On Mon, 4 Oct 1999, Tom Kunz wrote:
> SW-RAID List,
> This is slightly off-topic. No, in fact it might be further than just
> "slightly". I have been exploring redundant network filesystems for
> Linux, off and on for the past several months. I need something that
> will replicate a fs across a lan, much the same way RAID-1 duplicates
> fs's. The purpose is for a high-availability system, where several
> nodes participate to keep a set of services active indefinitely. My
> company uses a SCO solution, called "Sentinel", which is just a
> single-master/single-slave arrangement that duplicates disks between two
> machines. When the master node goes down, the other assumes its IP, and
> has an identical filesystem as the dead machine. When the master comes
> back up, it resyncs to the master and assumes the slave position again.
> But we want to dump SCO and go entirely with Linux, and have the same
> functionality.
There was recently a discussion on the linux-ha list (which it sounds like
you should join) of something like "Poor Man's Redundant Filesystem" -
essentially exactly what you're looking for.
I don't remember the real nitty-gritty details, but someone proposed using
software RAID 1 and NBD (network block device) to do what you're talking
about. The ball got kicked around for a while, and I think one or two folks
even tried it.
-Andy
