3.5. Configuring Fence Devices

Configuring fence devices consists of creating, modifying, and deleting fence devices. Creating a fence device consists of selecting a fence device type and entering parameters for that fence device (for example, name, IP address, login, and password). Modifying a fence device consists of selecting an existing fence device and changing parameters for that fence device. Deleting a fence device consists of selecting an existing fence device and deleting it.

Note

If you are creating a new cluster, you can create fence devices when you configure cluster nodes. Refer to Section 3.6, “Configuring Cluster Members”.

With Conga you can create shared and non-shared fence devices.

The following shared fence devices are available:

APC Power Switch
Brocade Fabric Switch
Bull PAP
Egenera SAN Controller
GNBD
IBM Blade Center
McData SAN Switch
QLogic SANbox2
SCSI Fencing (*See Note)
Virtual Machine Fencing
Vixel SAN Switch
WTI Power Switch

Note

Use of SCSI persistent reservations as a fence method is supported with the following limitations:

SCSI fencing is not supported in a two-node cluster.
When using SCSI fencing, all nodes in the cluster must register with the same devices so that each node can remove another node's registration key from all the devices it is registered with.
Devices used for the cluster volumes should be a complete LUN, not partitions. SCSI persistent reservations work on an entire LUN, meaning that access is controlled to each LUN, not individual partitions.

The following non-shared fence devices are available:

Dell DRAC
HP iLO
IBM RSA II
IPMI LAN
RPS10 Serial Switch

This section provides procedures for the following tasks:

Creating shared fence devices — Refer to Section 3.5.1, “Creating a Shared Fence Device”. The procedures apply only to creating shared fence devices. You can create non-shared (and shared) fence devices while configuring nodes (refer to Section 3.6, “Configuring Cluster Members”).
Modifying or deleting fence devices — Refer to Section 3.5.2, “Modifying or Deleting a Fence Device”. The procedures apply to both shared and non-shared fence devices.

The starting point of each procedure is at the cluster-specific page that you navigate to from Choose a cluster to administer displayed on the cluster tab.

3.5.1. Creating a Shared Fence Device

To create a shared fence device, follow these steps:

At the detailed menu for the cluster (below the clusters menu), click Shared Fence Devices. Clicking Shared Fence Devices causes the display of the fence devices for a cluster and causes the display of menu items for fence device configuration: Add a Fence Device and Configure a Fence Device.
Note
If this is an initial cluster configuration, no fence devices have been created, and therefore none are displayed.
Click Add a Fence Device. Clicking Add a Fence Device causes the Add a Sharable Fence Device page to be displayed (refer to Figure 3.1, “Fence Device Configuration”).
fence configuration dialog box
Figure 3.1. Fence Device Configuration
At the Add a Sharable Fence Device page, click the drop-down box under Fencing Type and select the type of fence device to configure.
Specify the information in the Fencing Type dialog box according to the type of fence device. Refer to Appendix B, Fence Device Parameters for more information about fence device parameters.
Click Add this shared fence device.
Clicking Add this shared fence device causes a progress page to be displayed temporarily. After the fence device has been added, the detailed cluster properties menu is updated with the fence device under Configure a Fence Device.