5. Cluster Resources¶
5.1. What is a Cluster Resource?¶
A resource is a service managed by Pacemaker. The simplest type of resource, a primitive, is described in this chapter. More complex forms, such as groups and clones, are described in later chapters.
Every primitive has a resource agent that provides Pacemaker a standardized interface for managing the service. This allows Pacemaker to be agnostic about the services it manages. Pacemaker doesn’t need to understand how the service works because it relies on the resource agent to do the right thing when asked.
Every resource has a standard (also called class) specifying the interface that its resource agent follows, and a type identifying the specific service being managed.
5.2. Resource Standards¶
Pacemaker can use resource agents complying with these standards, described in more detail below:
- ocf
- lsb
- systemd
- service
- stonith
- nagios (deprecated since 2.1.6)
- upstart (deprecated since 2.1.0)
Support for some standards is controlled by build options and so might not be
available in any particular build of Pacemaker. The command crm_resource
--list-standards
will show which standards are supported by the local build.
5.2.1. Open Cluster Framework¶
The Open Cluster Framework (OCF) Resource Agent API is a ClusterLabs standard for managing services. It is the most preferred since it is specifically designed for use in a Pacemaker cluster.
OCF agents are scripts that support a variety of actions including start
,
stop
, and monitor
. They may accept parameters, making them more
flexible than other standards. The number and purpose of parameters is left to
the agent, which advertises them via the meta-data
action.
Unlike other standards, OCF agents have a provider as well as a standard and type.
For more information, see the “Resource Agents” chapter of Pacemaker Administration and the OCF standard.
5.2.2. Systemd¶
Most Linux distributions use Systemd for system initialization and service management. Unit files specify how to manage services and are usually provided by the distribution.
Pacemaker can manage systemd services. Simply create a resource with
systemd
as the resource standard and the unit file name as the resource
type. Do not run systemctl enable
on the unit.
Important
Make sure that any systemd services to be controlled by the cluster are not enabled to start at boot.
5.2.3. Linux Standard Base¶
LSB resource agents, also known as SysV-style, are scripts that provide start, stop, and status actions for a service.
They are provided by some operating system distributions. If a full path is not
given, they are assumed to be located in a directory specified when your
Pacemaker software was built (usually /etc/init.d
).
In order to be used with Pacemaker, they must conform to the LSB specification as it relates to init scripts.
Warning
Some LSB scripts do not fully comply with the standard. For details on how to check whether your script is LSB-compatible, see the “Resource Agents” chapter of Pacemaker Administration. Common problems include:
- Not implementing the
status
action - Not observing the correct exit status codes
- Starting a started resource returns an error
- Stopping a stopped resource returns an error
Important
Make sure the host is not configured to start any LSB services at boot that will be controlled by the cluster.
5.2.4. System Services¶
Since there are various types of system services (systemd
,
upstart
, and lsb
), Pacemaker supports a special service
alias which
intelligently figures out which one applies to a given cluster node.
This is particularly useful when the cluster contains a mix of
systemd
, upstart
, and lsb
.
In order, Pacemaker will try to find the named service as:
- an LSB init script
- a Systemd unit file
- an Upstart job
5.2.5. STONITH¶
The stonith
standard is used for managing fencing devices, discussed later
in Fencing.
5.2.6. Nagios Plugins¶
Nagios Plugins are a way to monitor services. Pacemaker can use these as resources, to react to a change in the service’s status.
To use plugins as resources, Pacemaker must have been built with support, and OCF-style meta-data for the plugins must be installed on nodes that can run them. Meta-data for several common plugins is provided by the nagios-agents-metadata project.
The supported parameters for such a resource are same as the long options of the plugin.
Start and monitor actions for plugin resources are implemented as invoking the plugin. A plugin result of “OK” (0) is treated as success, a result of “WARN” (1) is treated as a successful but degraded service, and any other result is considered a failure.
A plugin resource is not going to change its status after recovery by
restarting the plugin, so using them alone does not make sense with on-fail
set (or left to default) to restart
. Another value could make sense, for
example, if you want to fence or standby nodes that cannot reach some external
service.
