Best storage setup based on iSCSI

May 19, 2017
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Hello guys:

I've just bought 2 HP Servers (2TB internal disk, 96 GB RAM, 4x1Gbps Ethernet, 16 cores) and 1 Lenovo S2200 storage. I'd like to use these for a Proxmox HA cluster.
As per documentation, I know that 3 nodes are needed for a reliable HA cluster, so I plan to add a small server (or PC) to be used as third node. Also, my storage only supports iSCSI (traditional one, it does not support ZFS over iSCSI).

I would like to know what it's the best storage configuration based on my scenario. I need my Proxmox to support Live migration and HA.

For now, I've mapped 1 LUN from my storage to both HP servers through iSCSI. In Proxmox, I've configured iSCSI and LVM on top of it. I can run 3 VMs fine using this setup but I can't do online migration. Even an attempt to migrate an offline VM gives me an LVM error (... volume already exists). I guess that my LVM setup does not support to be active in both nodes. I don't know if I need CLVM support or something similar.

I hope you can give me some advice. Thanks.
 
Yes, it does support HA.


You have to mark the LVM storage as shared, so PVE know that his storage is the same on all nodes.
Thanks for your reply. Marking LVM as shared did the trick, now I'm able to migrate VMs between my 2 nodes.

I was trying to test HA using only 2 nodes while I don't get my 3rd node ready. Would HA work using 2 nodes (only for testing)? Please, let me know if I did it correctly:

1st: IPMI watchdog was enabled by loading the appropriate kernel module
2nd: I've previously configured a cluster using 2 nodes using pvecm command
3rd: I've created a HA group through Web GUI
4th: I've created a HA resource for one of my VMs through Web GUI. I gave priority 1 for node1 and 2 for node2.
5th: I turned off node 1

I waited some minutes but my VM was not moved to node2. There was a "Migrate" task running; when I clicked on it it showed me an error like "No route to host" (I guess it was trying to reach node1 which was offline).

I wonder if this error with my HA test was due to having only 2 nodes or it was caused by a different error or a prerequisite not met.

Thanks again for your time and help.
 
ha needs at least 3 nodes to work correctly, since in your case, the second node did not have quorum and could not do anything
 

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