Quick Service Protection (QSP) Recovery Kit

Introduction

QSP Recovery Kit provides a simplified method to protect OS service. With the QSP Recover Kit users can easily create a LifeKeeper resource instance to protect an OS service provided that service can be started and stopped by the OS service command. The service can also be protected via the Generic Application Recovery Kit, but the use of that kit requires code development whereas the QSP Recovery Kit does not. Also, by creating a dependency relationship, protected services can be started and stopped in conjunction with the application that requires the service. The application is protected by another LifeKeeper resource instance not via the QSP resource.

However, the QSP Recovery Kit quickCheck only perform simple health (using the “status” action of the service command).  So, QSP doesn't guarantee that the service is provided, or process is functioning in fact. If complicated starting and/or stopping is necessary, or more robust health checking operations are necessary, the using a Generic Application is recommended.

Requirements

The service to be protected by the QSP Recovery Kit needs to meet the following requirements.

• It must support start and stop action via the OS service command. Also, it must returns 0 when the start and stop action succeeds.
• To perform heath checking the service must support the status action via the OS service command.  If it does not support the status action then quickCheck health check operations must be disabled. Also, it must return 0 when the status action succeeds.
• The name of the service to be protected must not exceed 256 characters in length and contain only alphanumeric characters.

The service to be protected by the QSP resource must be running (started) before attempting a resource create. Please notice that some services which are already supplied with dedicated Recovery Kit are not target of QSP (hereinafter referred as “the Services not targeted by QSP protection”) and cannot be protected by QSP Recovery Kit.

Create QSP Resource Hierarchy

This option is used to protect OS services via the QSP Recovery Kit.

1. There are 4 methods to start the creation of QSP resource instance.

• Right click the server icon to show the server context menu, and select [Create Resource Hierarchy].
• Click the [Create Resource Hierarchy] button at on the Global tool bar.
• Click the [Create Resource Hierarchy] button on the Server context tool bar if displayed.
• From the [Edit] menu select [Server] then  [Create Resource Hierarchy]

2. A dialogue box titled [Create Resource Wizard] is displayed. In the [Recovery Kit] drop down is a list of available resource types to create. Select Quick Service Protection and click [Next].
3. Select [Switchback Type] and click [Next].
4. Select [Server] and click [Next]

Note: If the create was started via the server context menu, this step is skipped because the server is known based on the start context (defaults to name of the server on which the create process started)..

5. The next dialog box contains a drop down of the available services [Service Name] that can be protected.

Select service to be protected and click [Next].
Note: The list may not show the service if it is not running. In this case, click [Cancel] to discontinue the process, and start service. Once the service is running restart the create process. Also, the list will not show the Services not targeted by QSP protection.

6. In the next dialog box the quickCheck action is configured.To enable the quickCheck monitoring function, select [enable]. To disable it, select [disable]. Click [Next] to continue. The quickCheck action can be changed at any time.

Note: If the selected service does not support the “status” action via the OS service command, then set the quickCheck action to “disabled” because the QSP Recovery Kit cannot monitor the service state.

7. Input the [Resource Tag]. This is a unique name for the resource instance.
   (This is the label that uniquely identifies the resource instance and is used whenever displaying LifeKeeper protected resource instances in UI.)
8. Click [Create Instance] to start the creation process.  The status of the resource instance creation is displayed in the status window.
9. Click [Next] to display the resource extension dialog. Click [Next] to begin the extension process or click [Cancel] to go back to GUI. When [Cancel] is clicked, an alert is displayed that the hierarchy exist on only one server, and protection by LifeKeeper is not available at this time.

Extending QSP Resource Hierarchy

This function, as explained in the section Extending Resource Hierarchies, starts automatically after finishing the Create QSP Resource Hierarchy (URL) process, or, from right clicking on an existing QSP resource and selecting [Extend Resource Hierarchy]. After finishing the pre-extend process, then, complete the following steps.

1. Select [Resource Tag] provided by LifeKeeper, or, input unique tag for the resource hierarchy on the target server.
2. Click [Extend] to start extension process. The status of the extension process is displayed in the dialogue box, and when it is finished it will show a message indicating the hierarchy is correctly extended. If the hierarchy is to be extended to another server click [Next Server], otherwise click [Finish] to complete the extension. If [Next Server] is selected, the extension operation is repeated.
3. When [Finish] is clicked the integrity of the hierarchy is checked.  If any problems are detected the extension is reversed.  To complete the verification and close the dialog box click [Done].

QSP Resource Configuration

The following parameters are unique to each QSP resource instance are available for modification.

Checking / Changing of the set value is possible from the [QSP Configuration] tab by Display Resource Properties. and must be performed on each node in the hierarchy.

If the quickCheck function is disabled, quickCheck and recover of timeouts are not displayed and thus cannot be changed.

How to change the Monitoring function

1. Display the [QSP Configuration] tab of the resource properties, and click [Change quickCheck]
2. Select [enable] to enable quickCheck, or, [disable] to disable it
3. Clicking [Change] starts the change process, and display change process message.
4. Finish by clicking [Done].

Note: Modification of these values is a per node operation.  If the same change is needed on another node, then the process must be repeated on that node.

How to change Timeout Value

1. Display the [QSP Configuration] tab of resource properties, and click [Change Timeout]
2. Select the timeout action to be changed (restore, remove, quickCheck or recover), and click [Next]

Note: [quickCheck] and [recover] timeouts are not displayed in the select list if the monitoring function is disabled.

3. Input the timeout value seconds.

Note: Input decimal numbers only. Non numerical characters are invalid.

4. Clicking [Change] starts the timeout change process and displays change process messages.
5. Finish by clicking [Done]
6. Note: Modification of these values is a per node operation.  If the same change is needed on another node, then the process must be repeated on that node.

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