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Chapter 11. Protecting Your Data - STONITH

Table of Contents

11.1. Why You Need STONITH
11.2. What STONITH Device Should You Use
11.3. Configuring STONITH
11.3.1. Example

11.1. Why You Need STONITH

STONITH is an acronym for Shoot-The-Other-Node-In-The-Head and it protects your data from being corrupted by rouge nodes or concurrent access.
Just because a node is unresponsive, this doesn't mean it isn't accessing your data. The only way to be 100% sure that your data is safe, is to use STONITH so we can be certain that the node is truly offline, before allowing the data to be accessed from another node.
STONITH also has a role to play in the event that a clustered service cannot be stopped. In this case, the cluster uses STONITH to force the whole node offline, thereby making it safe to start the service elsewhere.