SAM_OVERVIEW(8) Corosync Cluster Engine Programmer's Manual SAM_OVERVIEW(8)NAMEsam_overview - Overview of the Simple Availability Manager
OVERVIEW
The SAM library provide a tool to check the health of an application.
The main purpose of SAM is to restart a local process when it fails to
respond to a healthcheck request in a configured time interval.
During sam_initialize(3), a duplicate copy of the process is created
using the fork(3) system call. This duplicate process copy contains
the logic for executing the SAM server. The SAM server is responsible
for requesting healthchecks from the active process, and controlling
the lifecycle of the active process when it fails. If the active
process fails to respond to the healthcheck request sent by the SAM
server, it will be sent a user configurable signal (default SIGTERM) to
request shutdown of the application. After a configured time interval,
the process will be forcibly killed by being sent a SIGKILL signal.
Once the active process terminates, the SAM server will create a new
active process.
The Simple Availability Manager is meant to be used in conjunction with
the cpg service. Used together, it is possible to restart a cpg
process that fails healthchecking during operation.
The main features of SAM include:
· A configurable recovery policy.
· A configurable time interval for health check operations.
· A notification via signal before recovery action is taken.
· A mechanism to indicate to the application the number of
times an active process has been created by the SAM server.
· Both application driven health checking and event driven
health checking.
Initializing SAM
The SAM library is initialized by sam_initialize(3). sam_initalize(3)
may only be called once per process. Calling it more then once has
undefined results and is not recommended or tested.
Setting warning callback
User configurable signal (default SIGTERM) is sent to the application
when a recovery action is planned. The application can use the sig‐
nal(3) system call to monitor for this signal.
There are no special constraints on what SAM apis may be called in a
warning callback. After time_interval expires, a SIGKILL signal is
sent to the active process to force its termination.
Registering the active process
The active process is registered with SAM by calling sam_register(3).
This function should only be called one time in a process. After a
recovery action is taken, the new active process will begin execution
at the next line of code in a user process after sam_register(3).
Enabling event driven healthchecking
Two types of healthchecking are available to the user. The first model
is one where the user application healthchecks during its normal opera‐
tion. It is never requested to healtcheck, and if the active process
doesn't respond within the time interval, the process will be
restarted.
A more useful mechanism for healthchecking is event driven healthcheck‐
ing. Because this model is directed by the SAM server, It isn't neces‐
sary to guess or add timers to the active process to signal a
healthcheck operation is successful. To use event driven healthcheck‐
ing, the sam_hc_callback_register(3) function should be executed.
Quorum integration
SAM has special policies (SAM_RECOVERY_POLICY_QUIT and SAM_RECOV‐
ERY_POLICY_RESTART) for integration with quorum service. This policies
changes SAM behaviour in two aspects.
· Call of sam_start(3) blocks until corosync becomes quorate
· User selected recovery action is taken immediately after lost
of quorum.
Storing user data
Sometimes there is need to store some data, which survives between
instances. One can in such case use files, databases, ... or much sim‐
pler in memory solution presented by sam_data_store(3),
sam_data_restore(3) and sam_data_getsize(3) functions.
Confdb integration
SAM has policy flag used for confdb system integration (SAM_RECOV‐
ERY_POLICY_CONFDB). If process is registered with this flag, new
confdb object PROCESS_NAME:PID is created with following keys:
· recovery - will be quit or restart depending on policy
· poll_period - period of health checking in milliseconds
· last_updated - Timestamp (in nanoseconds) of the last health
check.
· state - state of process (can be one of registered, started,
failed, waiting for quorum)
Object is automatically deleted if process exits with stopped health
checking.
Confdb integration with corosync wathdog can be used in implicit and
explicit way.
Implicit way is achieved by setting recovery policy to QUIT and let
process exit with started health checking. If this happened, object is
not deleted and corosync watchdog will take required action.
Explicit way is usefull for situations, when developer can deal with
some non-fatal fall of application. This mode is achieved by setting
policy to RESTART and using SAM same as without Confdb integration. If
real fail is needed (like too many restarts at all, per/sec, ...), it's
possible to use sam_mark_failed(3) and let corosync watchdog take
required action.
BUGSSEE ALSOsam_initialize(3), sam_data_getsize(3), sam_data_restore(3),
sam_data_store(3), sam_finalize(3), sam_mark_failed(3), sam_start(3),
sam_stop(3), sam_register(3), sam_warn_signal_set(3), sam_hc_send(3),
sam_hc_callback_register(3)corosync Man Page 21/05/2010 SAM_OVERVIEW(8)
