Hi all, while discussing on linux-cluster the support of the Tripp Lite switched PDU, it occurred to me that we can effectively improve (almost half) the time it takes to perform power fencing of certain devices, when for example, more than one PSU needs to be powered off to complete the action.
Node X has 2 PSU. In our current state, the config would look like: <clusternode .....> <fence> <method...> <device name="..." port="1"/> <device name="..." port="2"/> ..... it means effectively spawning, most likely the same agent, twice. Increasing the time it takes to fence and maybe increasing the possibility to fail to fence if the second connection fails. My suggestion would be to allow to specify a list of ports instead. <clusternode .....> <fence> <method...> <device name="..." ports="1 2"/> .... Either by using a new keyword "ports" or re-using "port" itself. If using "port", current configuration will continue to work as-is and the change effectively would not introduce any backward compatibility issue. This way the agent can: 1) connect once (reducing in most cases the ssh/telnet/whatever time) 2) issue the OFF command as fast as possible (almost in parallel) 3) then wait for the results. By adopting a list, the configuration would look cleaner too IMHO. A quick glance, the change should not affect fenced (David can you confirm please?), and most agents could handle it via the fencing python lib (Marek?). Does it sound reasonable? Cheers Fabio
