Best option for getting HA to work across two servers?

[Quad]

Hi,

I recently scored a good deal on two used Fujitsu TX100 S3p servers. I seem to remember Proxmox supporting the use of a quorum disk to replace the third required node in a cluster so I wanted to set these two servers up as a HA Proxmox cluster with external iSCSI storage.

However the support for a quorum disk seems to have been removed since then based on the information I can find. The wiki only contains a guide about using a Raspberry Pi as your third node with a big "Please do not do this to anything important" warning all over it.

What is my best option for getting these two servers set up in an HA-capable cluster? Do I have to buy a cheap Intel NUC or similar to install proxmox on and put in the cluster just to have the third quorum vote?

 

[Daniel S.]

you need at least three nodes.

 

[n1nj4888]

you need at least three nodes.

You can do HA with 2 PVE nodes and a 3rd “Quorum Device” (qdevice) which provides votes to the 2 main PVE nodes.

I have a 2 Node PVE cluster with a 3rd qdevice and it works well - For the qdevice, I simply run a VM (debian9) on my NAS, but the Raspberry Pi should work equally as well since my qdevice load is minuscule.

https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Cluster_Manager

 

[Daniel S.]

I agree, but in total, those are still 3.

 

[n1nj4888]

Yes but PVE does not need to be installed on the 3rd “Node”, indeed the 3rd “Node” appears not as a Node in the Cluster Manager, but as a “qdevice”...

Further to the Cluster Manager wiki page above, I also found the following thread useful when I setup my cluster:

https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/pve5-and-quorum-device.37183/page-2#post-252807

 

[Daniel S.]

I personally do not use or recommend the use of this variant in some important production cluster.

 

[n1nj4888]

I personally do not use or recommend the use of this variant in some important production cluster.

Completely agree - As I’m sure it also says in the wiki.

I use the qdevice only for homelab cluster - it does work well though...

 

[Quad]

Yes but PVE does not need to be installed on the 3rd “Node”, indeed the 3rd “Node” appears not as a Node in the Cluster Manager, but as a “qdevice”...

Further to the Cluster Manager wiki page above, I also found the following thread useful when I setup my cluster:

https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/pve5-and-quorum-device.37183/page-2#post-252807

This looks like exactly the kind of thing I was looking for. So there's just a standard debian package to install and then point your Proxmox servers at it using pvecm? That sounds quite simple.

How long have you been running a setup like this?

My setup isn't exactly production, it's more like half-homelab, half-production as I host a few less-critical public facing sites using VMs. If this setup using a Raspberry Pi as a quorum device is more stable than the Wiki makes it out to be, then I'll probably set mine up like this.

 

[n1nj4888]

This looks like exactly the kind of thing I was looking for. So there's just a standard debian package to install and then point your Proxmox servers at it using pvecm? That sounds quite simple.

How long have you been running a setup like this?

Yes, there is a standard Debian package for this and it’s fairly simple to setup - Follow the Cluster Manager wiki link above (specifically the “Corosync External Vote Support” section) and take a look at the forum thread I referenced above where I clarified some items from the wiki...

I’ve been running the cluster with the qdevice for a few weeks now - Others have been running it longer though I’m sure.

 

[Quad]

Yes, there is a standard Debian package for this and it’s fairly simple to setup - Follow the Cluster Manager wiki link above (specifically the “Corosync External Vote Support” section) and take a look at the forum thread I referenced above where I clarified some items from the wiki...

I’ve been running the cluster with the qdevice for a few weeks now - Others have been running it longer though I’m sure.

Yeah I read them and it looks perfect.

The servers I bought are still in transit, but hopefully I'll have them tomorrow. I'll try this setup once they arrive and see if I can get it working. Thanks for the info

 

[Quad]

I got my servers on Friday and set up the cluster over the weekend. Used a Raspberry Pi as a Quorum device.

The cluster has been running fine over the weekend while I configured a few VMs and I've tested shutting down servers multiple times. HA works like a charm.

Thanks n1nj4888

 

[n1nj4888]

I got my servers on Friday and set up the cluster over the weekend. Used a Raspberry Pi as a Quorum device.

The cluster has been running fine over the weekend while I configured a few VMs and I've tested shutting down servers multiple times. HA works like a charm.

Thanks n1nj4888

Glad it’s working well for you!

 

[adamb]

We run a number of production 2 node clusters with this method and have had zero issues. We have 6 out in the field and 6 inhouse, for well over 6 months without a single issue. These clusters were even 2 node proxmox3 clusters and we worked out a method to remotely upgrade them to proxmox5 and cut them over to this new quorum disk method. Some of these 2 node clusters have been in place for well over 5 years.

 

[Jord]

We run a number of production 2 node clusters with this method and have had zero issues. We have 6 out in the field and 6 inhouse, for well over 6 months without a single issue. These clusters were even 2 node proxmox3 clusters and we worked out a method to remotely upgrade them to proxmox5 and cut them over to this new quorum disk method. Some of these 2 node clusters have been in place for well over 5 years.

Hi, I was just wondering what kind of storage you would use in a 2+1 nodes setup. Before switching from Xen to Proxmox , I used DRB. What do you gals & guys use?

 

[adamb]

Hi, I was just wondering what kind of storage you would use in a 2+1 nodes setup. Before switching from Xen to Proxmox , I used DRB. What do you gals & guys use?

Probably just a simple zfs setup with replication. Really depends on your requirements for HA failover and performance.

 

[LnxBil]

Hi, I was just wondering what kind of storage you would use in a 2+1 nodes setup. Before switching from Xen to Proxmox , I used DRB. What do you gals & guys use?

You can still use DRBD if you like to do so.