# hp Reliable Transaction Router
System Manager's Manual

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### 2.13.4.4 Dual-Rail Setup

You may need to set up a dual-rail (multihome) environment to accommodate a firewall, segregate a network subnet or possibly to ease the load on an Ethernet line. In some situations, this can improve performance.

For dual-rail or multihome setup, consider these topics:

- Physical network card setup
- RTR facility setup
- DNS (Domain Name System) support
- Tunnel configurations

Physical Network Card Setup

To set up frontends and routers in a dual-rail environment, use the following steps:

1. Install two network cards in the dual-rail node. This can be your frontend or your router. The two configurations are shown in Figure 2-3 and Figure 2-4.
2. Assign each network card a unique IP address.
3. Use static IP addresses for the network cards - check your operating system installation documents for how to use the appropriate utility or application to perform this setup.
4. Create an RTR facility that spans all nodes. Specify the RTR Router (TR) on the node with the two network cards, and use an * wildcard when executing the Create Facility command on the router, (see the example in RTR Facility Setup).

For example, the configuration shown in Figure 2-3 illustrates a firewall in a configuration with three RTR nodes and two network cards installed on the router.

Figure 2-3 Dual-Rail Configuration with Network Cards on a Router

In Figure 2-3, Node A is a frontend, Node B, with the two network cards (nc), is both a router and a backend, and Node C is a backend. The hubs are Ethernet hubs. Figure 2-4 illustrates a frontend with two network cards.

Figure 2-4 Dual-Rail Configuration with Network Cards on a Frontend

RTR Facility Setup

To set up the dual-rail environment, you can, as an example, create Facility A on three physical nodes (configuration shown in Figure 2-3) with the following commands:

Use this Create Facility command: | On:
--- | ---
RTR> CREATE FACILITY A /Frontend=A /Router=B | The frontend, node A.
RTR> CREATE FACILITY A /Router=B /Frontend=(A,*) /Backend=B | The router, node B.
RTR> CREATE FACILITY A /Router=B /Backend=C | The backend, node C.

Note To ensure correct node recognition, include an explicit node name of a known frontend with a wildcard.

RTR resolves addresses to one name in the DNS Server when you use a wildcard for frontends from a router.

### 2.13.4.5 DNS Server Support

A host with more than one network interface is multihomed. In a multihomed configuration, care must be taken to ensure that the gethostbyname function returns the list of all possible network addresses for the host. Otherwise, RTR may reject connections when it cannot recognize the host. To return the address list, use a correctly configured DNS. Using the /etc/hosts file on a UNIX server does not return the list of addresses.

Networking support for machines with multiple network adapters allows multiple IP connection targets for any host. With this capability, any pair of machines connected by multiple network paths can fail over to an alternate path if the primary path becomes unusable.

RTR determines the set of IP addresses to be used for a remote host when the host name is looked up using the gethostbyname() API. Depending on your platform and site policies, the IP address information will be provided by UNIX hosts file entries, OpenVMS TCPIP hosts entries, or by one or more BIND servers. Examples for a system named 'host1' with two interfaces follow:

UNIX hosts file:

    1.2.3.4    host1_interfaceb
    1.2.4.4    host1 host1_interfaceb

OpenVMS:

    TCPIP> set host "host1_interfaceb"/address=1.2.3.4
    TCPIP> set host "host1"/address=1.2.4.4/alias="host1_interfaceb"

Given the information above, RTR will attempt to connect to remote system 'host1' using address 1.2.4.4 first. Should this connection attempt fail, RTR will retry using address 1.2.3.4.

Connection attempts that invoked address failover can be monitored using the RTR monitor picture Netstat.

Note that connection attempts using IP to unreachable hosts usually terminate with a timeout condition, but are often intercepted by the RTR connection timeout whose default value is 60s. This is followed by a further quiescent period whose default value is 90s. You may wish to consider changing the values for these timers for a faster reconnection rate.

### 2.13.4.6 Tunnel Configurations

If a tunnel separates the frontends from the routers, configure the frontends on the routers with names corresponding to the pseudo-adapter addresses assigned by the tunnel. If these are unpredictable, you can use wildcards on the routers only.

