clustering/shared storage device under parallels

Discussion in 'Linux Virtual Machine' started by ashleyb, Jul 10, 2007.

  1. ashleyb

    ashleyb Bit poster

    Messages:
    2
    Hi All,
    Just a quick feeler to see if anyone has attempted to create a cluster type environment using parallels VM's. I'd like to setup an Oracle RAC environment (either Linux or Solaris, likely linux) using two parallels VM's sharing a virtual disk (for ASM/OCFS components only of course). Is this possible? As the disks are designated as IDE:0:0 etc. I'm wondering if any clustering is going to work without the scsi atomic locking type commands. I'm hoping someone here has attempted this beforehand and can either give me the thumbs up or stop me from venturing into a world of pain.

    Thanks in advance.

    Regards,

    Ashley
     
  2. ashleyb

    ashleyb Bit poster

    Messages:
    2
    Doesn't work

    Hmm... I found my answer. I cloned a vm, tweaked network (including mac addresses) and had them working nicely independently. Shut both down created new shared virtual hdd from first vm config, adjusted second vm to use same drive, booted 1st then attempted to boot second. Second one stopped before even attempting to boot complaining about not being able to open the hdd file.

    I saw a tech note somewhere saying mac os x doesn't open files exclusively for writes in general therefore I can't see why mac os would have caused this (unless parallels put's a flock over a header or entire file). For any parallels developers/product managers trolling this list, any chance of providing this capability in a future release?
     
  3. mcookson

    mcookson Bit poster

    Messages:
    4
    You need to use iSCSI to share disks across VMs. That works quite nicely and I routine test SAN (Storage Area Network) code using SuSE 10 as the iSCSI Target (the VM that owns the virtual disks and shares them via iSCSI), with Mac OS X, Windows, and SuSE as iSCSI initiators (GlobalSAN has a free Mac OS X iSCSI initiator client, Windows and Linux have OS provided solutions). The initiators can be physical machines, or other guest OSes.
     

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