[Linux-cluster] Purpose of fencing devices

[Lon Hohberger]

On Thu, 2005-08-04 at 15:21 +0000, "Sævaldur Arnar Gunnarsson
[Hugsmiðjan]" wrote:
> Could someone explain to me the purpose of the fencing hardware in a 
> cluster with a shared storage resource.
> 
> When one of the cluster member goes down all access to the shared volume 
> (GFS) is closed off.
> No other cluster member can read or write to the volume until the failed 
> node comes back up.

That sounds like manual fencing.

> Are fencing devices used to close off the access the dead node has on 
> the filesystem so the other nodes can access (read/write) the fileystem 
> as usual ?

Yes.

-- Lon