Yes that is true. OpenMosix was designed as an SSI ("Single system image") cluster primarily as a load balancer. However there is a perl module developed at CPAN OpenMosix::HA adding a single inittab structure and HA capabilities for OpenMosix clusters with heartbeat capability. See below NAME OpenMosix::HA -- High Availability (HA) layer for an openMosix cluster SYNOPSIS use OpenMosix::HA; my $ha = new OpenMosix::HA; # spawn all apps for resource group "foo", runlevel "run" $ha->tell("foo","run"); # spawn all apps for resource group "foo", runlevel "runmore" # (this stops everything started by runlevel "run") $ha->tell("foo","runmore"); # get status of all resource groups $ha->status(); DESCRIPTION This module provides basic "init" functionality, giving you a single inittab-like file to manage daemon startup and restart across a cluster of openMosix machines. This gives you a high-availability cluster with low hardware overhead. In contrast to traditional HA clusters, we use the openMosix cluster membership facility to provide heartbeat and to detect network partitions. All you need to do is build a relatively conventional openMosix cluster, install this module, and configure it to start and manage your HA processes. There is no need to use the heartbeat serial cables, spare ethernet cards, or high-end server machines which traditional HA requires. There is no need for chained SCSI buses -- you can share disks among many nodes via any number of other current technologies, including SAN, NAS, GFS, or Firewire (IEEE-1394). -----Original Message----- From: owner-tlug-lxSQFCZeNF4 at public.gmane.org [mailto:owner-tlug at ss.org] On Behalf Of Robert Brockway Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2003 3:28 PM To: tlug-lxSQFCZeNF4 at public.gmane.org Subject: RE: [TLUG]: High-Availability On Thu, 18 Dec 2003, DanG wrote:

LVS is a very good software package that is constantly under development and use. linux-ha.org works with LVS collaboratively. http://oscar.openclustergroup.org/tiki-index.php OSCAR is another open source project for cluster builds you should look at. If you want an easy cluster to setup and administer I would look at ClusterKnoppix which is based on the Knoppix liveCD with OpenMosix clustering integrated. This should make for a pretty easy install/setup http://bofh.be/clusterknoppix/

Clustering is one of those terms which maybe a bit over-used in computing. OpenMosix is not a tool that will supply HA, it is a load sharing system. If an OpenMosix node dies then data is lost, plain & simple. Infact right now a process running under OM is susceptible to loss of the original node _or_ the node the data moves too. Rob -- Robert Brockway B.Sc. email: robert-5LEc/6Zm6xCUd8a0hrldnti2O/JbrIOy at public.gmane.org, zzbrock at uqconnect.net Linux counter project ID #16440 (http://counter.li.org) "The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens" -Baha'u'llah -- The Toronto Linux Users Group. Meetings: http://tlug.ss.org TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://tlug.ss.org/subscribe.shtml -- The Toronto Linux Users Group. Meetings: http://tlug.ss.org TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://tlug.ss.org/subscribe.shtml