Some background processes such as virus scanners and Windows Services will try to access a shared volume for write access. These processes may be required to run applications and cannot be arbitrarily turned off for long periods of time.
In most cases, these applications will have no effect on the manual switchover of LifeKeeper for Windows volumes. However, if you see error messages similar to the following during a manual switchover (actual failovers are not affected), you should use the Volume Remove Stop/Restart feature described below.
ERROR [No. 12035] Unable to lock volume <volume ID> on <system name> machine at this time as it may be in use by some application. Please free this volume and try again.
If the volume has users doing non-write access only (remote links, local opens), removing the volume from service succeeds as does restoring the volume on the other system (for example, manual switchover). The existing user “opens” are, of course, no longer valid. However, they prevent the volume from being restored to service on the original system whether it is manually switched back over or automatically failed back over to the original system. Attempts to do so result in the following error message:
ERROR [No. 12046] LifeKeeper RESTORE VOLUME <volume ID> FAILED.
The end result is that removing or restoring a volume, switching a volume over or back or switching any hierarchy that includes a volume resource over or back fails if the volume has any users, local or remote.
In addition, the system’s PATH variable must not contain any file shares that exist on the volume to be protected by LifeKeeper for Windows. File shares in the PATH variable may also cause volume operations to fail. Remove any such shares prior to creating the volume resource in LifeKeeper for Windows. The PATH variable may be modified by selecting System then Environment from the Windows Control Panel.
Volume Remove Stop/Restart Programs and Services
LifeKeeper for Windows provides configurable registry keys that permit the user to specify programs and services to be stopped and restarted on a system during a volume remove operation. This feature starts and stops user specified programs and services when LifeKeeper for Windows detects open handles on any volume that is being removed and taken out of service on that system. However, if LifeKeeper for Windows detects no open handles on the volume being removed from service, it will not attempt to stop anything on that system. Instructions for using this feature are as follows:
- Determine which programs and services are accessing the volume in question and preventing successful volume failovers.
- Specify programs to stop and start by adding a subkey for each program under:
-
*64-Bit: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\SIOS\LifeKeeper\VolumeRemoveStopPrograms\**
For example, to stop a program called “myapp.exe”, add the following subkey:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\SIOS\LifeKeeper\VolumeRemoveStopPrograms\myapp.exe\
- Under the subkey for each program, add the following values (all are REG_SZvalues):
ProgramName | the program name only (Note: Must match subkey name from Step 2.) |
ProgramPath | the program name, including full path |
Restart | a value of 0 indicates that the program should not be restarted; a value of 1 indicates that the program should be restarted |
StartCmdLine | optional command line arguments to be used when starting the program |
WasRunning | used by LifeKeeper for Windows to save the number of instances of the program that were running before stopping them; should be initialized to 0 |
For example, values could be entered to stop and start “myapp.exe /a /t /p” with its associated arguments as follows:
ProgramName | myapp.exe |
ProgramPath | C:\mydir\myapp.exe |
Restart | 1 |
StartCmdLine | /a /t /p |
WasRunning | 0 |
Note: By default, LifeKeeper for Windows includes a subkey for stopping perfmon.exe and the restart option is disabled.
- Specify services to stop and restart by adding a subkey for each service under:
-
64-Bit: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\SIOS\LifeKeeper\VolumeRemoveStopServices\
For example, to stop a service called “mysvc”, you would add the following subkey:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\SIOS\LifeKeeper\VolumeRemoveStopServices\mysvc\
- Under the subkey for each service, add the following values (all are REG_SZvalues):
ServiceName | The service display name (Note: Must match subkey name from Step 4.) |
Restart | A value of 0 indicates that the program should not be restarted; a value of 1 indicates that the program should be restarted |
WasRunning | Used by LifeKeeper for Windows to save the number of instances of the program that were running before stopping them; should be initialized to 0 |
StopWait | The number of seconds to wait for the service to reach the STOPPED state. If StopWait is negative, then it (and the failover) will wait indefinitely for the service to reach the STOPPED state |
StopWait | The number of seconds to wait for the service to reach the RUNNING state. If the service does not reach the RUNNING state in the configured period, an error is logged in the Event Log. If StartWait is negative, then the failover will wait indefinitely for the service to start. If it is set to 0, then the service will be started but will not wait for it to reach the RUNNING state (and thus doesn’t generate an Event Log message if the service can’t be restarted) |
For example, values could be entered to stop and start “mysvc” as follows:
ServiceName | mysvc |
Restart | 1 |
WasRunning | 0 |
StopWait | 120 |
StopWait | 120 |
Volume Restore Stop/Restart Programs and Services
LifeKeeper for Windows provides configurable registry keys that permit the user to specify programs and services to be stopped and restarted on a system during a volume restore operation. This feature is similar to the Volume Remove Stop/Restart Programs and Services feature described above with the following differences:
- Programs to stop and restart are specified as subkeys under:
- 64 Bit: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\SIOS\LifeKeeper\VolumeStopPrograms\
- Services to stop and restart are specified as subkeys under:
- 64 Bit: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\SIOS\LifeKeeper\VolumeStopServices\
Post your comment on this topic.