ERROR: "Join retry, some other node acquired the cluster lock"

(Last modified: 13Jan2003)

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fact

Novell Clustering Services

symptom

ERROR: "Join retry, some other node acquired the cluster lock"

The first node of the Cluster is able to establish itself as the master node, but any other nodes that attempt to join the Novell Cluster Service (NCS) return the following error: "CLUSTER-<INFO>-<2090>: Join retry, some other node acquired the cluster lock"

cause

This error is returned because the other nodes that are trying to join the cluster cannot see the Master Node's heartbeat.   They, therefore, attempt to make themselves the master node, but are unable to do so because of the lock which is maintained on the Cluster's SBD partition.  This problem is called a "split brain at join time".  This can be caused because of LAN problems such as a bad switch/hub, bad lan card or cable, or possibly a configuration problem on the Lan or Cluster.

fix

Check the integrity of the LAN hardware and configuration by "pinging" between server nodes.  If there is a problem sending/receiving the ping, then troubleshoot and fix the faulty LAN component.  You should also check the cluster's setup.  Right clicking on the "clusterobject" in Console One and select Properties->Protocol and verify that the "Master Watchdog" is not set too high.  This field defaults to 1 second. A high "Master Watchdog" value may cause the heartbeat to be infrequent enough that the joining nodes may not be able to detect it.  Select the "cluster internals" option within this protocol tab and verify that the IP addresses listed for the various nodes agree with the IP addresses assigned to your NIC cards.

document

Document Title: ERROR: "Join retry, some other node acquired the cluster lock"
Document ID: 10056913
Solution ID: NOVL26328
Creation Date: 15Sep2000
Modified Date: 13Jan2003
Novell Product Class:NetWare

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