C H A P T E R 3 - Preparing the Sun Fire B10n Blade for Load Balancing

C H A P T E R 3

Preparing the Sun Fire B10n Blade for Load Balancing

To prepare the Sun Fire B10n blade for load balancing, you must first configure the blade servers, then set up the content load balancing blade. This chapter describes the procedures for preparing the system for load balancing.

This chapter includes the following sections:

Configuring the Blade Servers

Setting Up the Load Balancing Blade

Completing the Basic Configuration

Configuring the Blade Servers

The Sun Fire B10n software includes the following components:

Blade server module

B10n application software

BSC firmware

See Software Architecture to understand the different software components.

The procedures for downloading both the blade server module software and the B10n application software as well as the firmware on the Sun Fire B10n blade involve downloading the software to your TFTP server.

If you are updating the blade server module before downloading the software, check the blade server module software version.

To Check the Blade Server Module Software Version

1. At the sc prompt enter the following command:

sc> console Sn

Where S indicates the slot and n is the number of the slot containing the blade you want to access. Valid slot numbers range from 0 to 15.

2. At the Solaris root prompt, check the module information:

# modinfo | grep clbmod

The following example checks the blade server module software of the blade in slot 10:

sc> console s10

Connected with input enabled on fru S10

Escape Sequence is '#.'(#.)

The ifnormation shows that software version 1.34 is currently installed.

# modinfo | grep clbmod

213 78160000   d18f  21   1  clbmod (Server CLB module v1.52)

To Set Up a Solaris SPARC Blade Server Module

1. To down load the latest software, go to the following site and select Sun Fire B10n:

http://wwws.sun.com/software/download/network.html

2. Unzip the Solaris SPARC server module version 1.2 zip file.

# /usr/bin/unzip SunFire_B10n-1_2_Update-SolarisModule.zip

3. Install the Solaris SPARC blade server module software packages:

# cd path_to_unzipped_file/Solaris/sparc

# pkgadd -d .

A message similar the following is displayed:

1  SUNWclbut      Sun Content Load Balancing Utilities

                    (sparc) 1.3,REV=2004.02.12

2  SUNWclbx.u     Sun Content Load Balancing Module (64-bit)

                    (sparc.sun4u) 1.3,REV=2004.02.12

Select package(s) you wish to process (or 'all' to process

all packages). (default: all) [?,??,q]:

4. Press return to install all the packages.

5. Install the blade server module on each blade server.

The blade server module (clbmod) resides in the /kernel/strmod/sparcv9. directory. The blade server module must be installed on each blade server individually. You can install the packages from the blade server to the TFTP server.

6. Configure the management IP address to the server interface:

# /usr/sbin/ifconfig ce0 plumb ip-addr netmask netmask up

7. To configure interfaces to remain across reboots, add the interfaces to /etc/opt/SUNWclb/clb.conf placing each interface on a separate line to be configured at start up. Or stop and start the clbctl script after creating the file and adding the interfaces.

# /etc/init.d/clbctl stop

# /etc/init.d/clbctl start

Following is a sample configuration file:

# Copyright (c) 2003 by Sun Microsystems, Inc.

# All rights reserved.

# ident "@(#)clb.conf   1.3     03/01/08 SMI."

# This file lists the interfaces to be configured with the content

# load balancing module (CLB). On boot these interfaces are

# configured for content load balancing. The interfaces are

# specified one per line.

# Interfaces configured for VLAN and are part of the load balancing

# are also

# listed here.

# Example:

ce123000

ce1

ce0

8. Configure the virtual IP addresses (VIPs) that this server supports:

# ifconfig virtual loopback interface plumb vip netmask netmask up

You must configure the virtual IP address of the service being load balanced. If it is not configured, the stack will not recognize the destination address in the incoming IP packets and will reject packets received for that destination address. Configure the virtual IP address on the loop back interface as a logical IP address. Using the loop back interface prevents responses to incoming ARP request broadcasts for the virtual IP address. Use different loop back instances for different virtual IP addresses.

For example if the server supports VIP 192.50.50.1, you would type the following:

# ifconfig lo0:1 plumb 192.50.50.1 netmask 255.255.255.0 up

Setting Up the Load Balancing Blade

To make the content load balancing blade functional, you must first set it up. Once you are at the admin prompt, you can get help by doing either of the following:

At the admin prompt, type the following command:

puma{admin}# help command_name

At the admin prompt, type a question mark after a command:

puma{admin}# config service ?

