Pacemaker 2.0 upgrade in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8

Updated

In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8, the Pacemaker packages have been upgraded to the upstream version of Pacemaker 2.0.0. Pacemaker 2.0 is a major release whose main goal is to remove support for deprecated legacy syntax, in order to improve code maintainability.

Pacemaker 2.0 configuration changes

Pacemaker 2.0 changed cluster configuration in the following ways.

Changes in behavior

  • The record-pending cluster property now defaults to true. This change was initially implemented in RHEL 7.5.
  • If the stonith-watchdog-timeout cluster property is set to a negative number, and the SBD_WATCHDOG_TIMEOUT environment variable is set, Pacemaker will calculate an appropriate value. To get the previous behavior of disabling Pacemaker watchdog fencing, use 0 (which is still the default).
  • The reconnect_interval option of ocf:pacemaker:remote resources now accepts ISO8601 period specifications, as well as the previously accepted bare number of seconds or number with SI units.

Promotable clone resources
The resource type referred to as "master/slave", "stateful", or "multi-state" is no longer a separate resource type, but a variation of clone now referred to as a "promotable clone". "Master scores" are now referred to as "promotion scores" (though the names of the crm_master tool and master-* node attributes are unchanged).

DeprecatedUse instead
pcs resource create ... masterpcs resource create ... clone meta promotable=true
master-max master meta-attributepromoted-max clone meta-attribute
master-node-max master meta-attributepromoted-node-max clone meta-attribute
masters property of docker and rkt tags inside bundlespromoted-max property in the same place


The deprecated syntax will continue to be accepted for at least the lifetime of the 2.0.x series.

Further changes in related terminology (such as the master and slave roles) are expected in future versions. It is not being done all at once because some changes will require updates to the OCF standard and existing resource agents, which will take longer.

Deprecated options that have been removed

Before upgrading to RHEL 8, you must manually replace the functionality of the following removed cluster properties and resource meta-attributes with the indicated replacement feature.

Removed cluster propertyUse instead
notification-agent, notification-recipientalerts

Removed resource meta-attributesUse instead
isolation, isolation-host, isolation-instance, isolation-wrapperbundle resources

NOTE: In addition to manually replacing the functionality of these cluster properties, it is recommended that you run the pcs cluster cib-upgrade command before and after upgrading to RHEL 8 to automatically convert other legacy syntax to the current syntax.

Pacemaker 2.0 daemon changes

The Pacemaker daemons have been renamed more intuitively, to help make the logs easier to follow.

Previous nameCurrent namePurpose
attrdpacemaker-attrdnode attribute manager
cibpacemaker-basedCluster Information Base manager
crmdpacemaker-controldcluster controller
lrmdpacemaker-execdlocal resource agent executor
stonithdpacemaker-fencednode fencer
pacemaker_remotedpacemaker-remotedremote resource agent executor
penginepacemaker-schedulerdaction scheduler

  • The master process that spawns all the others, pacemakerd, keeps the same name.
  • The systemd unit files and init scripts that start pacemaker and pacemaker_remote keep the same names.
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