VMware Workstation Pro 15] 19. Configuring Shared Disks

Hello, guys. You will figure out how to configure shared disks in VMware Workstation Pro in this post. When you finish this practice, you will be able to create your test environment for testing cluster volume managers, cluster file systems, cluster server solutions, virtualization solutions and so on.

Please note that I don't explain about CLVM and GFS2 in this post. it is just an example of using a shared disk. I will post about these in the future.

Preparing the Test Environment

Please, create two virtual machines with the following spec:

Virtual machine name: CentOS601, CentOS602 Hardware compatibility: Workstation 15.x Guest operating system: Linux/CentOS 6 64-bit Processors: 1 Socket/2 Cores Memory: 2048 MB Network connection: VMnet5 I/O controller types: LSI Logic Virtual disk type: SCSI Disk: 20 GB Display: Uncheck Accelerate 3D graphics

Install CentOS 6.6 on both virtual machines. You can download the relevant ISO files from the following website.

http://vault.centos.org/6.6/isos/x86_64/

When installing, select the set of software as shown below.

If the installation is finished, install VMware Tools. If you don't know how to install VMware Tools, refer to the following post.

https://sunguruitchannel01.blogspot.com/2019/02/vmware-workstation-pro-15-installing.html

Add the following to the /etc/hosts file.

192.168.5.21 centos601 192.168.5.22 centos602

Set the IP address.

CentOS601	CentOS602
IP Address : 192.168.5.21/24   Gateway : 192.168.5.254   DNS : 1.1.1.1	IP Address : 192.168.5.22/24   Gateway : 192.168.5.254   DNS : 1.1.1.1

Connect the CentOS-6.6-x86_64-bin-DVD1.iso file to the CDROM of the virtual machine and execute the following commands. Both virtual machines.

[root@centos601 ~]# cd /media/CentOS_6.6_Final/Packages/ [root@centos601 Packages]# rpm -ivh lvm2-cluster-2.02.111-2.el6.x86_64.rpm  warning: lvm2-cluster-2.02.111-2.el6.x86_64.rpm: Header V3 RSA/SHA1 Signature, key ID c105b9de: NOKEY Preparing...                ########################################### [100%]    1:lvm2-cluster           ########################################### [100%] [root@centos601 Packages]# rpm -ivh gfs2-utils-3.0.12.1-68.el6.x86_64.rpm  warning: gfs2-utils-3.0.12.1-68.el6.x86_64.rpm: Header V3 RSA/SHA1 Signature, key ID c105b9de: NOKEY Preparing...                ########################################### [100%]    1:gfs2-utils             ########################################### [100%] [root@centos601 Packages]# lvmconf --enable-cluster [root@centos601 Packages]# shutdown -h now

Creating the virtual disk for sharing

Open File Explorer and create a folder for the shared disks. Then open the CMD window and execute the following commands for creating a virtual disk. You and my folder path may be different.

M:\>mkdir Shareddisks M:\>cd Shareddisks M:\Shareddisks>vmware-vdiskmanager -c -s 5GB -a lsilogic -t 4 CentOS6_CLVM_Disk01.vmdk

Please, select Editor virtual machine setting for adding the virtual disk you just created to the virtual machine.

click the Add button

Select Hard Disk and SCSI.

Select Use an existing virtual disk and click the Browse button. Then select the virtual disk file you just created. When you press the Finish button, a small window appears. Click the Keep Existing Format button.

Press the Advanced button for additional settings. Then set the device node and virtual disk mode.

Once you have finished setting up, you will see the added disk information as shown below.

Now edit the virtual machine's configuration file with the notepad. Just add the highlighted part.

If you finish, power on both virtual machines. Ignore the warning message.

Creating CLVM and GFS2 file system.

Copy the following and apply it to your virtual machines. To simplify testing, disable the firewall and SELinux features.

[root@centos601 ~]# vi a.sh sed -i 's/SELINUX=enforcing/SELINUX=disabled/g' /etc/selinux/config setenforce permissive service iptables stop chkconfig iptables off  chkconfig NetworkManager off service NetworkManager stop chkconfig cman on chkconfig clvmd on chkconfig gfs2 on chkconfig acpid off [root@centos601 ~]# bash a.sh [root@centos601 ~]# vi /etc/cluster/cluster.conf <cluster name="cl01" config_version="2">    <cman two_node="1" expected_votes="1"/>    <clusternodes>      <clusternode name="centos601" nodeid="1">          <fence>          </fence>      </clusternode>      <clusternode name="centos602" nodeid="2">          <fence>          </fence>      </clusternode>    </clusternodes>    <fencedevices>    </fencedevices>    <rm>    </rm> </cluster> [root@centos601 ~]# shutdown -r now

Let's now create a cluster volume and a cluster file system.

