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[back to "Fine Points of Configuring a Cluster"]
Configuring a LAN for intra-cluster communication (sidebar)
To configure a private LAN for intra-cluster communication:
- Set up a separate network interface card (NIC) for the private LAN for each member of the cluster. These NICs should be connected through a private hub or switch. Make sure you install and configure the appropriate device drivers on the system. As stated earlier, you should configure the private LAN to use the TCP/IP protocol. You will need to assign each server a second IP address for use in the private network. The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (the technical body that manages the Internet protocol standards) has reserved three IP address ranges for use in private networks (if you are interested, see RFC 1597 for details). These IP address ranges are:
--10 -- a single Class A network
--172.16 through 172.31 -- 16 contiguous Class B networks
--192.168.0 through 192.168.255 -- 256 contiguous Class C networks
You can configure your Domino intra-cluster network to use one of these IP address ranges. This will help conserve public IP addresses for other uses.
- Assign hostnames for each IP address on the intra-cluster private LAN and make sure each cluster member can resolve these new hostnames either through entries in its hosts file or through DNS. For example, for a cluster with two servers, Red and Blue, you can name the private addresses CluRed and CluBlue, and provide for name resolution by placing the following entries into the HOSTS file on both servers:
192.168.64.1 CluRed
192.168.64.2 CluBlue
- Before configuring the private LAN for use by Domino, verify that it is operational. Make sure each cluster member can ping the private LAN address of the other cluster members, both by IP address and by name. Make sure that other machines can still ping the cluster members on their regular LAN address.
- Edit the Server documents for each cluster member in the Public Address Book. Under the Network Configuration section, add and enable the new port. For example, the server Red looks like:
- Assign each port an IP address from the corresponding subnets if both LANs are going to be running TCP. In the NOTES.INI file, put in the following line for each port:
PORT1_TcpIpAddress=0,a.b.c.d:1352
PORT2_TcpIpAddress=0,e.f.g.h:1352
(Substitute PORT1 and PORT2 with the names of your ports. Substitute a.b.c.d and e.f.g.h with the appropriate IP address.) To continue our example, if the IP address for Red is 192.114.32.5, then the following entries should be added to the NOTES.INI file on the server Red:
TCPIP_TcpIpAddress=0,192.114.32.5:1352
CLUSTER_TcpIpAddress=0,192.168.64.1:1352
- Add the following line to the NOTES.INI file of each server in the cluster:
Server_Cluster_Default_Port=CLUSTER
Server_Cluster_Default_Port must be set consistently on all the servers in the cluster.
Note: In Domino Release 5.0, you will be able to set the Server_Cluster_Default_Port value in a Server Configuration document. (Earlier releases of Domino don't support Server_Cluster_Default_Port in Server Configuration documents -- this is probably just an oversight.) Server Configuration documents allow you to specify NOTES.INI settings for a single server or a group of servers. If you create a group containing all the servers in the cluster, you can then create a Server Configuration document to specify NOTES.INI settings for all servers in the cluster. This is particularly useful for settings like Server_Cluster_Default_Port that must be set consistently across all the servers in the cluster.
- Restart the server.
- To verify that Domino is using the private LAN, enter the Show Cluster command at each server's console and look for the line:
Server cluster default port: CLUSTER
You can also check the replication statistics to ensure that cluster replication is now using the private LAN. Use the Show Stat Network command at the Domino console to see network statistics, and look for the following statistics for the private LAN port:
NET.CLUSTER.BytesReceived = 9,612,324
NET.CLUSTER.BytesSent = 110,369,588
Then enter the Show Stat Replica command to locate the following Replica.Cluster statistics:
Replica.Cluster.SessionBytes.In = 9003496
Replica.Cluster.SessionBytes.Out = 104837686
There should be a close correlation between the BytesReceived and the SessionBytes.In values and the BytesSent and SessionBytes.Out values. Don't expect these values to match exactly, since the intra-cluster network is used for more than just cluster replication.
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