How to install DRBD on Arch Linux

DRBD (Distributed Replicated Block Device) is a Linux kernel module that allows the replication of data between two or more systems. It is useful for creating highly available clusters where data needs to be available even if one of the nodes fails.

In this tutorial, we will show you how to install DRBD on Arch Linux.

Prerequisites

Before we begin, make sure that:

• You are logged in as a user with sudo privileges.
• Your system is up to date.

Step 1: Install DRBD

DRBD is available in the official Arch Linux repositories. You can install it using the following command:

sudo pacman -S drbd

Type "Y" and press Enter to confirm installation.

Step 2: Configure DRBD

Once DRBD is installed, we need to create and edit the configuration file located at /etc/drbd.conf.

You can use any text editor to create the file. In this example, we will use Vim:

sudo vim /etc/drbd.conf

Paste the following configuration into the file:

global {
  usage-count no;
}

common {
}

resource <resource-name> {
  on <hostname> {
    device /dev/drbd0;
    disk /dev/sdb1;
    address <ip-address>:7788;
    meta-disk internal;
  }

  on <hostname> {
    device /dev/drbd0;
    disk /dev/sdb1;
    address <ip-address>:7788;
    meta-disk internal;
  }

  net {
    max-buffers 2048;

    sndbuf-size 512k;
    rcvbuf-size 512k;

    ko-count 4;
  }
}

Replace <resource-name> with the name of your resource that you want to replicate. Replace <hostname> with the hostname of each node. Replace <ip-address> with the IP address of each node.

Save and close the file.

Step 3: Initialize DRBD

Before we can start using DRBD, we need to initialize it. Run the following command on each node:

sudo drbdadm create-md <resource-name>

Replace <resource-name> with the name of your resource.

Step 4: Start DRBD

We can now start DRBD on both nodes. Run the following command on each node:

sudo systemctl start drbd.service

Step 5: Verify DRBD

Finally, we can verify that DRBD is working correctly. Run the following command on each node:

sudo cat /proc/drbd

The output should show the status of the replication.

Congratulations! You have successfully installed DRBD on Arch Linux.