Following installation of a second Platform Services Controller node in a site how will you know if replication is functioning correctly?
Assuming that you’ve got time to wait 30 seconds for each change to be replicated you could first try creating a test user on each node within the vsphere.local domain to verify bidirectional communication. But if you prefer to be a little more scientific or repeat the process programmatically you can follow a simple sequence of steps.
The following article from VMware explains the process, however it does omit a period (.) character at the beginning of the Linux commands such that the steps can’t be followed verbatim.
https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2127057
I’ve rewritten the steps that I generally follow below:
Login to the PSC appliance over SSH as the root user
Enter the following commands to change directory and execute the vdcrepadmin tool (bearing in mind here that the administrator user is from the single-sign-on vsphere.local domain)
cd /usr/lib/vmware-vmdir/bin
./vdcrepadmin -f showservers -h hopsc01.xyz.company.com -u administrator -w password
This command lists out all of the PSC nodes which have joined the single-sign-on domain:
cn=hopsc01.xyz.company.com,cn=Servers,cn=HeadOffice,cn=Sites,cn=Configuration,dc=vsphere,dc=local
cn=hopsc02.xyz.company.com,cn=Servers,cn=HeadOffice,cn=Sites,cn=Configuration,dc=vsphere,dc=local
Repeat this step on the second (or additional) PSC nodes:
cn=hopsc01.xyz.company.com,cn=Servers,cn=HeadOffice,cn=Sites,cn=Configuration,dc=vsphere,dc=local
cn=hopsc02.xyz.company.com,cn=Servers,cn=HeadOffice,cn=Sites,cn=Configuration,dc=vsphere,dc=local
Enter the following commands to display the replication partners for each node:
./vdcrepadmin -f showpartners -h hopsc01.xyz.company.com -u administrator -w password
ldap://HOPSC02.xyz.company.com
./vdcrepadmin -f showpartners -h hopsc02.xyz.company.com -u administrator -w password
ldap://hopsc01.xyz.company.com
Enter the following commands to display the replication status of each node with its counterpart replication partners:
./vdcrepadmin -f showpartnerstatus -h hopsc01.xyz.company.com -u administrator -w password
Partner: HOPSC02.xyz.company.com
Host available: Yes
Status available: Yes
My last change number: 4676
Partner has seen my change number: 4676
Partner is 0 changes behind.
./vdcrepadmin -f showpartnerstatus -h hopsc02.xyz.company.com -u administrator -w password
Partner: hopsc01.xyz.company.com
Host available: Yes
Status available: Yes
My last change number: 8986
Partner has seen my change number: 8986
Partner is 0 changes behind.
In these examples the change numbers (unique sequence numbers) are specific to the local host, but are not necessarily the same if they were introduced to the site at different times. The important value to pay attention to is whether the replication partner shows that any changes are not yet communicated or if the other partner is unavailable.
