Special Fencing Devices

Sometimes, it is important to get a kernel core dump. This plug-in can be used to check if the dump is in progress. If that is the case, then it will return true, as if the node has been fenced, which is actually true given that it cannot run any resources at the time. kdumpcheck is typically used in concert with another, real, fencing device. See /usr/share/doc/packages/heartbeat/stonith/README_kdumpcheck.txt for more details.

This is a self-fencing device. It reacts to a so-called “poison pill” which can be inserted into a shared disk. On shared storage connection loss, it also makes the node commit suicide. See http://www.linux-ha.org/SBD_Fencing for more details.

meatware requires help from a human to operate. Whenever invoked, meatware logs a CRIT severity message which shows up on the node's console. The operator then needs to make sure that the node is down and issue a meatclient(8) command. This tells meatware that it can inform the cluster that it may consider the node dead. See /usr/share/doc/packages/heartbeat/stonith/README.meatware for more information.

This is an imaginary device used in various testing scenarios. It always behaves and claims that it has shot a node, but never does anything. Do not use it unless you know what you are doing.

This is a software-only device, which can reboot a node it is running on, using the reboot command. This requires action by the node's operating system and can fail under certain circumstances. Therefore avoid using this device whenever possible (but it can be used on one-node clusters).