fenced(8)

NAME
fenced - the I/O Fencing daemon

SYNOPSIS
fenced [OPTION]...

DESCRIPTION
The fencing daemon, fenced, should be run on every node that will use CLVM or GFS. It should be started after the node has joined the CMAN cluster (fenced is only used with CMAN; it is not used with GULM/SLM/RLM.) A node that is not running fenced is not permitted to mount GFS file systems. All fencing daemons running in the cluster form a group called the "fence domain". Any member of the fence domain that fails is fenced by a remaining domain member. The actual fencing does not occur unless the cluster has quorum so if a node failure causes the loss of quorum, the failed node will not be fenced until quorum has been regained. If a failed domain member (due to be fenced) rejoins the cluster prior to the actual fencing operation is carried out, the fencing operation is bypassed. The fencing daemon depends on CMAN for cluster membership information and it depends on CCS to provide cluster.conf information. The fencing daemon calls fencing agents according to cluster.conf information.

  Node failure
When a domain member fails, the actual fencing must be completed before GFS recovery can begin. This means any delay in carrying out the fencing operation will also delay the completion of GFS file system operations; most file system operations will hang during this period. When a domain member fails, the actual fencing operation can be delayed by a configurable number of seconds (post_fail_delay or -f). Within this time the failed node can rejoin the cluster to avoid being fenced. This delay is 0 by default to minimize the time that applications using GFS are stalled by recovery. A delay of -1 causes the fence daemon to wait indefinitely for the failed node to rejoin the cluster. In this case the node is not fenced and all recovery must wait until the failed node rejoins the cluster.

  Domain startup
When the domain is first created in the cluster (by the first node to join it) and subsequently enabled (by the cluster gaining quorum) any nodes listed in cluster.conf that are not presently members of the CMAN cluster are fenced. The status of these nodes is unknown and to be on the side of safety they are assumed to be in need of fencing. This startup fencing can be disabled; but it's only truely safe to do so if an operator is present to verify that no cluster nodes are in need of fencing. (Dangerous nodes that need to be fenced are those that had gfs mounted, did not cleanly unmount, and are now either hung or unable to communicate with other nodes over the network.) The first way to avoid fencing nodes unnecessarily on startup is to ensure that all nodes have joined the cluster before any of the nodes start the fence daemon. This method is difficult to automate. A second way to avoid fencing nodes unnecessarily on startup is using the post_join_delay parameter (or -j option). This is the number of seconds the fence daemon will delay before actually fencing any victims after nodes join the domain. This delay will give any nodes that have been tagged for fencing the chance to join the cluster and avoid being fenced. A delay of -1 here will cause the daemon to wait indefinitely for all nodes to join the cluster and no nodes will actually be fenced on startup. To disable fencing at domain-creation time entirely, the -c option can be used to declare that all nodes are in a clean or safe state to start. The clean_start cluster.conf option can also be set to do this, but automatically disabling startup fencing in cluster.conf can risk file system corruption. Avoiding unnecessary fencing at startup is primarily a concern when nodes are fenced by power cycling. If nodes are fenced by disabling their SAN access, then unnecessarily fencing a node is usually less disruptive.

CONFIGURATION FILE
Fencing daemon behavior can be controlled by setting options in the cluster.conf file under the section <fence_daemon> </fence_daemon>. See above for complete descriptions of these values. The delay values are in seconds; -1 secs means an unlimitted delay. The values shown are the defaults. Post-join delay is the number of seconds the daemon will wait before fencing any victims after a node joins the domain.
  <fence_daemon post_join_delay="3">
  </fence_daemon> Post-fail delay is the number of seconds the daemon will wait before fencing any victims after a domain member fails.
  <fence_daemon post_fail_delay="0">
  </fence_daemon> Clean-start is used to prevent any startup fencing the daemon might do. It indicates that the daemon should assume all nodes are in a clean state to start.
  <fence_daemon clean_start="0">
  </fence_daemon>

OPTIONS
Command line options override corresonding values in cluster.conf.

-j secs
    Post-join fencing delay

-f secs
    Post-fail fencing delay

-c  All nodes are in a clean state to start.

-D  Enable debugging code and don't fork into the background.

-n name
    Name of the fence domain, "default" if none.

-V  Print the version information and exit.

-h  Print out a help message describing available options, then exit.

SEE ALSO
gfs(8), fence(8)