file replication

jdutfield · 10-03-2007, 02:43 AM

I am looking to replicate a directoory from a live (production) linux server to a failover Linux server. Does anyone have any idea on the best way of doing this

Cheers

Jonathan

brianmcgee · 10-03-2007, 05:23 AM

Best way of doing this is imho actually using the same ressource in both servers.

For example the ressources needed in both servers resides on NFS or in a SAN together with a cluster filesystem like GFS.

So both servers may have concurrent read/write access to the same files without the need to replicate data.

matthewg42 · 10-03-2007, 05:29 AM

The answer is, of course, "it depends".

The simplest way is to run a script once every so often from cron which copies modifiy files from one server to another. rsync is super for this, as it if very efficient so long as the amount which has changed is small compared to the amount which is the same on each subsequent copy. This method is suitable for replication where you do not mind there being some delay, and hence the possibility that you will "miss" some updates when fail over occurs, but it won't be so many, depending on how often the job runs.

At the other end of the scale, if you require transaction level synchronisation it is a bit more complicated. Failover database systems typically have this functionality built into the database engine, or as a bolt-on for that engine. I'm not so sure about replicating filesystems which have to be transaction-synchronised...

jdutfield · 10-03-2007, 10:06 AM

Thanks for the advice matthewg42

I'm a bit new to all this linux stuff could you please give me a bit of help how to intstall the binary files.

I have downloaded to the linux server now need to install. Can i do this via the comnmand line?

Regards

Jonathan

matthewg42 · 10-03-2007, 10:24 AM

You need to provide a lot more information that that. What are you trying to install? What distro do you use?

jdutfield · 10-03-2007, 10:38 AM

I am trying to install rsync, on a production server and will and replicate a test file over to a failover server using ssh. I have never installed any thing on a linux server. I am able to copy all the banary files over to the prodcution server but i have to login into the prod server via putty so will have to intslaa using the cammand line.

How do i install the rsync-2.6.9.tar.gz file that I have copied over to the prodcution server?

Many thanks

Jonathan

matthewg42 · 10-03-2007, 10:46 AM

What distro is the server (e.g. Redhat, SUSE, debian, another)?