8.2 Configuring Quorum Membership and Timeout Properties

The quorum membership and timeout properties govern when cluster resources begin loading on cluster startup, failback, or failover.

  1. In iManager, select Clusters, then select Cluster Options.

  2. Specify the cluster name, or browse and select the Cluster object.

  3. Click the Properties button under the cluster name.

  4. Click the Policies tab.

  5. Under Quorum Triggers, specify the number of nodes that are required to form a quorum for the specified cluster.

    For information, see Section 8.2.1, Quorum Triggers (Number of Nodes).

  6. Under Quorum Triggers, specify the amount of time in seconds to wait for the quorum to form before beginning to load the cluster resources without a quorum being formed.

    For information, see Section 8.2.2, Quorum Triggers (Timeout).

  7. Click Apply or OK to save your changes.

  8. Restart Cluster Services by entering the following at a terminal console prompt:

    rcnovell-ncs restart

8.2.1 Quorum Triggers (Number of Nodes)

The number of nodes required to form a cluster quorum is the number of nodes that must be running in the cluster before resources start to load. When you first bring up servers in your cluster, Novell Cluster Services reads the number specified in this field and waits until that number of servers is up and running in the cluster before it starts loading resources.

Set this value to a number greater than 1 so that all resources don't automatically load on the first server that is brought up in the cluster. For example, if you set the Number of Nodes value to 4, there must be four servers up in the cluster before any resource loads and starts.

8.2.2 Quorum Triggers (Timeout)

Timeout specifies the amount of time to wait for the number of servers defined in the Number of Nodes field to be up and running. If the timeout period elapses before the quorum membership reaches its specified number, resources automatically start loading on the servers that are currently up and running in the cluster. For example, if you specify a Number of Nodes value of 4 and a timeout value equal to 30 seconds, and after 30 seconds only two servers are up and running in the cluster, resources begin to load on the two servers that are up and running in the cluster.

The timeout is an attribute of the cluster. It gets initialized when the NCS modules are being loaded. If you change the value, restart Cluster Services (rcnovell-ncs restart) to get the updated settings.