Running MySQL from a virtual server with database on the host disk

Question

I'm trying to set up MySQL running in a virtual server (CentOS 6), but as disk intensive stuff isn't great on a VM, I intend to store the database on the host (KVM on CentOS 6) server, and connect to it via Samba or NFS, or the like.

The trouble is that MySQL doesn't seem to like the /var/lib/mysql directory being mounted from a network drive, and I'm getting various different errors in the various configurations I've tried.

My end game is to have the DB server on a VM that can be easily moved between hosts, and the data on a redundant (probably clustered) server. In the mean time, the storage area I'm using on the host server is mirrored using DRBD.

Has anyone done something similar, and can suggest a config that works, or an altogether better way of doing it?

Answer 1

Using a file level protocol is a really bad idea. They are designed to do a very different job.

For block device level protocols there's 2 choices (DRBD doesn't apply here). AoE or iSCSI. IIRC, AoE is tightly coupled to physical network interfaces which may cause some complications in your setup - hence I'd recommend having a long hard look at iSCSI.