This post is more than 5 years old
34 Posts
2
5771
January 10th, 2013 14:00
SmartConnect only resolves to one node
OK, we opened a case with Isilon Support.
We went though that and now everything is resolving to a single node, including the ones that were working properly.
Everything looks right to me on the DNS side.
Does the Smart Connect Zone Name need to be something completely different?
They are using the fully qualified “A” record name as the SmartConnect Zone Name.
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MRWA
83 Posts
0
January 10th, 2013 14:00
If the clustername is the same as the zone name, Windows will default to using NetBIOS resolution and connects to the first node only.
“They are using the fully qualified “A” record name as the SmartConnect Zone Name.”
This is incorrect. The A record would be a single IP address. That means that Zone name will resolve to a single IP instead of a delegated DNS entry.
Are they using BIND or a Windows DNS server?
Jeremy_ADI
2 Posts
2
January 14th, 2013 19:00
Looks to be already solved, but I thought some elaboration for those who aren't familliar may be useful.
The system needs to be setup in your DNS as a DNS referral (as per the documentation)
Normal operation goes to your DNS server which is configured to refer your request to the smartconnect service IP, that responds with an IP address based on your configuration (Default is round-robin)
When configured correctly you should be able to continually run a dns lookup and get the appropriate IP, which in a round-robin config, will give you a different IP almost every time.
The smartconnect service IP typically is configured for the lowest node number, should that node have problems, it would go to the next available node. If you connect without a DNS referral, the expected behavior is to either not be able to resolve the cluster, or connect to the node which is currently hosting the smartconnect service IP
You can see what happens under the hood if you run a nslookup/dig and set the dns server to the smartconnect service IP, and then lookup the fully qualified name of the smartconnect zone.
Hope this is helpful to some...
markfoster1
22 Posts
2
February 13th, 2013 08:00
A good place to start when setting up or troubleshooting SmartConnect issues is here:
https://support.emc.com/search/?text=smartconnect
To understand how to setup SmartConnect...
emc14000737 - Creating a UNIX-based bind DNS setup for use with SmartConnect
emc14001895 - How to use zone delegation with SmartConnect for non-authoritative DNS servers
To troubleshoot SmartConnect, e.g. not working as expected or to validate it is working...
docu45356 - Resolving SmartConnect Problems (PDF)
Flowchart to assist in resolving SmartConnect problems.
https://support.emc.com/docu45356_Resolving_SmartConnect_Problems_(PDF).pdf?language=en_US
emc14001021 - How to test SmartConnect from the OneFS CLI
There are many use cases, but the most common problem we see in support is when clients are
connecting only to the service IP usually because of a bad delegation.
The product training includes a walkthrough (lab) of setting up such a delegation in Windows DNS Server.