The second installment of the series is based around a topic for which I’ve received a few questions about lately. The installation of VSA Cluster Service onto an operating system platform other than Windows. As previously mentioned in part one of this series, the VSA Cluster Services is supported on two different Linux distribution which are RHEL and SLES.
In this post, I cover and provide the necessary steps to successfully deploy the VSA Cluster Service in a Linux operating system (RHEL).
The VSA Cluster Service virtual or physical machine requirements remain as explained in part one of the series:
2GB of storage capacity
VSA Cluster Service must reside on the same network segment as other cluster members
Install a single service instance per server
Virtual Machine or Physical server must not be in a multihomed configuration (single NIC interface)
Access to network port range (4330 – 4339) for communication
Apply resource reservation in order to avoid service interruption due to memory swapping (100% of RAM, 500MHz CPU)
Download the VSA Cluster Service bits for Linux from the VMware Download site. As of the writing of this post the current released build is VMware-VSAClusterService-5.1.1.0-858549-linux.zip.
Extract the content of the zip file onto any location with sufficient space. Similar to the example illustrated below where the bits are extracted to a directory /tmp/VMware-VSACS
Extraction of VSA Cluster Service bits in Linux
Verify the content of the zip file was extracted to the desire directory correctly. This can be accomplished by executing the list (ls -l) command. The result of the output should be similar to the illustration below.
Validation of VSA Cluster Service bits extraction
Go into the newly created directory (VMware-VSACS) where the content of the zip file was extracted under another directory called VMware-VSAClusterService. Verify the content of that directory by using the list command (ls -l) again. The result of the output should be similar to the illustration below.
Validation of VMware-VSAClusterService directory
Go into the setup folder and lunch the installation shell script (install.sh) to start the installation of the service. There are some instances when the execution of the installation script (install.sh) doesn’t work due to a file permission limitation as illustrated below.
Installation Error
This error is happens when the installation script (install.sh) permissions are not set with execution privileges. Use the list command (ls -l) in the setup directory and check the permissions currently set to the installation shell (install.sh) script. If the letter “x” is missing from the listing to the left similar to the illustration below, that is the reason or the problem.
Execution Permissions
In order to correct this issue, simply modify the permissions of the file and add the execution rights by using the command “chmod +x install.sh”. Now you should be able to see that there is an “x” listed on the file as illustrated below.
Permissions Corrected
Now the execution of the installation (install.sh) script should be able to proceed. If the installation is executed successfully the process will create the VSA Cluster Service account (vmwarevcsadmin) and configure the necessary permissions required for the account to be used. Once the installation is completed the screen should be the same as illustrated below.
Installation Completed
At this point the VSA Cluster Server installation bits (VMware-VSAClusterService-5.1.1.0-858549-linux.zip) can now be deleted. Now change the password for the VSA Cluster Service account (vmwarevcsadmin) as illustrated below.
Service Account Password Change
Before proceeding to the VSA Manager and the creation of the VSA Clusters check make sure the VSA Cluster Service service (VSAClusterService) is running as it should after changing the accounts password. The screenshot below illustrates the validation of the service being active.
VSA Cluster Service Status
At this point you have followed the necessary steps to successfully achieve the deployment of the VSA Cluster Service on a Linux (RHEL) operating system. If you missed any details about the VSA Cluster Service and two node cluster considerations for successful deployments, make sure to read the part 1 of the blog series.