A more common use case for plugin resources is to configure them with a
container
meta-attribute set to the name of another resource that actually
makes the service available, such as a virtual machine or container.
With container
set, the plugin resource will automatically be colocated
with the containing resource and ordered after it, and the containing resource
will be considered failed if the plugin resource fails. This allows monitoring
of a service inside a virtual machine or container, with recovery of the
virtual machine or container if the service fails.
Warning
Nagios support is deprecated in Pacemaker. Support will be dropped entirely at the next major release of Pacemaker.
For monitoring a service inside a virtual machine or container, the recommended alternative is to configure the virtual machine as a guest node or the container as a bundle. For other use cases, or when the virtual machine or container image cannot be modified, the recommended alternative is to write a custom OCF agent for the service (which may even call the Nagios plugin as part of its status action).
5.2.7. Upstart¶
Some Linux distributions previously used Upstart for system initialization and service management. Pacemaker is able to manage services using Upstart if the local system supports them and support was enabled when your Pacemaker software was built.
The jobs that specify how services are managed are usually provided by the operating system distribution.
Important
Make sure the host is not configured to start any Upstart services at boot that will be controlled by the cluster.
Warning
Upstart support is deprecated in Pacemaker. Upstart is no longer actively maintained, and test platforms for it are no longer readily usable. Support will be dropped entirely at the next major release of Pacemaker.
5.3. Resource Properties¶
These values tell the cluster which resource agent to use for the resource, where to find that resource agent and what standards it conforms to.
Field | Description |
---|---|
id | Your name for the resource |
class | The standard the resource agent conforms to. Allowed values:
|
description | A description of the Resource Agent, intended for local use.
E.g. |
type | The name of the Resource Agent you wish to use. E.g.
|
provider | The OCF spec allows multiple vendors to supply the same resource
agent. To use the OCF resource agents supplied by the Heartbeat
project, you would specify |
The XML definition of a resource can be queried with the crm_resource tool. For example:
# crm_resource --resource Email --query-xml
might produce:
A system resource definition
<primitive id="Email" class="service" type="exim"/>
Note
One of the main drawbacks to system services (LSB, systemd or Upstart) resources is that they do not allow any parameters!
An OCF resource definition
<primitive id="Public-IP" class="ocf" type="IPaddr" provider="heartbeat">
<instance_attributes id="Public-IP-params">
<nvpair id="Public-IP-ip" name="ip" value="192.0.2.2"/>
</instance_attributes>
</primitive>
5.4. Resource Options¶
Resources have two types of options: meta-attributes and instance attributes. Meta-attributes apply to any type of resource, while instance attributes are specific to each resource agent.
5.4.1. Resource Meta-Attributes¶
Meta-attributes are used by the cluster to decide how a resource should
behave and can be easily set using the --meta
option of the
crm_resource command.
