More migrations

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I just finished migrating the first node of the cluster over to a blade-server. That went surprisingly well! I'm very happy.

The first step was the same as it was with the NDS servers earlier this year. Install the new server into its own tree, take a config.txt from the old server for reference, run the Migration Wizard, fiddle things to get the identity settled down. With the NDS servers this was pretty much it, since all they ran was NDS (iManager was on the one server that didn't get migrated) and didn't need any additional work.

The second step was installing the apps. NetStorage needed to be added in and configured. And that required all the supporting Apache and Tomcat bits. Thrown in OpenSSH and FTP, with a bit of iManager, and a dash of apps that the config.txt document said were installed on the old machine, and I had it all in. NetStorage got configured right.

The third step was to get all the cluster scripts we use into their correct places, and all the supporting config files where they needed to go. Since we don't put NetStorage into httpd.conf, rather into its own file, that had to be copied. As did the config file for the myweb service. Then the ncf-files that kick off both web-servers (myfiles and myweb), as well as the trio of FTP/SFTP services. That went pretty well.

Then came the Very Scary process of allowing the new server to see the cluster volumes on the SAN. That took a bit of work. The Fibre switches are zoned by port rather than WWN, which made that step easier. The EVA then needed to be told to permit the new WWN to see the Novell cluster volumes. That took a bit of poking, but in the end it was pretty simple. I hit the commit button on the EVA interface, scanned for new devices, and then loaded NCS. It saw volumes! So I rebooted, and it entered the cluster just peachy.

From begining to end, the whole process took maybe five hours. And that includes the initial imaging of the blade server, and the install of NetWare to the blade. I'm pumped.

AND Novell released nwlib6d today. They promised me that it fixes the nxcreatepathcontext problem I've been having for just over a year now with the myweb and sftp services. I've heard that one before. It's in testing on the student side of the cluster. Early indications are good, but we'll have to see how it lasts over a couple of weeks.

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For the record, the fix did not fix the problem. Same as all the rest of 'em!