TOPIC:

Your scenario is a bit different than the one that was addressed in 1.5.7. In your case you are putting the hosts into manual mode and then transitioning the Master role to the slave. It looks like the new Master is dropping the floating IP during the role change. This is normally not a problem since iscsi-ha will detect it and set the IP, but in your case the new master is in manual mode which fails to re-install the floating IP.

If you just need to put the master into maintenance mode, you can simply do this from XenCenter without putting the hosts in maintenance mode (with iscsi-ha 1.5.7)

If you are applying an update to your pool, then don't put the hosts in maintenance mode. Follow the steps in appendix B instead.

Mixing both procedures is causing your problem

I am struggling a little bit with your reply.

If you are applying an update to your pool, then don't put the hosts in maintenance mode. Follow the steps in appendix B instead.

I have done this as described in this document: scsi-ha 2-node cluster howto_1.5_final.pdf

I do follow the appendix B: Pos. 6) The master host can now be safely worked on (enter maintenance mode, shutdown, rebooted, etc...)

Does XenCenter allow the reboot the master without going into maintenance mode and transferring the pool master role to the secondary before a reboot is possible?

Or should I reboot the master not via XenCenter but via CLI?

Xenserver does allow a reboot of a host without first going into maintenance mode. This is actually the procedure used for rolling pool updates.

We will look into improving iscsi-ha for the next release so that we can detect this scenario. I see that our docs state that you can go into maintenance mode while in manual iscsi-ha mode. The issue there is that the floating IP gets dropped when XenServer swaps roles and if iscsi-ha is in manual mode it does not detect that the IP has been dropped. We'll add some logic to monitor the floating IP while in manual mode which would address this issue.

In the meantime, if you need to put a host into maintenance mode, avoid also putting iscsi-ha into manual mode.

Thank you for your quick reply,I think I am near at the point were I could understand what is going on.

As english is not my native language I would summarize your reply:

If I need to intall security updates offered trough XenCenter I simply disable the HA logic (custom field: false) and perfom the update proxess via XenCenter, NOT going into manual mode via CLI.

If the update requires a reboot then you must put the system into manual mode and migrate your VMs off of the host that is to be rebooted.

If the update requires that only XAPI be restarted (no reboot) then do not put the hosts into manual mode.

In either case - updates should never require putting the host into maintenance mode.

In either case - updates should never require putting the host into maintenance mode.

This was exactly my error, now I know not to do so! Thank you so much for your time and help.