NCS Fails Upon Startup

  • 7006031
  • 18-May-2010
  • 27-Apr-2012

Environment

Novell Cluster Services
Novell Open Enterprise Server 2 (OES 2) Linux Support Pack 1
Novell Open Enterprise Server 2 (OES 2) Linux Support Pack 2

Situation

Nodes fail to join the cluster
rcnovell-ncs status shows "unused" or "failed"
/var/log/boot.msg shows this error:
FATAL: Error inserting vll (/lib/modules/2.6.16.60-0.62.1-smp/weak-updates/ncs/vll.ko): Operation not permitted
failed

Resolution

The failing module (vll.ko in this case) uses LDAP to gather the needed information (node name, node id, etc) that clustering will use.  Once LDAP is working correctly, the node will join the cluster.  Here are some troubleshooting steps:

-  Check the /etc/opt/novell/ncs/clstrlib.conf to make sure the LDAP information is correct.  
-  Make sure the admin user specified in the clstrlib.conf file has not changed its password recently.
-  Obtain a supportconfig and look at the novell-ncs.txt file.  It will run a basic check against LDAP to verify cluster objects and connectivity to eDirectory.
-  Run /opt/novell/ncs/bin/ncs-configd.py -init as this command will also use LDAP to verify eDirectory connectivity.

See also TID 7006055 and TID 7009244