stonith (8) Linux Manual Page

stonith – extensible interface for remotely powering down a node in the cluster

Synopsis

stonith -h

stonith [-svh] -L

stonith [-svh] -t stonith-device-type -n

stonith [-svh] -t stonith-device-type {-p stonith-device-parameters | -F stonith-device-parameters-file | name=value...} [-c count] -lS

stonith [-svh] -t stonith-device-type {-p stonith-device-parameters | -F stonith-device-parameters-file | name=value...} [-c count] [-lS] [-T {reset|on|off}] nodename

Description

The STONITH module (a.k.a. STOMITH) provides an extensible interface for remotely powering down a node in the cluster. (STONITH = Shoot The Other Node In The Head). The idea is quite simple: when the software running on one machine wants to make sure another machine in the cluster is not using a resource, pull the plug on the other machine. It’s simple and reliable, albeit admittedly brutal.

Options

-c count

Perform any actions identified by the -l, -S and -T options count times.

-F stonith-device-parameters-file

Path of file specifying parameters for a stonith device. To determine the syntax of the parameters file for a given device type run:

stonith -t stonith-device-type -n

All of the listed parameters need to appear in order on a single line in the parameters file and be delimited by whitespace.

-h

Display detailed information about a stonith device including description, configuration information, parameters and any other related information. When specified without a stonith-device-type, detailed information on all stonith devices is displayed.

If you don’t yet own a stonith device and want to know more about the ones we support, this information is likely to be helpful.

-L

List the valid stonith device types, suitable for passing as an argument to the -t option.

-l

List the hosts controlled by the stonith device.

-n

Output the parameter names of the stonith device.

name=value

Parameter, in the form of a name/value pair, to pass directly to the stonith device. To determine the syntax of the parameters for a given device type run:

stonith -t stonith-device-type -n

All of the listed parameter names need to be passed with their corresponding values.

-p stonith-device-parameters

Parameters to pass directly to the stonith device. To determine the syntax of the parameters for a given device type run:

stonith -t stonith-device-type -n

All of the listed parameter names need to appear in order and be delimited by whitespace.

-S

Show the status of the stonith device.

-s

Silent operation. Suppress logging of error messages to standard error.

-T action

The stonith action to perform on the node identified by nodename. Chosen from reset, on, and off.

NOTE: If a nodename is specified without the -T option, the stonith action defaults to reset.

-t stonith-device-type

The type of the stonith device to be used to effect stonith. A list of supported devices for an installation may be obtained using the -L option.

-v

Ignored.

Examples

To determine which stonith devices are available on your installation, use the -L option:

stonith -L

All of the supported devices will be displayed one per line. Choose one from this list that is best for your environment – let’s use wti_nps for the rest of this example. To get detailed information about this device, use the -h option:

stonith -t wti_nps -h

Included in the output is the list of valid parameter names for wti_nps. To get JUST the list of valid parameter names, use the -n option instead:

stonith -t wti_nps -n

All of the required parameter names will be displayed one per line. For wti_nps the output is:

ipaddr
password

There are three ways to pass these parameters to the device. The first (and preferred) way is by passing name/value pairs on the stonith command line:

stonith -t wti_nps ipaddr=my-dev-ip password=my-dev-pw ...

The second way, which is maintained only for backward compatibility with legacy clusters, is passing the values IN ORDER on the stonith command line with the -p option:

stonith -t wti_nps -p "my-dev-ip my-dev-pw" ...

The third way, which is also maintained only for backward compatibility with legacy clusters, is placing the values IN ORDER on a single line in a config file:

my-dev-ip my-dev-pw

and passing the name of the file on the stonith command line with the -F option:

stonith -t wti_nps -F ~/my-wtinps-config ...

To make sure you have the configuration set up correctly and that the device is available for stonith operations, use the -S option:

stonith -t wti_nps ipaddr=my-dev-ip password=my-dev-pw -S

If all is well at this point, you should see something similar to:

stonith: wti_nps device OK.

If you don’t, some debugging may be necessary to determine if the config info is correct, the device is powered on, etc. The -d option can come in handy here – you can add it to any stonith command to cause it to generate debug output.

To get the list of hosts controlled by the device, use the -l option:

stonith -t wti_nps ipaddr=my-dev-ip password=my-dev-pw -l

All of the hosts controlled by the device will be displayed one per line. For wti_nps the output could be:

node1
node2
node3

To power off one of these hosts, use the -T option:

stonith -t wti_nps ipaddr=my-dev-ip password=my-dev-pw -T off node2

See Also

heartbeat(8), meatclient(8)

Authors

stonith - Alan Robertson <alanr [at] unix.sh> et al.
man page - Horms <horms [at] verge.net.au>