[Info-vax] Idiots Guide To Clustering

[Bart Zorn]

On Mar 17, 10:14 am, H Vlems <hvl... at freenet.de> wrote:
> On 15 mrt, 08:12, "Robert Jarratt" <nos... at nosp.am> wrote:
>
> > I have never set up a cluster. All I need is something that will allow me to
> > boot a MicroVAX from the network. I am running VMS 7.3. Can anyone point me
> > at some simple instructions on how to set this up?
>
> > Thanks
>
> > Rob
>
> You have a system that already runs VMS 7.3. I assume that it is a VAX
> otherwise this is going to be rather difficult.
> Log on to the host under SYSTEM and run @sys$manager:cluster_config.
> There are several options you can select. First select the option that
> sets up the running system as a cluster member
> and as a boothost for cluster satellites.
> The second time, run it to add a node to the NI cluster.
>
> Basically what happens is that a few parameters in sys
> $system:modparams.dat are set correctly.
> ALLOCLASS : each cluster member in a VAX NI cluster must have a unique
> and non-zero value

AFAIK, this is not needed. If you use a zero ALLOCLASS, the local
disks will get a device name like <nodename>$DKA100, which makes them
automatically unique across the cluster.

> SCSNODE : must be identical to the DECnet nodename
> SCSSYSTEMID: decnet-area*1024 + decnet-nodeaddress
> INTERCONNECT: set to "NI"
> BOOTNODE: set to "N"
> In NCP (if you decide to use DECnet) the remote host is added.
> The cluster member is registered with DECnet address and nodename, its
> hardware address (08-00-2b... etc), secondary loader.
> Make sure that the the attribute SERVICE of the DECnet circuit on the
> boot host is set to enabled. Its default value is disabled,
> which means that MOP load requests are ignored.
> The satellite is booted (>>> B <ethernet device name>)
>
> Note that a VAXcluster license is not needed to get the node booted
> into the cluster. You can mount disks and tapes and transfer files
> without a clusterlicense loaded.
> Hans

Bart