If a tunnel separates the routers and the backends, configure each with respect to the other with the name prefix "tunnel."

# 2.14 Running RTR as a Service on Windows NT

Once the RTR as Service has been installed (refer to the Reliable Transaction Router Installation Guide), RTR can be started or stopped from the Control Panel/Services panel using the START and STOP buttons provided.

- To start RTR, click on the START button.
- To stop RTR, click on the STOP button.

Note Pressing START and STOP or the reverse in quick succession (within approximately 5 seconds, depending on the speed of your computer) may cause undesirable results because the Service executes quickly, making available the other action button. However, the requested RTR action may not have completed when the second action button is pressed. It is therefore possible that the STOP action may be blocked by an incomplete START action. Although the Service will claim to be stopped, RTR may in fact remain started. Pressing whichever action button is functioning should repair the problem.

By default, RTR will not restart automatically at system reboot. To change this, set the Control Panel/Services entry for RTR.

## 2.14.1 Customizing the RTR Windows NT Service

When starting RTR, the Service looks for the file `usrstart.rtr` in the RTR home directory. When it finds the file, the Service executes any RTR commands it may contain. RTR commands from `usrstart.rtr` execute after RTR has been started.

From the point of view of the Service, the RTR home directory is found in the system-level environment variable `rtr_directory` , or, if that is not defined, then the directory from which the Service was executed.

For the RTR Service to use it, `rtr_directory` must be defined in the system-level environment variables list, not the user-level environment variables list. Also, the system must be rebooted after the definition of `rtr_directory` is either created or changed for it to be used.

If a user-level copy of `rtr_directory` exists, it must identify the same RTR home directory as the system-level copy, or if there is no system-level copy, the directory containing the currently registered Service program. If it does not, behavior of RTR is undefined.

Caution Changing the value of `rtr_directory` , or reregistering the service from another directory while RTR is running, is dangerous and should be avoided. Starting RTR from the Service, then stopping it from DOS (or the reverse) should also be avoided.

If you put STOP RTR in the `usrstart.rtr` file, it will stop RTR. The Service will not detect that RTR has been stopped and will offer only the STOP action button. Pressing the STOP button will fix the problem.

Similarly, when the Service stops RTR, it searches the RTR home directory for the file `usrstop.rtr` and, if the file exists, it executes any RTR commands in it. User commands from `usrstop.rtr` are executed before RTR has stopped.

Caution If you put QUIT or EXIT in either `usrstart.rtr` or `usrstop.rtr` , RTR will exit improperly. As a result, an RTR command server process incorrectly remains active, preventing the Service from starting or stopping RTR, and preventing the RTR command server from exiting. Because the RTR command server executes under the SYSTEM account, it cannot be stopped from Task Manager other than by the SYSTEM account.

## 2.14.2 Files Created by the RTR Windows NT Service

If RTR is started from the Service rather than from a Command Prompt window, several files are created in the RTR root directory.

- `srvcin.txt` is created to act as a command line input source
- `srvcout.txt` acts as a container for console output
- `rtrstart.rtr` contains the startup commands.

When the Service stops RTR, it recreates `srvcin.txt` and creates `rtrstop.rtr` for stopdown commands. Creation of these files is unconditional; that is, they are created every time RTR is started or stopped, whether or not they already exist. RTR will therefore ignore (and overwrite) any changes made to one of these files.

# 2.15 Assignment of Processing States for Partitions

RTR assigns a primary or secondary processing state to a partition (or a key-range definition), consisting of one or more server application channels, which may or may not share a common process. On a given backend, all such server application channels belonging to a given partition will have the same processing state, but the processing state for the same partition will normally be different on different backends. The exception is the case of the standby processing state. Because a given partition can have multiple standby backends, several of these may be in a given state.

RTR determines the processing state of a given partition through the use of a globally managed sequence number for that partition. By default, the RTR router automatically assigns sequence numbers to partitions during startup. When a server starts up on a backend and declares a new partition for that backend, the partition initially has a sequence number of zero. When the partition on that backend makes an initial connection to the router, the router increases its sequence number count for that partition by one and assigns the new sequence number to the new backend partition. The active backend with the lowest backend partition sequence number gets the primary processing state in both shadow and standby configurations. That backend is also referred to as the primary backend, though the same backend could have a standby processing state for a different partition.

