> Hey, I know this might be a little off-topic, but I need to know if the
> ext2fs will work with shared disk subsystems. I need a fully redundant
> system for the eMail servers at work, and the only way I can see having full
> redundancy (no one point of failure, N+1) is running 2 mail servers with a
> shared RAID5 disk subsystem. I know Compaq will help me get the array
> working properly, but I need to know if ext2fs can handle the shared array.
> The two mail servers will be setup so one is the primary POP3 and secondary
> SMTP and the other secondary POP3 and primary SMTP (if one dies you just
> bind the other IP up until the other is working). The disk subsystem will
> *NOT* be the boot partition. Each machine will have 2 9gb (SCSI Level 0)
> drives for the system on each, but simply /var/mail will be shared. Does
> anyone know how the ext2fs would handle a shared /var/mail? There is a
> chance a user could be recieving inbound eMail from one server and getting
> his mail from the other at the same time (2 machines, 1 disk subsystem).
> What would ext2fs do? Any insight is apperciated.
This won't work right out of the box. A solution is offered by CISCO and
probably others where you'll have two complete identical servers with shared
or private disks. If the one fails the switch will notice that the ``I'm
alive'' signal from the active server is missing and will switch over to the
other.
As of now sharing the filesystem will require some concept of ownership
which you'd have to implement yourself with some simple daemon.
Ralf
-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/