Specifications

Available Actions When Quorum is Lost
Available Actions When Quorum is Lost
The witness package offers three different options for how the system should react if quorum is lost --
“fastboot”, “fastkill” and “osu”. These options can be selected via the QUORUM_LOSS_ACTION setting
in /etc/default/LifeKeeper. All three options take the system’s resources out of service;
however, they each allow a different behavior. The default option, when the quorum package is
installed, is fastboot. Each of these options is described below:
fastboot
If the fastboot option is selected, the system will be immediately rebooted when a loss of quorum is
detected (from a communication failure). Although this is an aggressive option, it ensures that the
system will be disconnected from any external resources right away. In many cases, such as with
storage-level replication, this immediate release of resources is desired.
Two important notes on this option are:
1. The system performs an immediate hard reboot without first performing any shut-down
procedure; no tasks are performed (disk syncing, etc.).
2. The system will come back up performing normal startup routines, including negotiating
storage and resource access, etc.
fastkill
The fastkill option is very similar to the fastboot option, but instead of a hard reboot, the system will
immediately halt when quorum is lost. As with the fastboot option, no tasks are performed (disk
syncing, etc.), and the system will then need to be manually rebooted and will come back up
performing normal startup routines, including negotiating storage and resource access, etc.
osu
The osu option is the least aggressive option, leaving the system operational but taking resources out
of service on the system where quorum is lost. In some cluster configurations, this is all that is
needed, but it may not be strong enough or fast enough in others.
Additional Configuration for Shared-Witness Topologies
When a quorum witness server will be shared by more than one cluster, it can be configured to
simplify individual cluster management. In standard operation, the LifeKeeper GUI will try to connect
to all cluster nodes at once when connected to the first node. It connects to all the systems that can
be seen by each system in the cluster. Since the shared witness server is connected to all clusters,
this will cause the GUI to connect to all systems in all clusters visible to the witness node.
To avoid this situation, the HIDE_GUI_SYS_LIST configuration parameter should be set to
“true” on any shared witness server. This effectively hides the servers that are visible to the
witness server, resulting in the GUI only connecting to servers in the cluster that are associated with
the first server connected to. Note: This should be set only on the witness server.
Since the GUI connects only to servers in the cluster that are associated with the first server
connected to, if that first server is the witness server, and HIDE_GUI_SYS_LIST is set to “true,” the
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