StarWind Software

Hi,

In our situation we have 3 servers and created a Starwind VSAN 2 node setup with a extra SW node. Node 1&2 contains the VSAN and the Node 3 acts as a witness node only.

However, due to unknown reasons, i cannot reach the management web page anymore of the witness server. We have spent alot of time trying to find out what the problem is on the witness server, but I figured it would be easier to recreate the witness server with the OVA deployment. Right now, the witness server is recreated with a empty Starwind configuration.

Node 1 & Node 2 are syncing toward each other and is synchronized and are online right now. The iSCSI is also available in VMWare. They are also communicating towards the witness server and i can see Node 1 and Node 2 are trying to reach the target of the witness server.

To minimize downtime, How can I recreate the witness node on the witness server with powershell without affecting node 1 & 2?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Hi,

Did you delete the old files from the storage (i.e., the OS disk and the headers)?

yaroslav (staff) wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 02, 2024 10:59 am

Hi,

Did you delete the old files from the storage (i.e., the OS disk and the headers)?

I dont know what you mean, I still have the old witness server VM with the configuration, yes. I just disabled the ethernet adapters for now.
Then created a new witness server VM with a empty configuration, the management page works on this VM.
If I understood you wrong, What do you mean exactly or which paths do you mean?

Go into that Witness server and copy
1. StarWind.cfg
2. Headers from /opt/starwind/starwind-virtual-san/drive_c/starwind/headers
3. *.swdsk.bak files (only you know where you created those. might be some /dev/sdb1/ path)

Hi,

We could not find the headers file/folder, do you know another path where those files could be?

Maybe its because we're using a older version of Starwind

Thanks!

Greetings,

Look for them in /mnt/*.

To recreate the witness node on your Starwind setup without affecting Nodes 1 and 2, you can use PowerShell to configure the witness node while ensuring minimal downtime.

That's absolutely right, but you need first to remove the Witness from the replication partners.
This being said, if the configs can be restored give it a try first.

Hi,

Restoring the config and copying the swdsk file to the new witness VM has solved the problem for me, thank you very much for your assistance!

You are welcome