How to change the external IP addresses of a whole grid

[PeterNic]

Jeremy at Layered Technologies (http://www.thegridlayer.com) has documented a procedure for changing the external (public) IP addresses of an existing grid. This is very useful if you move the grid physically from one data center to another, or simply need to use a different IP block.

It is a step-by-step procedure, with intermediate checks and all things you need to do to make it work well. You can find it here: http://ms.layeredtech.com/blog/?p=9

(This is not a supported procedure, and, as Jeremy says, you can mess up your grid if you are not careful. However, we reviewed it and these are all changes needed to re-IP the grid successfully.)

Thanks, Jeremy!

-- Peter

[Vlad]

Well, the manual procedure is dangerous to the extreme when applied to large grids. But, if it is needed, shouldn't we consider adding this as an operation to Aldo?

[PeterNic]

Yes. The only thing is that Aldo right now doesn't configure the external addresses of the servers -- it doesn't even know that they exist. But neither does AppLogic... so we can have Aldo change the controller's external IP properly and let user to manually re-IP the external addresses. Most of Jeremy's procedure will still apply (e.g., how to re-IP the applications, etc.). As we move to the different install method, this can be planned from day one (as well as the ability to rename a grid; I think this one will be in the next aldo release as well).

[LeoKalev]

Well, the manual procedure is dangerous to the extreme when applied to large grids. But, if it is needed, shouldn't we consider adding this as an operation to Aldo?

Starting from AppLogic 2.0, Aldo supports changing what's Aldo's - namely, the controller IP address (and a few other things that were not changeable before - incluging the grid ID, the grid name, etc.).

The IP addresses of the servers (as correctly noted by Peter) are unknown to Aldo and belong to the servers themselves. They can be changed freely, without any danger of affecting the grid operation. The grid itself does not even require them to be configured at all (i.e., you can have the external NICs without an IP address altogether).