Sun Cluster 3.0 Restrictions

The following restrictions apply to the Sun Cluster 3.0 release:

• Remote Shared Memory (RSM) transport types - These transport types currently are not supported even though the documentation contains references to them.

• Scalable Coherent Interface (SCI) is not supported as a cluster interconnect.

• The combination of VERITAS Volume Manager (VxVM) and Oracle Parallel Server (OPS) currently is not supported - Use the hardware RAID volume manager with the Sun StorEdge^TM A3500 to support OPS.

• Automatic disk path monitoring is not supported - You must manually monitor disk paths to make sure that a double failure or loss of path to a quorum device does not occur. The software detects active disk path failures, but no monitors detect inactive disk paths.

• Storage devices with more than two physical paths to the enclosure are not supported - The Sun StorEdge A3500, for which two paths are supported to each of two nodes, is an exception.

• SunVTS^TM is not supported.

• Only the Sun Cluster HA for NFS data service is supported for upgrade when using the scinstall -u command - Upgrades of the framework from Sun Cluster 2.2 to Sun Cluster 3.0 software are fully supported.

• Upgrade from Sun Cluster 2.2 to Sun Cluster 3.0 software is only supported for two-node clusters.

• Multihost tape and CD-ROM are not supported.

• Sun Cluster 3.0 software does not support the use of the loopback file system (LOFS) on cluster nodes.

• Do not run client applications on the cluster nodes - Switchover or failover of a resource group might cause a TCP (telnet/rlogin) connection to be broken. This switchover or failover includes connections that the cluster nodes initiated and connections that client hosts outside the cluster initiated.

• Do not run, on any cluster node, any processes that run in the time-sharing scheduling class with a higher-than-normal priority or any processes that run in the real-time scheduling class - Sun Cluster 3.0 software relies on kernel threads that do not run in the real-time scheduling class. Other time-sharing processes that run at higher-than-normal priority or real-time processes could prevent the Sun Cluster kernel threads from getting needed CPU cycles and could cause various problems.

• File system quotas are not supported in Sun Cluster 3.0 software.

• Logical network interfaces are reserved for use by Sun Cluster 3.0 software.

• The Sun Cluster 3.0 cluster file system does not support forced unmounts - The command umount -f behaves the same as the umount command without the -f option.

• Network Adapter Failover (NAFO) Restrictions

  • All public networking adapters must be in NAFO groups. Sun Cluster 3.0 does not support public network adapters that are not in NAFO groups.

  • Only one NAFO group exists per IP subnet for each node. Sun Cluster 3.0 does not support even the weak form of IP striping, in which multiple IP addresses exist on the same subnet.

  • Only one adapter in a NAFO group can be active at any time.

  • Sun Cluster 3.0 does not support setting local-mac-address?=true in the OpenBoot^TM PROM.

• Service and Application Restrictions

  • The Sun Cluster 3.0 product can be used to provide service for only those data services that are either supplied with the Sun Cluster product or set up using the Sun Cluster data services API.

  • Do not use cluster nodes as mail servers because the Sun Cluster environment does not support the sendmail(1M) subsystem. No mail directories should reside on Sun Cluster nodes.

  • Do not configure cluster nodes as routers (gateways). If the system goes down, the clients cannot find an alternate router and cannot recover.

  • Do not configure cluster nodes as NIS or NIS+ servers. Cluster nodes can, however, be NIS or NIS+ clients.

  • Do not use a Sun Cluster configuration to provide a highly available boot or install service on client systems.

  • Do not use a Sun Cluster 3.0 configuration to provide an rarpd service.

  • The Sun Cluster 3.0 data services API supports only 32-bit data services. The application on which the Sun Cluster data service depends can be a 64-bit application, but the data services' methods and monitors to support the application in a cluster must be 32-bit programs.

• Sun Cluster 3.0 HA for NFS Restrictions

  • Do not run, on any cluster node, any application that accesses a Sun Cluster HA for NFS file system on any other node. This intra-cluster use of Sun Cluster HA for NFS is not supported. Access such file systems only through the cluster file system. Using an NFS exported file system from a cluster node might lead to unpredictable locking behavior.

  • Sun Cluster HA for NFS requires that all NFS client mounts be "hard" mounts.

  • For Sun Cluster HA for NFS, do not use hostname aliases for network resources. NFS clients mounting cluster file systems using hostname aliases might experience statd lock recovery problems.

  • Sun Cluster 3.0 does not support Secure NFS or the use of Kerberos with NFS. In particular, the secure and kerberos options to the share_nfs(1M) subsystem are not supported.

• Volume Manager Restrictions

  • In Solstice DiskSuite configurations using mediators, the number of mediator hosts configured for a diskset must be exactly two.

  • VxVM Dynamic Multipathing (DMP) with Sun Cluster 3.0 software is not supported.

  • Software RAID 5 is not supported.

• Hardware Restrictions

  • With the exception of clusters using Sun StorEdge A3x00, a pair of cluster nodes must have at least two multihost disk enclosures.

  • RAID 5 is only supported in hardware with the Sun StorEdge A3x00.

  • Alternate Pathing (AP) is not supported in Sun Cluster 3.0 configurations.

  • Gigabit Ethernet is supported for the cluster interconnect but not as a public network interface.