To Set Up a Content Load Balancing Blade

1. Connect your Telnet console with a Sun Fire B1600 blade system chassis serial port.

2. Telnet into the system controller (sc):

% telnet sc_ip-addr

Where sc_ip-addr is the IP address of the system controller.

3. To poweron a single content load balancing blade, type the following:

sc> poweron Sn

Where S indicates the slot and n is the number of the slot containing the blade you want to power on.

If you are powering on more than one blade, list the slot number for each blade you are powering on. See Powering On Content Load Balancing Blades.

4. Access the console for the blade:

sc> console Sn

5. Login as admin to access the command line interface:

Login:admin

Password:admin

puma{admin}#

Note - The default login and password for the administrator is admin. To ensure the security of the configuration, change the default password before you continue. The new password must have at least six characters. See User Access for more information.

6. Change the default password:

puma{admin}# password admin

Enter new password: new admin secret password

Confirm new password: new admin secret password

7. Enter config mode:

puma{admin}# config

puma(config){admin}#

8. Configure an IP interface:

puma(config){admin}# ip interface 0 ip-addr mask netmask

This command sets up the interface 0 (iq0) on your content load balancing blade, that is the interface connected to switch SSC0 (in slot 0).

Note - The switch number, for example SSC0, corresponds to the slot where the blade server resides.

The following example sets the IP address on interface 0 at 192.50.50.134:

puma(config){admin}# ip interface 0 192.50.50.134 mask 255.255.255.0

Each Sun Fire B10n blade has two interfaces. Alternatively, you could configure the second interface as follows:

puma(config){admin}# ip interface 1 ip-addr mask netmask

This alternative configuration sets up the interface 1 (iq1) on your content load balancing blade, that is the interface connected to switch SSC1 (in slot 1).

The following example sets the IP address on interface 1 at 192.50.50.135:

puma(config){admin}# ip interface 1 192.50.50.135 mask 255.255.255.0

9. Verify that the interface is working:

puma(config){admin}# ping remote-ip-addr

The following example pings the remote IP address at 192.50.50.200:

puma(config){admin}# ping 192.50.50.200

Note - Ensure that the remote-ip-addr is reachable from the Sun Fire B10n blade before you complete the basic configuration.

Completing the Basic Configuration

Before the Sun Fire B10n blade can be configured to do basic load balancing, you must at minimum, configure a default gateway, and DNS server, a service, and a group.

To Configure a Default Gateway

As admin in config mode, set the default gateway:

puma(config){admin}# default gateway ip-addr

To Configure the DNS Server

As admin in config mode, configure the primary DNS server:

puma(config){admin}# dns server 192.50.50.100 primary

To Configure DNS Suffix

As admin in config mode, configure the DNS suffix:

puma(config){admin}# dns suffix mycompany.com

To Commit the Configuration

As admin in config mode, commit the configuration you just set up:

puma(config){admin}# commit

To Verify the Configuration

As admin, verify the configuration you just set up:

puma{admin}# show network

Default Gateway                          : 192.50.50.200

Hostname                                 : puma

DNS Primary                              : 192.50.50.100

DNS Secondary                            : Not Configured

DNS Suffix                               : mycompany.com

Server monitor interval                  : 3

Server monitor max-try                   : 5

Path Failover Status                     : Enabled

Path Failover Target on interface 0      : 192.168.101.81 (Path Up)

Path Failover Target on interface 1      : 192.168.101.82 (Path Down)

Path Failover monitor interval           : 5

Path Failover monitor max-try            : 5

Network Interface Table:

==============================================================================

If     IP Address       Mask             MAC Address        Status  Link

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

0      192.168.101.251  255.255.255.0    00:03:ba:2c:73:a0  Up      Up

1      0.0.0.0          0.0.0.0          00:03:ba:2c:73:a1  Down    n/a

==============================================================================

System VLAN Table:

==============================================================================

VLAN Type                                  VLAN ID      Status

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Management                                 18            Enabled

Data                                       28            Enabled

==============================================================================

Note - The output from the show network command is only an example of the data provided. Your output will be different.