2 Installation overview #

Review Chapter 3, System requirements and recommendations to make sure your nodes and other infrastructure meet the requirements for a High Availability cluster.

You can set up the cluster with the root user or a user with sudo privileges. Review Chapter 4, Logging in to the cluster nodes to choose the right user for your requirements.

Install the High Availability extension and packages on the nodes as described in Chapter 5, Installing SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability.

(Optional) To configure SBD using the bootstrap scripts, you must set up a watchdog on each node before you initialize the cluster. SBD (STONITH Block Device) is a node fencing mechanism. For more information about SBD, see Chapter 17, Storage protection and SBD. To configure the watchdog, see Section 17.6, “Setting up the watchdog”.

Alternatively, you can configure SBD later or use physical fencing devices instead.

(Optional) To configure QDevice during the cluster setup, you must set up QNetd before you initialize the cluster. QDevice and QNetd participate in quorum decisions, especially for clusters with an even number of nodes. For more information about QDevice, see Chapter 18, QDevice and QNetd. To set up QNetd, see Section 18.3, “Setting up the QNetd server”.

Alternatively, you can configure QDevice and QNetd later.

Initialize the cluster on the nodes. You can use either of the following methods:

Table 2.1, “Cluster components: setup methods” shows the components that can be configured by each method. Use the same setup method for all nodes in the cluster. Mixing the setup methods is not recommended.

You can also clone nodes for mass deployment as described in Chapter 8, Deploying nodes with AutoYaST. We recommend testing the cluster setup with two or three nodes before adding more.

To be supported, a SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability cluster must have STONITH (node fencing) enabled. A node fencing mechanism can be one of the following:

Continue to Part II, “Configuration and administration” and Part III, “Storage and data replication” to set up cluster resources, data replication, and other components as needed.