[Cluster-devel] When is fencing considered successful?

[Kevin Anderson <kanderso@redhat.com>]

Hi all,

Recently we had cluster customer where the fencing agent successfully
powered off a node, but the script failed to power the node back on due
to firmware changes on the fencing device.

Question is whether we should consider this a successful fence event or
does the agent have to complete everything?   The primary purpose of the
fencing agent is to stop the node from participating in the cluster.  In
this case, that was successful.  But, because the power on attempt
failed, the fence agent reported failure and the cluster hung waiting
for a followup action.  

It would seem to me that the fence agent should report success in this
case, and maybe post a warning message about the failure to power on.

Thoughts?
Kevin