The IRIS FailSafe™ system is a pair of servers (called nodes in this guide) that communicate with each other using serial cables and a private Ethernet connection in addition to using the public network. The nodes may be configured in a dual-hosted or dual-initiator configuration. IRIS FailSafe software enables the nodes to be configured so that if one node fails, applications and services running on the failed node can be transferred (failed over) to the remaining node. IRIS FailSafe software and IRIS FailSafe software options fail over specific applications and resources, called highly available services, such as databases, Web servers, NFS® filesystems, XLV logical volumes, and IP addresses. This guide explains how to write the set of scripts that are required to turn an application into a highly available service.
This guide assumes that the IRIS FailSafe system has been set up and configured as described in the IRIS FailSafe Administrator's Guide and is able to successfully fail over highly available services. This guide requires that the configuration file /var/ha/ha.conf be an IRIS FailSafe Release 1.1 configuration file (version-major = 1 and version-minor = 1 in /var/ha/ha.conf).
This guide was prepared in conjunction with Release 1.1 of IRIS FailSafe.
This guide is written for system programmers who are developing scripts for the IRIS FailSafe system that enable it to fail over applications that aren't handled by the base and optional IRIS FailSafe products. These programmers must be familiar with the operation and administration of nodes running IRIS FailSafe, with the applications that are to be failed over, and with the IRIS FailSafe Administrator's Guide .
This guide contains the following chapters and appendix:
Chapter 1, “Introduction to IRIS FailSafe Programming,” introduces the software components of the IRIS FailSafe system and provides an overview on the steps required to add a new, highly available service to the system.
Chapter 2, “Modifying the Configuration File for a New Highly Available Service,” explains how to add configuration information to the IRIS FailSafe configuration file.
Chapter 3, “Writing a Monitoring Script,” describes how to write local and remote monitoring scripts.
Chapter 4, “Writing a Failover Script,” explains how to write a failover script for a highly available service.
Chapter 5, “Installing and Testing Scripts,” describes how to test the newly added scripts.
Appendix A, “Names Used in Template Configuration Files,” lists the names used in the configuration file and their purposes.
Besides this guide, other documentation for the IRIS FailSafe system includes
IRIS FailSafe Administrator's Guide
IRIS FailSafe Sybase Administrator's Guide (IRIS FailSafe Sybase® option)
IRIS FailSafe Oracle Administrator's Guide (IRIS FailSafe Oracle® option)
IRIS FailSafe INFORMIX Administrator's Guide (IRIS FailSafe INFORMIX® option)
The IRIS FailSafe reference pages are as follows:
ha_admin(1M)
ha_appmon(1M)
ha_cfgchksum(1M)
ha_cfginfo(1M)
ha_cfgverify(1M)
ha_exec(1M)
ha_hbeat(1M)
ha_ifa(1M)
ha_ifmx(1M) (IRIS FailSafe INFORMIX option)
ha_killd(1M)
ha_nc(1M)
ha_orcl(1M) (IRIS FailSafe Oracle option)
ha_spng(1M)
ha_sybs(1M) (IRIS FailSafe Sybase option)
http_ping(1M) (IRIS FailSafe Web option)
macconfig(1M)
ha.conf(4)
failsafe(7M)
Release notes are included with each IRIS FailSafe product. The names of the release notes are as follows:
| ha_base | release notes for IRIS FailSafe | |
| ha_nfs | release notes for IRIS FailSafe NFS | |
| ha_www | release notes for IRIS FailSafe Web | |
| ha_ orcl | release notes for IRIS FailSafe Oracle | |
| ha_ ifmx | release notes for IRIS FailSafe INFORMIX | |
| ha_ sybs | release notes for IRIS FailSafe Sybase |
These type conventions and symbols are used in this guide:
| Bold | Literal command-line arguments and literal parameter values | |
| Italics | Command names, filenames, new terms, the names of inst subsystems, manual/book titles, variable command-line arguments, and variables to be supplied by the user in examples, code, and syntax statements | |
| Fixed-width type |
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| Bold fixed-width type |
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| # | IRIX™ shell prompt for the superuser (root) |