The Silicon Graphics® IRIS FailSafe™ product provides a general facility for high- availability services. The IRIS FailSafe system is based on two CHALLENGE® or POWER CHALLENGE™ servers, each offering services such as NFS™ and Netscape Communications Server™ (Netsite™). While running these services, the servers can also run database or other application software. Storage devices are physically attached to the two nodes in the system, but are owned and accessed by one node at a time. The servers must be running IRIX™ 6.2, or IRIX 5.3 with XFS™; IRIX 6.2 is included in the software shipped with the product.
 | Note: For ease in reading, CHALLENGE is written as Challenge in the balance of this guide. The term "Challenge" also refers to POWER CHALLENGE servers except where noted. |
The instructions in this guide are intended for Silicon Graphics System Support Engineers only. Because of the complexity of the IRIS FailSafe system, you must be familiar with the explanations of the system in the latest version of the IRIS FailSafe Administrator's Guide (007-3109-003 as of this writing).
This guide contains the following chapters and appendices:
Chapter 1, "IRIS FailSafe System Components," lists the hardware upgrades, software, cables, and options included in the IRIS FailSafe system.
Chapter 2, "Setting Up and Cabling the IRIS FailSafe System With Large Challenge Servers," describes how to install and set up the Challenge servers and the shared storage system and how to cable them for an IRIS FailSafe system.
Chapter 3, "Setting Up and Cabling the IRIS FailSafe System With Challenge S Servers," explains how to install the hardware for an IRIS FailSafe system in which one or both servers are a Challenge S.
Chapter 4, "Configuring Storage Systems for IRIS FailSafe," explains how to configure storage systems for IRIS FailSafe.
Chapter 5, "Maintaining and Upgrading the High-Availability System," explains troubleshooting system problems, isolating a node, replacing disks on the Challenge RAID storage system, and other maintenance tasks.
An index completes this guide.
The following Silicon Graphics documents are required for installing the IRIS FailSafe system. Be completely familiar with them, or bring the latest versions with you to the installation site.
| Note: The final digits of the document numbers in the following list might not be the latest versions. Many current installation guides are available in PostScript® form from [email protected]:/usr/people/guest/docdist. On the Web, you can access the Technical Publications library at http://techpubs.engr.sgi.com/. |
IRIS FailSafe Administrator's Guide (007-3109-003)
Note: You must have the latest version of this manual for software installation and configuration instructions; these instructions are only in the IRIS FailSafe Administrator's Guide and are not included in this manual. CHALLENGE/Onyx Site Preparation Guide (108-7040-040) contains essential information for planning the installation of these systems; this document is available online (InSight)
CHALLENGE/Onyx XL Rackmount Installation Instructions (108-7042-020) contains SCSI channel information in Appendix D; this document is available online (InSight)
CHALLENGE/Onyx L Deskside Installation Instructions (108-7039-020); this document is available online (InSight)
CHALLENGE Vault Rack and SCSIBox 2 Installation Instructions (108-7044-040)
CHALLENGE Vault L Installation Instructions (108-0124-001)
CHALLENGE S Server Owner's Guide (007-2314-005)
FDDIXpress Mezzanine Board for CHALLENGE and Onyx Installation Instructions (108-0116-001)
FDDIXpress Administration Guide (007-0813-040; included if FDDI components are ordered)
FDDIXpress Release Notes, included in FDDI board shipment
CHALLENGE RAID Installation and Maintenance Instructions (108-0128-00x)
Remote System Control Port Installation Guide (108-0140-001)
In addition to the manuals listed above, the following manuals are useful for maintaining or troubleshooting the IRIS FailSafe system; bring them to a site requiring maintenance.
CHALLENGE RAID Owner's Guide (007-2532-006; included with optional Challenge RAID)
NetWorker for IRIX Administration Guide (007-1458-030; included with optional NetWorker® package)
NetWorker for IRIX User's Guide (007-2304-003; included with optional NetWorker package)
ONC3/NFS Administrator's Guide (007-0850-070)
IRIX Admin: Disks and Filesystems volume, which covers XLV volumes for IRIX 6.2 (007-2825-001)
Getting Started with XFS Filesystems (007-2549-001)
Customer manuals shipped with the IRIS FailSafe system are
IRIS FailSafe Administrator's Guide (007-3109-00x)
IRIS FailSafe Programmer's Guide (007-3298-001)
IRIS FailSafe INFORMIX Administrator's Guide (007-3268-001)
IRIS FailSafe Oracle Administrator's Guide (007-3269-001)
IRIS FailSafe Sybase Administrator's Guide (007-3306-001)
These type conventions and symbols are used in this guide:
| Helvetica Bold | Hardware labels | |
| Italics | Executable names, filenames, IRIX commands, manual or book titles, new terms, program variables, tools, utilities, variable command-line arguments, variable coordinates, and variables to be supplied by the user in examples, code, and syntax statements | |
| Fixed-width type |
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| Bold fixed-width type |
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| "" | (Double quotation marks) Onscreen menu items and references in text to document section titles | |
| [] | (Brackets) Surrounding optional syntax statement arguments | |
| <> | (Angle brackets) Surrounding nonprinting keyboard keys, for example, <Esc>, <Ctrl-D> |