Note: At this time, our software is tested only on RedHat Enterprise Linux 5.x and Centos 5.x. However, the design is inherently flexible and will eventually be adapted for and tested on many distributions. At this time, we plan to add Ubuntu and Debian support first.

We'll prioritize according to your votes. Participate in the poll on the right to cast your vote!

Register for the website if you haven't already and download the latest release from the Downloads page.

2. Extract

Before installing:

• Does /etc/hosts have the correct information? It should look something like this:
  # Do not remove the following line, or various programs
# that require network functionality will fail.
127.0.0.1               localhost.localdomain localhost
192.168.1.231           myservername

• Is the system configured with the primary IP address on eth0? Primary means: This is the IP that the master will use to communicate with clients. I.e., if I am 10.0.0.5 and the clients will be 10.0.0.6,7,and 8., then 10.0.0.5 needs to be on eth0
• Is your kernel source linked to /usr/src/linux ? (for tips on obtaining this, check the latest README documents)

If you answered yes to the three questions above, you're ready to begin installation.
Start by running the installer:

root@master1 ~ # ./ha_installer

You will see the following screen:

This node will become the master.
The hostname is currently: master1.mydomain.com

The current IP addresses are:
192.168.1.150

and the default gateway is 192.168.1.1

If you want to change any of these
settings before building the cluster,
please exit the installer and change
them now. You can re-run the installer
after you have the correct settings in place.
Also, please make sure that the /etc/hosts
file has correct information ( a default
Centos installation may not create this file
correctly ).

Exit now? [y/n]:

If any of the reported settings are not what you expect, type “y” to exit and correct whatever is wrong. Begin the installer again when ready. To continue here, type “n”.

ClusterMaker will now ask you to specify the virtual IP address used by LVS (from the Linux Virtual Server project).

This IP is where inbound traffic will enter the cluster for load balancing. For instance, assume you are deploying a cluster of apache web servers and you choose 10.0.0.99 for the virtual IP address. After your cluster is online, you should direct traffic for your web application to 10.0.0.99 and it will be load balanced across however many nodes are online. Each node will be running the app and will be capable of responding directly to the request. By default, the WLC (weighted least connection) algorithm is used. This will monitor the number of open connections on each server and use this information for an approximate point in time load calculation.

Checking for /usr/src/linux...          [ OK ]

The cluster will create a virtual IP
address for incoming services. All inbound
connections that are intended for load
balancing should be pointed to this address.
It must be on the same subnet as the master
and all cluster nodes. You can change this later
by modifying /cluster/bin/lvs-init.

Please choose an IP address:

Type in the IP address that the cluster will use to service requests and press enter.

What email address should the cluster send alerts to?
This can be changed later by editing /cluster/mon/mon.cf.
Enter address:

Enter the email address where you would like to receive notifications for certain cluster events. These events include nodes coming online and nodes failing service checks.

The installer now has all the information it needs to build software and setup a master server. Please be patient - installation may take up to 20 minutes.

Many kinds of errors are screened for during installation. If any errors are detected, they will be listed when the installer completes. Please note them for troubleshooting, and when contacting technical support or the mailing list.

Now that your new master server is installed, you might want to configure Point in Time Database Snapshots, add a backup master using the /cluster/bin/master-maker tool, or add some nodes.

The ClusterMaker package comes pre-installed with Terracotta java clustering software. It's not turned on by default but can quickly be enabled for advanced java application clustering. Once enabled, just set Tomcat to start in runlevel 2. Anything in runlevel 2 will run on all compute nodes.

Also, you should check out the web interface at:
http://cluster_ip

This is the easiest way to add nodes.

If you experience problems with the installation, please check the FAQ and/or contact technical support at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .