3.1 Translation of Cluster Resource Scripts for Mixed NetWare and Linux Clusters

Novell Cluster Services includes specialized script translation functionality, called the Cluster Translation Library script (/opt/novell/ncs/bin/clstrlib.py), to help NetWare and Linux servers coexist in the same cluster. It provides an automatic translation of the Master IP Address resource and cluster-enabled NSS pool resource load and unload scripts from NetWare to Linux. This functionality is also beneficial as you migrate NetWare cluster servers to Linux.

The Cluster Translation Library reads the NetWare load and unload scripts from eDirectory, converts them, and writes them as Linux load and unload scripts. The Linux load and unload script files are then searched for NetWare-specific command strings, and the command strings are then either deleted or replaced with Linux-specific command strings. Separate Linux-specific commands are also added, and the order of certain lines in the scripts is also changed to function with Linux.

During the rolling conversion, a resource’s Linux load and unload scripts is stored in cache on the Linux cluster node where the resource is mounted. The NetWare script for the resource continues to be stored in eDirectory until the conversion is finalized. The cluster resource name is used in the load and unload script file names. On Linux, scripts are stored in the /var/opt/novell/ncs/ directory.

IMPORTANT:After the final conversion, you can use the Properties > Scripts page in the Clusters plug-in in iManager whenever you make manual changes to the load and unload scripts. The changes are automatically saved to the files.

The normal translations performed by the Cluster Translation Library are described in the following sections:

IMPORTANT:If the commands in cluster resource’s load or unload scripts are not part of the translation library, the cluster resource can end up in a comatose state.

Novell Cluster Services allows you to customize the translation syntax that us used for load and unload scripts in mixed-platform situations by defining new syntax translations to be used in addition to the normal translations. See Section 3.7, Customizing the Translation Syntax for Converting Load and Unload Scripts.