SQL 2008 Clusters: Lessons learned

I just finished a SQL 2008 cluster install in a locked down environment. Most of the articles I've found are too wordy and a little over complicated so I thought I'd break down what I learned.

Privileges: On each server you're installing a node on you have to have the following privileges: Backup files and folders, Debug programs, and manage audit logs. You can give yourself these privleges in the local security policy editor. After giving yourself these privileges you must restart the server for them to take effect.

File Sharing must be turned on on both servers.

Both servers need to have remote registry service and WMI management turned on and visible to each other.

The install of the first node must complete successfully to be able to begin installation of any other nodes. This seems like a no brainer...but sometimes it will give an error like: unable to start the cluster. You assume that it installed correctly, it just couldn't start it. You resolve the issues that the cluster had that prevented it from starting and successfully start it, but that's not good enough. It has to start up completely during the install process for the install to register as being successful. There is a registry key that you can change to set it as successful, but I haven't found it yet and Microsoft recommends successfully installing the first cluster node.

Either make sure that the OS Cluster Active Directory computer object has enough permissions in Active Directory to create new computer objects or create the SQL Cluster computer objects before beginning installation and give the OS Cluster computer objects full control over those objects. To view the permissions of an object in AD you need to select Advanced Features from the view menu in the Active Directory Users and Computers MMC snap-in.

With a windows 2008 installation, you must run a slip stream install with SQL Server 2008 SP1 or you will receive 2 errors near the end of the installation. To do this, download sp1. Open an administrative command line prompt and run the install file for sp1 but add the following:
/x:
This will extract all the files for the service pack to that location on the server. Next, run SQL setup from an administrative command prompt using the following switch:
/PCUSource=
If you recieve an error "PCUsoure not valid", you will have to run the sqlsupport.msi file located in the sp1 directory "\x64\1033\setup" first.

SQL Install logs are located in the c:\program files\Microsoft SQL Server 2008\100\Setup Bootstrap\logs\ directory, each install has it's own time stamped directory. The final disposition is in the summary_....txt file.

Common errors: "Failed to retrieve the data for this request.." as you start the installation usually means that file sharing isn't turned on on the other node of the cluster. The error log will contain a "unable to access the network share" in the .net stack dump if this is the case.

"Access denied" towards the end of the install is usually because of a bug that you must slip stream sp1 to fix.

The most common reasons I ran into for the cluster not starting are if the computer objects don't have the proper permissions in AD or on the cluster computer object and if the network is configured wrong.