Stonith unreliable (HEARTBEAT, COROSYNC)

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Environment

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 Service Pack 1

Situation

The STONITH device in the cluster does not work reliable, resulting in cluster failure as the fencing mechanism fails.
Example entries in /var/log/messages would be

Jan 28 10:25:44 nlpihafsrv01 stonith-ng: [8071]: info: stonith_query: Found 0
matching devices for 'wlpihafsrv04'
Jan 28 10:25:44 wlpihafsrv03 stonith-ng: [7906]: info: stonith_query: Found 0
matching devices for 'wlpihafsrv04'

even so that the STONITH device was tested before and all settings checked.

Resolution

The stonith-timeout parameter is too low, probably around 10 seconds. It should be set to

stonith-timeout="60s"

Then the stonith will succeed and the cluster be stable.

Disclaimer

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