4.1 Guidelines for Using DFS in a Cluster Environment

DFS supports clusters based on Novell Cluster Services. Consider the guidelines in this section when using DFS in a cluster environment.

4.1.1 Guidelines for Using DFS Junctions in a Cluster Environment

When clustering servers with Novell Cluster Services in a DFS management context, consider the following guidelines:

  • Volumes that contain DFS junctions or are junction targets can reside in an NCS cluster.

  • Clustering does not break junctions. DFS automatically updates the VLDB when clusters are created in a DFS management context.

4.1.2 Guidelines for Using DFS Move and Split in a Cluster Environment

When clustering servers with NCS in a DFS management context, consider the following guidelines:

  • When moving or splitting volumes in a NetWare cluster, perform the move/split only from an active node and only for unshared volumes. DFS supports Move and Split operations only from one non-clustered volume to another non-clustered volume in a cluster scenario. Move and Split operations between clustered volumes or from a clustered (non-clustered) volume to a non-clustered (clustered) volume do not work. This is true for both NetWare and Linux.

4.1.3 Guidelines for Clustering the VLDB Service

When planning your NCS cluster solution for VLDB services, consider the following guidelines:

  • The two replica servers for a DFS management context can reside on different clusters in the management context.

  • If you create two replicas in the same cluster, the two instances cannot be mounted on the same node in the cluster at the same time. Use the cluster configuration settings to configure which nodes to use for failover for each of the replicas.

  • DFS does not support mixed-platform clusters. Use all OES 2 Linux nodes or all OES 2 NetWare nodes in the cluster.

4.1.4 Guidelines for Repairing the VLDB in a Cluster

When the VLDB service is clustered, the replica site reported on the Distributed File Services > Manage Replica Sites page in iManager might report a an invalid name for the replica site, and not the current node where the VLDB is running. In this case, you cannot initiate a VLDB reapir from iManager. Issue the vldb repair command from a console on the node where the VLDB services are currently running.