[custom-header-login]
The latest incarnation of DRBD from LINBIT is DRBD-SDS or DRBD-9 if you prefer. This adds to the existing HA product in the fact that it can now support up to 32 nodes, has AutoPromote and support for RDMA over InfiniBand connections. Add to that Linbit has also written the new DRBD Manage to simplify how you manage the system. Taking these new features this blog and video shows you how you to go about installing DRBD-SDS from the Linbit provided Ubuntu PPA. Gaining access to the packaged binaries normally means a subscription to the software; however, using PPA this is not the case.
Obtaining DRBD-SDS
The packaged binaries normally come with your Enterprise subscription to Linbit. This is still available and you can contact sales@linbit.com to discuss pricing and associated costs. The software is Open Source fro DRBD so you may also download the source tarball or use git to retrieve the source. You can then compile the code using the normal make tools. In a great move, Linbit has decided to release Ubuntu packages through the PPA repositories. The packages still contain the source code but it is compiled and installed automatically for you. This really makes life easy and becomes a great way to learn DRBD in your test environment or at home before moving tot he Enterprise and the subscription.
Ubuntu Repos
Using the stand Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Server the repositories allow access to DRBD 8.4 as the packages have been created by the Ubuntu development team from the Linbit source code. The DRBD Kernel module is part of the mainstream kernel release and does not need to be installed. The video will step you through the process of reviewing the situation before adding the PPA.
Creating the PPA
The make use of the new features of DRBD-SDS we do need to ensure that we go about installing DRBD-SDS from the PPA or compile from source. To add the PPA the code is:
sudo apt-add-repository ppa:linbit/linbit-drbd9-stack sudo apt-get update
After running the command you will be prompted to accept the repo onto your system.
Installing DRBD-SDS
Having installed the PPA we can go ahead installing DRBD-SDS and allowing it to do all the work for us. We simply need to type:
sudo apt-get install drbd-dkms python-drbdmanage
If you do not already have the development tools installed then there will be a little work to do as the build-essential virtual package is installed. Once completed we can load the module and test the version number.
sudo modprobe drbd cat /proc/drbd
At the time of writing the module is 9.0.5-1, but the development team in Vienna are always busy with new features so this is changeable.
The video takes you through the complete process using Ubuntu 16.04.1