[ClusterLabs] Linux 8.2 - high totem token requires manual setting of ping_interval and ping_timeout

[Jan Friesse]

Robert,
thank you for the info/report. More comments inside.

> All,
> Hello.  Hope all is well.   I have been researching Oracle Linux 8.2 and ran across a situation that is not well documented.   I decided to provide some details to the community in case I am missing something.
> 
> Basically, if you increase the totem token above approximately 33000 with the knet transport, then a two node cluster will not properly form.   The exact threshold value will slightly fluctuate, depending on hardware type and debugging, but will consistently fail above 40000.

At least corosync with 40sec timeout works just fine for me.

# corosync-cmapctl  | grep token
runtime.config.totem.token (u32) = 40650

# corosync-quorumtool
Quorum information
------------------
Date:             Fri Jun 26 08:45:12 2020
Quorum provider:  corosync_votequorum
Nodes:            2
Node ID:          1
Ring ID:          1.11be1
Quorate:          Yes

Votequorum information
----------------------
Expected votes:   3
Highest expected: 3
Total votes:      2
Quorum:           2
Flags:            Quorate

Membership information
----------------------
     Nodeid      Votes Name
          1          1 vmvlan-vmcos8-n05 (local)
          6          1 vmvlan-vmcos8-n06


It is indeed true that forming took a bit more time (30 sec to be more 
precise)

> 
> The failure to form a cluster would occur when running the "pcs cluster start --all" command or if I would start one cluster, let it stabilize, then start the second.  When it fails to form a cluster, each side would say they are ONLINE, but the other side is UNCLEAN(offline) (cluster state: partition WITHOUT quorum).   If I define proper stonith resources, then they will not fence since the cluster never makes it to an initial quorum state.  So, the cluster will stay in this split state indefinitely.

Maybe some timeout in pcs?

> 
> Changing the transport back to udpu or udp, the higher totem tokens worked as expected.

Yup. You've correctly find out that knet_* timeouts helps. Basically 
knet let link not working till it gets enough pongs. UDP/UDPU doesn't 
have this concept so it will create cluster faster.

> 
>  From the debug logging, I suspect that the Election Trigger (20 seconds) fires before all nodes are properly identified by the knet transport.  I noticed that with a totem token passing 32 seconds, the knet_ping* defaults were pushing up against that 20 second mark.  The output of "corosync-cfgtool -s" will show each node's link as enabled, but each side will state the other side's link is not connected.   Since each side thinks the other node is not active, they fail to properly send a join message to the other node during the election.   They will essentially form a singleton cluster(??).  

Till now your analysis is correct. Corosync is really unable to send 
join message and forms single node cluster.

> It is more puzzling when you start one node at a time, waiting for the node to stabilize before starting the other.   It is like the first node will never see the remote knet interfaces become active, regardless of how long you wait.

This shouldn't happen. Knet will eventually receive enough pongs so 
corosync broadcast message to other nodes, which founds out that new 
membership should be formed.

> 
> The solution is to manually set the knet ping_timeout and ping_interval to lower values than the default values derived from the totem token.  This seems to allow for the knet transport to determine link status of all nodes before the election timer pops.

These timeouts are indeed not the best one. I had few ideas how to 
improve them, because currently they are in favor of multiple links 
clusters. Single links cluster may work better with slightly different 
defaults.

> 
> I tested this on both physical hardware and with VMs.  Both react similarly.
> 
> Bare bones test case to reproduce:
> yum install pcs pacemaker fence-agents-all
> firewall-cmd --permanent --add-service=high-availability
> firewall-cmd --add-service=high-availability
> systemctl start pcsd.service
> systemctl enable pcsd.service
> systemctl disable corosync
> systemctl disable pacemaker
> passwd hacluster
> pcs host auth node1 node2
> pcs cluster setup rhcs_test node1 node2 totem token=41000
> pcs cluster start --all
> 
> Example command to create cluster that will properly form and get quorum:
> pcs cluster setup rhcs_test node1 node2 totem token=61000 transport knet link ping_interval=1250 ping_timeout=2500
> 
> Hope this helps someone in the future.

Yup. It is interesting finding and thanks for that.

Regards,
   Honza

> 
> Thanks
> Robert
> 
> 
> Robert Hayden | Lead Technology Architect | Cerner Corporation
> 
> 
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