Name | Type | Default | Description |
---|---|---|---|
priority |
score | 0 | If not all resources can be active, the cluster will stop lower-priority resources in order to keep higher-priority ones active. |
critical |
boolean | true | Use this value as the default for influence in all
colocation constraints involving this
resource, as well as in the implicit colocation constraints created if
this resource is in a group. For details, see
Colocation Influence. (since 2.1.0) |
target-role |
enumeration | Started | What state should the cluster attempt to keep this resource in? Allowed values:
|
is-managed |
boolean | true | If false, the cluster will not start, stop, promote, or demote the resource on any node. Recurring actions for the resource are unaffected. Maintenance mode overrides this setting. |
maintenance |
boolean | false | If true, the cluster will not start, stop, promote, or demote the
resource on any node, and will pause any recurring monitors (except those
specifying role as Stopped ). If true, the
maintenance-mode cluster option or
maintenance node attribute overrides this. |
resource-stickiness |
score | 1 for individual clone instances, 0 for all other resources | A score that will be added to the current node when a resource is already active. This allows running resources to stay where they are, even if they would be placed elsewhere if they were being started from a stopped state. |
requires |
enumeration | quorum for resources with a class of stonith , otherwise
unfencing if unfencing is active in the cluster, otherwise
fencing if stonith-enabled is true, otherwise quorum |
Conditions under which the resource can be started. Allowed values:
|
migration-threshold |
score | INFINITY | How many failures may occur for this resource on a node, before this node
is marked ineligible to host this resource. A value of 0 indicates that
this feature is disabled (the node will never be marked ineligible); by
contrast, the cluster treats INFINITY (the default) as a very large
but finite number. This option has an effect only if the failed operation
specifies on-fail as restart (the default), and additionally for
failed start operations, if the cluster property
start-failure-is-fatal is false . |
failure-timeout |
duration | 0 | Ignore previously failed resource actions after this much time has
passed without new failures (potentially allowing the resource back to
the node on which it failed, if it previously reached its
migration-threshold there). A value of 0 indicates that failures do
not expire. WARNING: If this value is low, and pending cluster
activity prevents the cluster from responding to a failure within that
time, then the failure will be ignored completely and will not cause
recovery of the resource, even if a recurring action continues to report
failure. It should be at least greater than the longest action
timeout for all resources in the cluster. A value in hours
or days is reasonable. |
multiple-active |
enumeration | stop_start | What should the cluster do if it ever finds the resource active on more than one node? Allowed values:
|
allow-migrate |
boolean | true for ocf:pacemaker:remote resources, false otherwise |
Whether the cluster should try to “live migrate” this resource when it needs to be moved (see Migrating Resources) |
allow-unhealthy-nodes |
boolean | false | Whether the resource should be able to run on a node even if the node’s health score would otherwise prevent it (see Tracking Node Health) (since 2.1.3) |
container-attribute-target |
enumeration | Specific to bundle resources; see Bundle Node Attributes | |
remote-node |
text | The name of the Pacemaker Remote guest node this resource is associated with, if any. If specified, this both enables the resource as a guest node and defines the unique name used to identify the guest node. The guest must be configured to run the Pacemaker Remote daemon when it is started. WARNING: This value cannot overlap with any resource or node IDs. | |
remote-addr |
text | value of remote-node |
If remote-node is specified, the IP address or hostname used to
connect to the guest via Pacemaker Remote. The Pacemaker Remote daemon on
the guest must be configured to accept connections on this address. |
remote-port |
port | 3121 | If remote-node is specified, the port on the guest used for its
Pacemaker Remote connection. The Pacemaker Remote daemon on the guest
must be configured to listen on this port. |
remote-connect-timeout |
timeout | 60s | If remote-node is specified, how long before a pending guest
connection will time out. |
remote-allow-migrate |
boolean | true | If remote-node is specified, this acts as the allow-migrate
meta-attribute for the implicit remote connection resource
(ocf:pacemaker:remote ). |
As an example of setting resource options, if you performed the following commands on an LSB Email resource:
# crm_resource --meta --resource Email --set-parameter priority --parameter-value 100
# crm_resource -m -r Email -p multiple-active -v block
the resulting resource definition might be:
An LSB resource with cluster options
<primitive id="Email" class="lsb" type="exim">
<meta_attributes id="Email-meta_attributes">
<nvpair id="Email-meta_attributes-priority" name="priority" value="100"/>
<nvpair id="Email-meta_attributes-multiple-active" name="multiple-active" value="block"/>
</meta_attributes>
</primitive>
In addition to the cluster-defined meta-attributes described above, you may also configure arbitrary meta-attributes of your own choosing. Most commonly, this would be done for use in rules. For example, an IT department might define a custom meta-attribute to indicate which company department each resource is intended for. To reduce the chance of name collisions with cluster-defined meta-attributes added in the future, it is recommended to use a unique, organization-specific prefix for such attributes.
5.4.2. Setting Global Defaults for Resource Meta-Attributes¶
To set a default value for a resource option, add it to the
rsc_defaults
section with crm_attribute
. For example,
# crm_attribute --type rsc_defaults --name is-managed --update false
would prevent the cluster from starting or stopping any of the
resources in the configuration (unless of course the individual
resources were specifically enabled by having their is-managed
set to
true
).
