Re: [PATCH 1b/7] dlm: core locking

Daniel Phillips
2005-04-29T08:25:07Z

On Thursday 28 April 2005 12:45, Lars Marowsky-Bree wrote:
> On 2005-04-28T09:39:22, Daniel McNeil <daniel@osdl.org> wrote:
> > Since a DLM is a distributed lock manager, its usage is entirely for
> > locking some shared resource (might not be storage, might be shared
> > state, shared data, etc). If the DLM can grant a lock, but not
> > guarantee that other nodes (including the ones that have been kicked
> > out of the cluster membership) do not have a conflicting DLM lock, then
> > any applications that depend on the DLM for protection/coordination
> > be in trouble. Doesn't the GFS code depend on the DLM not being
> > recovered until after fencing of dead nodes?
>
> It makes a whole lot of sense to combine a DLM with (appropriate)
> fencing so that the shared resources are protected. I understood David's
> comment to rather imply that fencing is assumed to happen outside the
> DLM's world in a different component; ie more of a comment on sane
> modularization instead of sane real-world configuration.

But just because fencing is supposed to happen in an external component,
we can't wave our hands at it and skip the analysis. We _must_ identify the
fencing assumptions and trace the fencing paths with respect to every
recovery algorithm in every cluster component, including the dlm.

I suspect that when we do get around to properly scrutinizing fencing
requirements of specific recovery algorithms, we will find that the fencing
system currently on offer for gfs needs a little work.

Regards,

Daniel