This article is intended for administrators wishing to create and use a Virtual Machine on a QNAP NAS device to run as a quorum witness for StorMagic SvHCI, StorMagic SvSAN, Proxmox VE qDevice or Microsoft Windows Server Failover Clustering.
With thanks to David at QNAP for the loan of the QNAP TBS-h74TX to complete this work.
https://www.qnap.com/en-uk/product/tbs-h574tx
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Table of Contents
- The StorMagic Witness
- Enable QNAP Virtualization
- Ubuntu VM hosting StorMagic Witness for SvHCI or SvSAN Witness and Proxmox qDevice
- Install the Witness Services
- Windows VM hosting StorMagic Witness for SvSAN and File Share Witness for Windows Server Failover Cluster
- Install the Witness Services
The StorMagic Witness
The StorMagic Witness is used by both SvSAN and SvHCI to provide quorum when operating in a 2-node cluster.
The StorMagic Witness can:
- run remotely tolerating 3000ms of latency
- consume ~9Kbps of bandwidth per mirror arbitrated
- Can be shared to 1000+ remote systems
- Can sit behind NAT, enabling it to potentially run in the Cloud
- Can run on Ubuntu, Windows or a an OVA StorMagicOS based appliance VM
- Is also offered as Witness-as-a-Service whereby StorMagic provides witness details and runs on behalf of a customer
Some use cases prefer to run the Witness on-prem, with the below different examples leveraging a QNAP NAS with the Virtualization Station functinoality to host both the StorMagic Witness and potentially also compute cluster witness for Proxmox qDevice or Microsoft Windows Server Failover Cluster File Share witness.
Enable QNAP Virtualization
Once logged into your QNAP device, open the App Center and install Virtulization Station
Configure a Bridge network on, in this example, the front end management NIC:
Ubuntu VM hosting StorMagic Witness for SvHCI or SvSAN Witness and Proxmox qDevice
The below steps will create a topology similar to the below utilizing the Ubuntu VM on the QNAP NAS as the StorMagic Witness to provdie quorum for SvHCI.
Or alternatively using the Ubuntu VM as a StorMagic witness for SvSAN, and qDevice for Proxmox compute cluster to enable a Proxmox+SvSAN Hyperconverged topology.
In Virtualization Station create a VM
Name the VM, provide a description and choose where to store the Virtual Machine files:
Select the VM hardware details. This only needs to be small for this use case:
Provision a small virtual disk, this guide uses 16GB to minimize space consumption:
Connect the VM to the previously created Bridge network. This example uses a 10.40.0.0/24 network for the infrastructure.
Copy up the OS installation ISO to the NAS, and add to the Virtual Machine.
This will be visible per the below:
Ensure to select the VM to Always Auto Start:
A Summary will be displayed before VM creation
Install the Witness Services
Once the VM insalled and static IP Addressed, install the StorMagic Witness per the below:
Or if utilizing SvSAN with Proxmox install both the StorMagic Witness and the Proxmox qDevice per the below:
Windows VM hosting StorMagic Witness for SvSAN and File Share Witness for Windows Server Failover Cluster
The below steps will create a topology similar to the below utilizing the Windows VM on the QNAP NAS as the StorMagic Witness to provdie quorum for SvSAN alongside a File Share witness for Microsoft Windows Server Failover Cluster (WSFC compute cluster)
In Virtualization Station create a VM, providing a VM name, description, where to store the VM and OS
Select the Compute resources
Assign some VM storage, noting this example uses 90GB to be small and is selecting VirtIO as storage controller.
This will need additional drivers however provide best performance on KVM
As with the controller this example modifies the default virtualized Intel NIC for VirtIO.
This will need additional drivers however provide best performance on KVM
Mount the Windows OS installation ISO, alongside adding an additional CD ROM device to mount the VirtIO drivers ISO
Select to Always start the VM
Complete the VM creation wizard
Once installing, at the storage, select Load Driver
Browse to the VIOstore drivers on the attached Virt driver ISO
The Drievr will then display, select Install, to load the driver.
The disk will now be selectable to install Windows to:
Install NIC Drivers
Once Windows is installed, note that there is no Network Adpater available.
Open the VirtIO ISO, that shoudl still be mounted, and run the VirtIO guest tools installer
Once completed, note the Network Adapter appeared in the background
Set a Static IP address
Install the StorMagic Witness Service
From https://support.stormagic.com pull the Windows installation package:
Accept the EULA and select the link to pull the package:
Install the Witness Service
The StorMagic Witness service will now display in Services.msc
This will have enabled a topology similar to the below with Microsoft Hyper-V providing virtualization, SvSAN VSAs providing shared storage and Windows Server Failover Clustering providing compute VM clustering, live migration and VM failover.
Configure the File Share Witness
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/failover-clustering/file-share-witness
Any issues with the please raise a ticket with support support@stormagic.com or raise a ticket at https://support.stormagic.com.
See Also
https://stormagic.com/customer-manuals/
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