5.4.3. Resource Instance Attributes¶
The resource agents of some resource standards (lsb, systemd and upstart not among them) can be given parameters which determine how they behave and which instance of a service they control.
If your resource agent supports parameters, you can add them with the
crm_resource
command. For example,
# crm_resource --resource Public-IP --set-parameter ip --parameter-value 192.0.2.2
would create an entry in the resource like this:
An example OCF resource with instance attributes
<primitive id="Public-IP" class="ocf" type="IPaddr" provider="heartbeat">
<instance_attributes id="params-public-ip">
<nvpair id="public-ip-addr" name="ip" value="192.0.2.2"/>
</instance_attributes>
</primitive>
For an OCF resource, the result would be an environment variable
called OCF_RESKEY_ip
with a value of 192.0.2.2
.
The list of instance attributes supported by an OCF resource agent can be
found by calling the resource agent with the meta-data
command.
The output contains an XML description of all the supported
attributes, their purpose and default values.
Displaying the metadata for the Dummy resource agent template
# export OCF_ROOT=/usr/lib/ocf
# $OCF_ROOT/resource.d/pacemaker/Dummy meta-data
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE resource-agent SYSTEM "ra-api-1.dtd">
<resource-agent name="Dummy" version="2.0">
<version>1.1</version>
<longdesc lang="en">
This is a dummy OCF resource agent. It does absolutely nothing except keep track
of whether it is running or not, and can be configured so that actions fail or
take a long time. Its purpose is primarily for testing, and to serve as a
template for resource agent writers.
</longdesc>
<shortdesc lang="en">Example stateless resource agent</shortdesc>
<parameters>
<parameter name="state" unique-group="state">
<longdesc lang="en">
Location to store the resource state in.
</longdesc>
<shortdesc lang="en">State file</shortdesc>
<content type="string" default="/var/run/Dummy-RESOURCE_ID.state" />
</parameter>
<parameter name="passwd" reloadable="1">
<longdesc lang="en">
Fake password field
</longdesc>
<shortdesc lang="en">Password</shortdesc>
<content type="string" default="" />
</parameter>
<parameter name="fake" reloadable="1">
<longdesc lang="en">
Fake attribute that can be changed to cause a reload
</longdesc>
<shortdesc lang="en">Fake attribute that can be changed to cause a reload</shortdesc>
<content type="string" default="dummy" />
</parameter>
<parameter name="op_sleep" reloadable="1">
<longdesc lang="en">
Number of seconds to sleep during operations. This can be used to test how
the cluster reacts to operation timeouts.
</longdesc>
<shortdesc lang="en">Operation sleep duration in seconds.</shortdesc>
<content type="string" default="0" />
</parameter>
<parameter name="fail_start_on" reloadable="1">
<longdesc lang="en">
Start, migrate_from, and reload-agent actions will return failure if running on
the host specified here, but the resource will run successfully anyway (future
monitor calls will find it running). This can be used to test on-fail=ignore.
</longdesc>
<shortdesc lang="en">Report bogus start failure on specified host</shortdesc>
<content type="string" default="" />
</parameter>
<parameter name="envfile" reloadable="1">
<longdesc lang="en">
If this is set, the environment will be dumped to this file for every call.
</longdesc>
<shortdesc lang="en">Environment dump file</shortdesc>
<content type="string" default="" />
</parameter>
</parameters>
<actions>
<action name="start" timeout="20s" />
<action name="stop" timeout="20s" />
<action name="monitor" timeout="20s" interval="10s" depth="0"/>
<action name="reload" timeout="20s" />
<action name="reload-agent" timeout="20s" />
<action name="migrate_to" timeout="20s" />
<action name="migrate_from" timeout="20s" />
<action name="validate-all" timeout="20s" />
<action name="meta-data" timeout="5s" />
</actions>
</resource-agent>