If Novell Cluster Services is installed on a node, but an SBD does not exist, NSS tools (including NSSMU, NSS console commands, and the Storage plug-in to Novell iManager) return the following error:
Error 20897 - This node is not a cluster member.
In a Novell Cluster Services cluster, NSS tools use the cluster’s SBD to detect if a node is a cluster member and to lock against concurrent changes to physically shared storage. Without an SBD, NSS tools cannot detect whether a node is a member of the cluster and cannot acquire the locks it needs to execute tasks. In this state, to minimize the risk of corruption, you must ensure that nobody else is changing any storage on any nodes at the same time.
For information about creating an SBD partition, see Section 9.14, Creating or Deleting Cluster SBD Partitions.