This tutorial shows how to set up network RAID1 with the help of DRBD on two Ubuntu 11.10 systems. DRBD stands for Distributed Replicated Block Device and allows you to mirror block devices over a network. This is useful for high-availability setups (like a HA NFS server) because if one node fails, all data is still available from the other node.

Openfiler is a Linux based NAS/SAN application which can deliver storage over nfs/smb/iscsi and ftp. It has a web interface over that you can control these services. The cluster we build will consist of two nodes replicating each other and taking over services and storage in case of emergency.

Although some X.org drivers have been updated for X server 1.7, development work is running behind schedule. New drivers from AMD, Intel and Nvidia and new Linux versions mean a number of corrections and enhancements in the graphics system. 3D support for newer Radeon GPUs is now adequate for Compiz. DRBD should make it into the main Linux kernel development tree in 2.6.32.