Adapters

For cluster-specific commands and guidelines about how to remove public network adapters, see your Sun Cluster system administration documentation.

For procedures about how to administer public network connections, see the IP Network Multipathing Administration Guide.

For the procedure about how to remove public network adapters, see the hardware documentation that shipped with your node and public network adapters.

Sun Gigabit Ethernet Adapter Considerations

Some Gigabit Ethernet switches require some device parameter values to be set differently than the defaults. Chapter 3 of the Sun Gigabit Ethernet/P 2.0 Adapter Installation and User's Guide describes the procedure about how to change device parameters. If you are using an operating system earlier than the Solaris 10 OS, the procedure that you use on nodes that are running Sun Cluster software varies slightly from the procedure that is described in the guide. In particular, the difference is in how you derive parent names for use in the ge.conf file from the /etc/path_to_inst file.

Chapter 3 of the Sun Gigabit Ethernet/P 2.0 Adapter Installation and User's Guide describes the procedure on how to change ge device parameter values. This change occurs through entries in the /kernel/drv/ge.conf file. The procedure to derive the parent name from the /etc/path_to_inst listing, which is be used in ge.conf entries, appears in Setting Driver Parameters Using a ge.conf File. For example, from the following /etc/path_to_inst line, you can derive the parent name for ge2 to be /pci@4,4000.


"/pci@4,4000/network@4" 2 "ge"

On Sun Cluster nodes, a /node@nodeid prefix appears in the /etc/path_to_inst line. Do not consider the /node@nodeid prefix when you derive the parent name. For example, on a cluster node, an equivalent /etc/path_to_inst entry would be the following:


"/node@1/pci@4,4000/network@4" 2 "ge"

The parent name for ge2, to be used in the ge.conf file is still /pci@4,4000 in this instance.

ce Sun Ethernet Driver Considerations

The Sun Cluster software supports the ce Sun Ethernet driver for cluster interconnect and public network applications. Consult your Sun sales representative for details on which network interface products are supported. These network interfaces can only be used as new interconnects and public network interfaces. As such, you cannot upgrade from another type of adapter card to those network interfaces by using the ce Sun Ethernet driver.

When you use the ce Sun Ethernet driver for public network connections, add the following line to your /etc/system file.


set ce:ce_reclaim_pending=1

Apply any required patches, and then reboot the system. See the Sun Cluster system administration documentation for instructions on rebooting a cluster node.

The ce driver version must be at least 1.115. To determine the ce driver version, run the following command.


# modinfo | grep CE

Note –

For the current list of patches that are required for the ce Sun Ethernet driver, refer to PatchPro. PatchPro is available online to Sun service providers and to customers with service contracts at the PatchPro site: http://patchpro.sun.com.


GigaSwift Ethernet Driver and Jumbo Frames

If you are using jumbo frames, you must edit the ce.conf file to configure them, as explained in the Sun GigaSwift documentation.

The driver documentation instructs you to grep certain entries from the /etc/path_to_inst file to determine your entries for the ce.conf file. If you are using an operating system earlier than the Solaris 10 OS, the OS modifies the entries on Sun Cluster nodes, adding a node-identifier prefix to them. For example, an entry modified for a Sun Cluster node resembles the following:


# grep ce /etc/path_to_inst 
"/node@1/pci@8,600000/network@1" 0 "ce"

When editing the ce.conf file, remove the /node@nodeID identifier prefix from the entries that you put into the driver configuration file. For the example above, the entry to put into the configuration file is:


"/pci@8,600000/network@1" 0 "ce"