Netscaler Knowledgebase

Summary

This article describes how to split a NetScaler High Availability (HA) pair. Reasons to split an HA pair include:

• If you must change the NetScaler IP address (NSIP) or mapped IP address (MIP)

• If you must move the NetScaler from an HA setup to standalone

Requirements

You must have direct keyboard/monitor or serial console access to the NetScaler systems.

Procedure

   1. On system A, save the current configuration to make sure that the latest information is written in the ns.conf files on both systems.
   2. Force the secondary system to stay secondary. On system B, issue the following command line interface (CLI) command:
      set node –hastatus staysecondary
   3. On system A, switch to a standalone configuration by removing the secondary node. The command is:
      rm node <nodeID>
      Where <nodeID> is the node ID number of the secondary system. To find the node ID, issue the show node command on system A.
   4. Remove system B from the network using one of the following means:
          * Physically disconnecting the Ethernet cables from the interfaces
          * Disabling the ports on the switch(es) to which the NetScalers are connected
            Caution: Do not use the disable interface command on the NetScaler.
   5. Using a keyboard and monitor or serial console, reconfigure system B:
   6. Remove the node associated with system A.
   7. Set the new IP addresses through the config utility.
   8. Add a node for the planned IP address of system A. Issue the show node command to make sure that both nodes are present. Because it is disconnected from the network, system B registers itself as secondary; this is as expected. System A is also listed as secondary.
   9. In a quick swap, disconnect system A from the network and reconnect system B, in that order.
      Caution: This is the brief outage.
  10. Reconfigure system A with its new NSIP and/or MIPs. Add a node with the new IP of system B.
  11. Reconnect system A to the network. Issue the show node command to confirm that the HA pair is restored.
      Caution: This procedure should be completed from beginning to end all at one time. The estimated time to completion for this procedure is 15 minutes.