Under certain failover conditions, backend partitions may either retain their original sequence number or be assigned a new sequence number by the router. If a failure is caused by a network disruption, for example, a backend partition retains its sequence number when it reconnects with the router. However, if the backend node is rebooted or RTR is restarted on the backend node, a new sequence number is assigned by the router to any partitions that start up on that backend. Routers will only assign new sequence numbers to backend partitions that have a current sequence number of zero, or if the backend partition is joining an existing facility and has a sequence number that conflicts with that of another backend partition on another node.

Sequence number information is obtained from the SHOW PARTITION/FULL command. In the output of this command, the sequence number is indicated by the "relative priority." Example 2-6 shows use of the SHOW PARTITION/FULL command from a router partition. In this example, the backend partition called Bronze has a sequence number of 1, and the backend partition called Gold has a sequence number of 2.

Example 2-6 SHOW PARTITION/FULL for Routers

    Router partitions on node SILVER in group "test" at Fri Nov 15 14:51:16 2002

    Facility:                     Metals     State:                        ACTIVE
    Low bound:                         0     High bound:               4294967295
    Failover policy:                                              fail_to_standby
    Backends:                                                         bronze,gold
     States:                                                      pri_act,sec_act
     Relative priorities:                                                     1,2
    Primary main:                 bronze     Shadow main:                    gold

Example 2-7 shows the output of the SHOW PARTITION/FULL command for each backend node.

Example 2-7 SHOW PARTITION/FULL for Backends

    Backend partitions on node BRONZE in group "test" at Mon Mar 22 14:52:32 1999

    Partition name:                                                            p1

    Configuration:-

    Facility:                     Metals     State:                       pri_act
    Low bound:                         0     High bound:               4294967295
    Active servers:                    0     Free servers:                      1
    Transaction presentation:     active     Last Rcvy BE:                   gold
    Active transaction count:          0     Transactions recovered:            0
    Failover policy:     fail_to_standby     Key range ID:               16777217
    Master router:                silver     Relative priority:                 1
    Recovery retry count:              0     Resource Manager:
    Features:                                         Shadow,NoStandby,Concurrent

    Backend partitions on node GOLD in group "test" at Mon Mar 22 14:54:12 1999

    Partition name:                                                            p1

    Configuration:-

    Facility:                     Metals     State:                       sec_act
    Low bound:                         0     High bound:               4294967295
    Active servers:                    0     Free servers:                      1
    Transaction presentation:     active     Last Rcvy BE:                 bronze
    Active transaction count:          0     Transactions recovered:            0
    Failover policy:     fail_to_standby     Key range ID:               16777216
    Master router:                silver     Relative priority:                 2
    Recovery retry count:              0     Resource Manager:
    Features:                                         Shadow,NoStandby,Concurrent

## 2.15.1 Sequence Numbers in a Shadow Configuration

Figure 2-5 shows how sequence numbers are initially assigned in a simple partition with two backends named Bronze and Gold, and a router named Silver.

Figure 2-5 Assignment of Sequence Numbers in a Shadow Configuration

Table 2-3 Steps to Assigning Sequence Numbers
Step | Action
--- | ---
1 | A partition (with shadowing enabled) is started on backend Bronze.
2 | The partition on Bronze obtains sequence number 1 from the router and becomes the primary.
3 | Another server on the same partition (with the same attributes) is started on backend Gold.
4 | The partition on backend Gold obtains sequence number 2 from the router and becomes the secondary.
5 | Backend Bronze crashes and reboots (the partition sequence number on Bronze is reset to 0). The partition on backend Gold goes into Remember mode.
6 | When the server starts, the partition on backend Bronze obtains sequence number 3 from the router and becomes the secondary; backend Gold now becomes the primary.
7 | The network connection from router Silver to backend Gold fails. The partition on backend Bronze becomes the primary. The partition on backend Gold loses quorum and is in a wait-for-quorum state.
8 | The network connection to backend Gold is reestablished. The partition on backend Gold retained its original sequence number of 2 and retains the primary role while the partition on backend Bronze reassumes the secondary role.

