Stage 2: Creating the First MDS Server

To create the first MDS server, you use the pstorage make-mds command, for example:

# pstorage -c pcs1 make-mds -I -a 10.30.100.101 -r /pstorage/pcs1-mds -p

This command does the following:

1. Asks you for a password to use for password-based authentication in your cluster. Password-based authentication enhances security, requiring each server to be authenticated before it can be included in the cluster. The password you specify is encrypted and saved into the /etc/pstorage/clusters/pcs1/auth_digest.key file on the MDS server.
2. Creates a Parallels Cloud Storage cluster with the name of pcs1 (the -I option tells pstorage to create a new cluster).
3. Creates a metadata server and configures the IP address of 10.30.100.101 for communication with this server. By default, Parallels Cloud Storage uses ports 2510 and 2511 to communicate with MDS servers. If necessary, you can replace the default ports with your own ones by reserving two unoccupied consecutive ports and specifying the first one after the IP address of your MDS server (e.g., -a 10.30.100.101:4110 if your custom ports are 4110 and 4111).

   Replace 10.30.100.101 in the example above with the IP address of your own MDS server. The specified IP address must be (1) static (or in the case of using DHCP, mapped to the MAC address of the MDS server) and (2) chosen from the range of IP addresses on the BackNet network dedicated to your Parallels Cloud Storage cluster. See Network Requirements for details.

4. Creates a journal in the /pstorage/pcs1-mds directory on the MDS server and adds the information about the pcs1 cluster to it. When choosing a directory for storing the journal, make sure that the partition where the directory is located has at least 10 GB of free disk space.

After you have created the MDS server, start the MDS management service ( pstorage-mdsd ) and configure it to start automatically when the server boots:

# service pstorage-mdsd start

# chkconfig pstorage-mdsd on

For information on including additional MDS servers in a Parallels Cloud Storage cluster, see Configuring MDS Servers .