[root@centos601 ~]# service cman status cluster is running. [root@centos601 ~]# service clvmd status clvmd (pid  2104) is running... Clustered Volume Groups: (none) Active clustered Logical Volumes: (none) [root@centos601 ~]# lsblk | grep disk sda                         8:0    0   20G  0 disk  sdb                         8:16   0    5G  0 disk  [root@centos601 ~]# pvscan   PV /dev/sda2   VG vg_os   lvm2 [19.51 GiB / 0    free]   Total: 1 [19.51 GiB] / in use: 1 [19.51 GiB] / in no VG: 0 [0   ] [root@centos601 ~]# pvcreate /dev/sdb   Physical volume "/dev/sdb" successfully created [root@centos601 ~]# vgcreate vg_cl01 /dev/sdb   Clustered volume group "vg_cl01" successfully created [root@centos601 ~]# lvcreate -L 1G -n data01_vol vg_cl01   Logical volume "data01_vol" created [root@centos601 ~]# blkid /dev/vg_cl01/data01_vol  [root@centos601 ~]# mkfs -t gfs2 -p lock_dlm -t cl01:data01 -j 2 /dev/vg_cl01/data01_vol This will destroy any data on /dev/vg_cl01/data01_vol. It appears to contain: symbolic link to `../dm-2' Are you sure you want to proceed? [y/n] y Device:                    /dev/vg_cl01/data01_vol Blocksize:                 4096 Device Size                1.00 GB (262144 blocks) Filesystem Size:           1.00 GB (262142 blocks) Journals:                  2 Resource Groups:           4 Locking Protocol:          "lock_dlm" Lock Table:                "cl01:data01" UUID:                      800caabd-9d7e-3f7e-721c-9f4b307e312f [root@centos601 ~]# blkid /dev/vg_cl01/data01_vol  /dev/vg_cl01/data01_vol: LABEL="cl01:data01" UUID="800caabd-9d7e-3f7e-721c-9f4b307e312f" TYPE="gfs2"  [root@centos602 ~]# pvscan   PV /dev/sdb    VG vg_cl01   lvm2 [5.00 GiB / 4.00 GiB free]   PV /dev/sda2   VG vg_os     lvm2 [19.51 GiB / 0    free]   Total: 2 [24.50 GiB] / in use: 2 [24.50 GiB] / in no VG: 0 [0   ] [root@centos602 ~]# vgscan   Reading all physical volumes.  This may take a while...   Found volume group "vg_cl01" using metadata type lvm2   Found volume group "vg_os" using metadata type lvm2 [root@centos602 ~]# lvscan   ACTIVE            '/dev/vg_cl01/data01_vol' [1.00 GiB] inherit   ACTIVE            '/dev/vg_os/root_vol' [15.51 GiB] inherit   ACTIVE            '/dev/vg_os/swap_vol' [4.00 GiB] inherit [root@centos602 ~]# blkid /dev/vg_cl01/data01_vol /dev/vg_cl01/data01_vol: LABEL="cl01:data01" UUID="800caabd-9d7e-3f7e-721c-9f4b307e312f" TYPE="gfs2"  [root@centos601 ~]# mkdir /data01 [root@centos601 ~]# mount /dev/vg_cl01/data01_vol /data01 [root@centos601 ~]# sed -i '$ a\/dev/vg_cl01/data01_vol /data01 gfs2    defaults        0       0' /etc/fstab In the sed command, press the Ctrl+v+Tab key at the same time to apply the tab. [root@centos601 ~]# umount /data01 [root@centos601 ~]# mount /data01 [root@centos601 ~]# df -Ph /data01 Filesystem                      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/mapper/vg_cl01-data01_vol  1.0G  259M  766M  26% /data01 [root@centos602 ~]# mkdir /data01 [root@centos602 ~]# mount /dev/vg_cl01/data01_vol /data01 [root@centos602 ~]# sed -i '$ a\/dev/vg_cl01/data01_vol /data01 gfs2    defaults        0       0' /etc/fstab [root@centos602 ~]# touch /data01/file1 [root@centos601 ~]# ls -l /data01 total 4 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Feb 22 15:13 file1

Configuring Shared Disks is not easy. And if you use VMware Workstation for operating system testing or program development testing, you will rarely use this feature. However, if you are interested in or are planning to deal with virtualization and cluster server solutions, this feature will be quite useful for you.

You have acquired the skill to configure shared disks in VMware Workstation Pro. I encourage you to practice a few more times to become proficient. This feature will be needed to upgrade your IT skills. See you next. Thank you.