FENCE_AGENT(8)

💖 FENCE_RSA — bestie's guide to the IBM RSA fence agent 💖

okay so you're looking at fence_rsa, which lives in section 8 of the System Manager's Manual. this is a Power Fencing agent and it's about to be your new fave, no cap 🦋

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✨ NAME ✨

fence_rsa — the fence agent for IBM RSA 💅

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

so fence_rsa is a Power Fencing agent that plays nice with the IBM RSA II management interface. what it does is: it logs into an RSA II device over telnet and then reboots the machine that's attached to it. iconic behaviour, honestly. 🎀

⚠️ real talk bestie: long telnet connections to the RSA II device? avoid them while a GFS cluster is running. the way that works is the connection will block any necessary fencing actions, and that's a whole mess you do not want. 🙈

the agent takes options from the command line and from stdin. fenced sends parameters through stdin when it execs the agent. but also — plot twist — you can run the agent all by itself with command line options. super useful for testing, and for flipping outlets on or off from scripts. main character energy fr fr. ✨

Vendor URL: http://www.ibm.com 🌈

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🎀 PARAMETERS 🎀

here's the whole menu, bestie. every single one. no skipping. 💅

• -o, --action=[action] — the fencing action you want (Default Value: reboot)
• -c, --command-prompt=[prompt] — force the Python regex used for the command prompt (Default Value: ['>'])
• -k, --identity-file=[filename] — identity file (that's the private key) for SSH 🔑
• -4, --inet4-only — forces the agent to only use IPv4 addresses
• -6, --inet6-only — forces the agent to only use IPv6 addresses
• -a, --ip=[ip] — IP address or hostname of the fencing device
• -u, --ipport=[port] — TCP/UDP port to use for the connection with the device (Default Value: 23)
• -p, --password=[password] — login password or passphrase
• -S, --password-script=[script] — script to run to retrieve the password
• -n, --plug=[ip] — IP address or hostname of the fencing device (works together with --port-as-ip)
• -x, --ssh — use an SSH connection
• --ssh-options=[options] — SSH options to use (Default Value: -F /dev/null)
• -l, --username=[name] — login name. this parameter is always required. like, always. 👑
• -q, --quiet — disable logging to stderr. heads up: it does not affect --verbose or --debug-file or logging to syslog.
• -v, --verbose — verbose mode. you can stack multiple -v flags on the command line (e.g., -vvv) to crank the verbosity up 📈
• --verbose-level — level of debugging detail in the output. defaults to however many --verbose flags you put on the command line, or to 1 if verbose=1 in a stonith device configuration (i.e., on stdin).
• -D, --debug-file=[debugfile] — write debug information to the given file
• -V, --version — display version information and exit
• -h, --help — display help and exit
• --plug-separator=[char] — the separator used for the plug parameter when you're specifying more than 1 plug (Default Value: ,)
• --delay=[seconds] — wait X seconds before fencing even starts (Default Value: 0)
• --disable-timeout=[true/false] — disable timeout (true/false) (default: true when run from Pacemaker 2.0+)
• --login-timeout=[seconds] — wait X seconds for the cmd prompt after login (Default Value: 10)
• --port-as-ip — makes "port/plug" an alias to the IP address
• --power-timeout=[seconds] — test X seconds for a status change after ON/OFF (Default Value: 20)
• --power-wait=[seconds] — wait X seconds after issuing ON/OFF (Default Value: 0)
• --shell-timeout=[seconds] — wait X seconds for the cmd prompt after issuing a command (Default Value: 3)
• --stonith-status-sleep=[seconds] — sleep X seconds between status calls during a STONITH action (Default Value: 1)
• --retry-on=[attempts] — how many attempts to retry power on (Default Value: 1)
• --ssh-path=[path] — path to the ssh binary (Default Value: /usr/bin/ssh)
• --telnet-path=[path] — path to the telnet binary (Default Value: /usr/bin/telnet)

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🦋 ACTIONS 🦋

• on — power on the machine ⚡
• off — power off the machine
• reboot — reboot the machine 🔄
• status — returns the status of the plug / virtual machine
• monitor — check the health of the fence device 🩺
• metadata — display the XML metadata describing this resource
• manpage — the operational behavior of this is not known 💀 (yes really, that's what it says)
• validate-all — validate whether all required parameters are entered ✅

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💜 STDIN PARAMETERS 💜

same energy, but the names use underscores because stdin is like that. 🫶

• action — fencing action (Default Value: reboot)
• command_prompt — force Python regex for command prompt (Default Value: ['>']). Obsoletes: cmd_prompt
• identity_file — identity file (private key) for SSH
• inet4_only — forces agent to use IPv4 addresses only
• inet6_only — forces agent to use IPv6 addresses only
• ip — IP address or hostname of fencing device. Obsoletes: ipaddr
• ipport — TCP/UDP port to use for connection with device (Default Value: 23)
• password — login password or passphrase. Obsoletes: passwd
• password_script — script to run to retrieve password. Obsoletes: passwd_script
• plug — IP address or hostname of fencing device (together with --port-as-ip). Obsoletes: port
• ssh — use SSH connection. Obsoletes: secure
• ssh_options — SSH options to use (Default Value: -F /dev/null)
• username — login name. this parameter is always required. Obsoletes: login
• quiet — disable logging to stderr. does not affect --verbose or --debug-file or logging to syslog.
• verbose — verbose mode. multiple -v flags can be stacked on the command line (e.g., -vvv) to increase verbosity.
• verbose_level — level of debugging detail in output. defaults to the number of --verbose flags specified on the command line, or to 1 if verbose=1 in a stonith device configuration (i.e., on stdin).
• debug_file — write debug information to given file. Obsoletes: debug
• version — display version information and exit
• help — display help and exit
• plug_separator — separator for plug parameter when specifying more than 1 plug (Default Value: ,)
• delay — wait X seconds before fencing is started (Default Value: 0)
• disable_timeout — disable timeout (true/false) (default: true when run from Pacemaker 2.0+)
• login_timeout — wait X seconds for cmd prompt after login (Default Value: 10)
• port_as_ip — make "port/plug" an alias to IP address
• power_timeout — test X seconds for status change after ON/OFF (Default Value: 20)
• power_wait — wait X seconds after issuing ON/OFF (Default Value: 0)
• shell_timeout — wait X seconds for cmd prompt after issuing command (Default Value: 3)
• stonith_status_sleep — sleep X seconds between status calls during a STONITH action (Default Value: 1)
• retry_on — count of attempts to retry power on (Default Value: 1)
• ssh_path — path to ssh binary (Default Value: /usr/bin/ssh)
• telnet_path — path to telnet binary (Default Value: /usr/bin/telnet)

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and that's the whole thing bestie, you ate it up 💅✨

this was fence_rsa, the Fence Agent, dated 2009-10-20 — yeah she's vintage and still serving 🎀 go forth and fence responsibly, mwah 🫶💖