Alternatively, the roles of backend nodes can be specifically assigned with the /PRIORITY_LIST qualifier to the SET PARTITION command. The /PRIORITY_LIST qualifier can be used to ensure that when Bronze fails and then returns to participate in the facility, it becomes the active primary member. To ensure this, the following command would be issued on both backend systems immediately after creating the partition:

    SET PARTITION test/PRIORITY_LIST=(bronze,gold)

Use the same priority list order on all partition members. If a different list is used, the router will determine the sequence number for conflicting members through the order in which those members joined the facility. For example, if the above command were issued only on Bronze, and Gold had the opposite priority list, the router would assign the lower sequence number to the backend that joined the facility first.

## 2.15.2 Setting Failover Policy

Use the SET PARTITION command with the /FAILOVER_POLICY qualifier to establish whether to fail over to a shadow or a standby backend. For example, use the /FAILOVER_POLICY qualifier to select a new active primary in configurations where shadowing is enabled. This qualifier takes precedence over the /PRIORITY_LIST qualifier. Use the /PRIORITY_LIST qualifier to determine the failover order for specific nodes. It is most useful in cluster configurations where it can specify the exact failover order for the nodes within the cluster.

For example, in a standby facility on a cluster of four nodes, the /PRIORITY_LIST qualifier can specify the desired order of failover for those cluster members. Some machines within a cluster may be more powerful than other machines. This feature allows for the most efficient use of those machines.

# 2.16 Router Selection in Facilities

Within a given facility, routers and backends connect to one another, although nodes with a given role do not connect to nodes with the same role, that is, routers do not connect to other routers. Frontends connect to only one router at a given time. This selected router is called the current router for that frontend in a facility.

A backend connects to all routers defined within a facility. The connected router with the lowest network address is designated the master router. Internally, a node is identified through a structure called the Kernel Net ID. The Kernel Net ID is a concatenation of all network addresses a node is known as for all the protocols and interfaces that it supports. The master router designation is only relevant to a backend. It is where the backend goes to obtain and verify partition configuration and facility information.

Routers are made known to the frontend systems through the list specified in the /ROUTER=(list) qualifier to the CREATE FACILITY command issued on the frontend or the router. This list specifically determines the preferred router. If the first router specified is not available, the next one on the list is chosen. When the facility is created on the frontend, the list of routers specified can be a subset of the routers contained within the entire facility. Use this to prevent a frontend from selecting a router reserved for other frontend systems. Failback of routers to the preferred router is supported. Thus if the preferred router is not available, but later becomes available, the frontend automatically fails back and connects to its preferred router.

You can also use the /BALANCE qualifer with the CREATE or SET FACILITY commands to randomize router selection. For more information on use of the /BALANCE qualifer, see Section 2.8.

# 2.17 Clustering Considerations for RTR Standby Servers

The standby server remains idle while the RTR active server performs its work, accepting transactions and updating the database. A failure of the active RTR server occurs when either the process itself crashes, when the RTRACP on the node crashes or when the node itself becomes unreachable due to an operating or hardware fault, such as a network interface failure. When the active server fails, the standby server takes over, recovers any in-progress transactions, updates the database, and communicates with clients until the active server returns.

There can be many concurrent instances of the active server, and failover occurs only when the last remaining server has also failed. There can be many instances of a standby server. Activation of the standby server is transparent to the user. Standby failover behavior depends on whether the standby and active nodes are members of the same cluster and whether the cluster is a recognized or unrecognized cluster.

The clustering systems that RTR supports as recognized clusters are OpenVMS clusters and Tru64 UNIX Clusters (TruClusters). RTR supports Windows clusters as unrecognized clusters with file sharing. RTR treats all other cluster systems (for example, Sun) as non-clustered. Figure 2-6 shows a sample configuration of a clustered system.

Figure 2-6 Sample OpenVMS Cluster Running RTR

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