[Info-vax] Multia stuck booting into LAVC (OPENVMS v7.2)

[John E. Malmberg]

On 8/22/2012 9:36 AM, salzfan at gmail.com wrote:
>
> the output from the DEC 3000
> Parameter Name           Current    Default     Min.      Max.     Unit  Dynamic
> --------------           -------    -------    -------   -------   ----  -------
> VOTES                           1          1         0        127 Votes
> EXPECTED_VOTES                  2          1         1        127 Votes
> VAXCLUSTER                      2          1         0          2 Coded-valu
>
> Yes the quorum disk is the DEC 3000's internal disk. The disk in the
> multia was setup as swap disk/pagefile disk as it was too small to
> install VMS on.

1. The sole purpose of a quorum disk is to be a tie breaker in a 
fragmented cluster.

2. The quorum disk needs to be a multi-path disk that can be mounted at 
the same time by two or more members of the cluster, otherwise there is 
no tie to break.

If you set up a quorum disk the way you have it, all you are doing is 
wasting CPU and disk cycles polling it.

If you remove the quorum disk configuration information and just change 
VOTES to 2 on that node, you will have an equivalent setup with less 
disk activity.

Generally only cluster members that boot off of their own disk should 
have a vote, and if you only have one of those nodes, then simply you 
only need it to have 1 vote.  Because if that node goes away, you have 
nothing left of the cluster to survive.

If you do not have multi-path disks and have an even number of cluster 
members that can boot off of their own system disks, then you can give 
different VOTES settings depending on which nodes you want to survive a 
fragmentation event.

Unfortunately, while this simplifies your configuration, it probably 
does not solve your boot issue, unless you are actually giving the 
multia a vote.  In which case set it to 0 votes as it does not have a 
system disk and can not survive on its own.

Regards,
-John
wb8tyw at qsl.network
Personal Opinion Only