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Running Resilio Connect on a Windows Cluster

Resilio Connect can be used in High-Availability windows cluster setup. Both Resilio components - Agents and the Management Console - can be used. Load-balancing clusters are not supported. 

Resilio Agents in two-nodes Windows cluster setup 

Resilio Agents shall be installed on each node in the cluster. Windows Server 2012 and higher are supported. Agents shall be running with the configuration file.

If one of the agents is running and is using a storage folder pointing to the cluster shared volume, keep in mind to stop the agent service before installing second agent pointing to the same shared folder.
Only one Resilio agent can use the storage folder at a time.
Before proceeding, please refer to enhanced security and encryption configuration introduced in version 3.6.0. Additional steps are required for cluster setup to configure the same encryption key on all cluster nodes. Otherwise the Agent won't be authorized on the MC after the cluster failover. 

On the Management Console, in Settings -> General create configuration file. 
Manually add "storage_path": "<path_here>" parameter, where <path_here> is the folder for Agents to keep their settings. This can be a network share or a cluster disk (mapped by cluster). This path must already exist before starting the Agent. Mind the double backslash (for example, "storage_path":"\\\\Server\\path to share\\storage"):

{
  "folders_storage_path": "%DOWNLOADS%",
  "management_server": {
    "host": "192.168.1.45:8444",
    "cert_authority_fingerprint": "92..5ea",
    "bootstrap_token": "F3...6A",
    "disable_cert_check": false
  },
  "use_gui": true,
  "storage_path": "D:\\storage path\\directory"
}

 

Once installed, in HA Wizard add a new role "Generic Service" and select the Resilio Connect Agent service.
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If a shared storage volume was used as the Agent's storage_path in config, it can be used on the configuration step.
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Step "Replicate Registry Settings" can be skipped. Confirm and save the configuration. 

Open the Properties of the configured Role. These parameters generally depend on the actual needs of cluster admin and are not Resilio-related. Generally, it's advisable to set the number of failures to be one less than the number of nodes and the minimum period set as 1 hour. 
It's also advisable to choose "Prevent failback" scenario to avoid extra shutdown and startup of the Resilio Agent. 
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For the selected role to successfully switch between the nodes, the cluster must have a quorum configured. In a two-nodes failover cluster, total number of votes shall be odd, thus a cluster quorum witness shall be configured. 
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Open the cluster quorum wizard -> "Select the quorum witness" and choose "File Share witness" type.
witness.png

The witness may be a file share that the cluster has read/write access.Image_Pasted_at_2021-2-12_13-45.png

 

Upgrading Resilio Agent in two-nodes Windows cluster setup

  1. Rename the old agent binary to something like Resilio Connect Agent_old.exe on both nodes (WITHOUT stopping the agent service)
  2. Copy a new Resilio-Connect-Agent_x64.exe in place of the old agent (folder C:\Program Files\Resilio Connect Agent\) on both nodes, rename it and ensure its name perfectly matching original one Resilio Connect Agent.exe
  3. For Resilio Agents v4.1.0 and newer: download and install the Resilio-File-Locking-Driver_x64.msi on both nodes.
  4. Trigger a failover or restart the service.

 

Resilio Management Console in two-nodes Windows cluster setup

MC failover can also be supported. Follow the steps below: 

  1. Configure Windows Failover Cluster
  2. Configure Cluster Shared Volume for Resilio Connect Console application data
  3. On every node of cluster:
    3.1. Install Resilio Connect Console service (without Resilio Connect Tracker).
    3.2. Stop Resilio Connect Console service.
    3.3. Remove server agent (see here for more details)
    3.4. Change Resilio Connect Console service application data path in registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\resilio-connect-server.
    Add argument "--appdata" "S:\ServerAppData" to ImagePath data, where “S:” disk is Cluster Shared Volume
  4. Run Failover Cluster Manager and configure Generic Service Role (select Resilio Connect Console service on Select Service step)
  5. Start Resilio Connect Console Role 
  6. Open Resilio Connect Console in browser by IP address of Resilio Connect Console Role

Upgrading Resilio Management Console in two-nodes Windows cluster setup

  1. Stop Management Console service on both nodes.
  2. Upgrade Resilio Connect Console on the first node (check that tracker installation is disabled) and stop the Management Console service. 
  3. Remove server agent (see here for more details) from the path that is specified in --appdata argument during the setting up the cluster (S:\ServerAppData in this example).
  4. Repeat the points 2  and 3 for the second node. 
  5. Start Resilio Connect Console service on both nodes.

  

Known limitations and peculiarities

  • Load-balancing cluster is not supported.
  • The node where Agents keep the storage must be always available. Switching it off and on (disconnecting and reconnecting) is not supported.
  • When failover occurs, Agents may 'forget' about part of the indexed files. These files will be indexed again by the active node. 
  • If failover occurs to the node where MC is installed, Linux agents take 15 minutes to reconnect to the Console. 

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