HAST allows to transparently store data on two physically separated machines
connected over the TCP/IP network. HAST works in Primary-Secondary
(Master-Backup, Master-Slave) configuration, which means that only one of the
cluster nodes can be active at any given time. Only Primary node is able to
handle I/O requests to HAST-managed devices. Currently HAST is limited to two
cluster nodes in total.
HAST operates on block level - it provides disk-like devices in /dev/hast/
directory for use by file systems and/or applications. Working on block level
makes it transparent for file systems and applications. There in no difference
between using HAST-provided device and raw disk, partition, etc. All of them
are just regular GEOM providers in FreeBSD.
For more information please consult hastd(8), hastctl(8) and hast.conf(5)
manual pages, as well as http://wiki.FreeBSD.org/HAST.
Sponsored by: FreeBSD Foundation
Sponsored by: OMCnet Internet Service GmbH
Sponsored by: TransIP BV
