- Source: STONITH
STONITH ("Shoot The Other Node In The Head" or "Shoot The Offending Node In The Head"), sometimes called STOMITH ("Shoot The Other Member/Machine In The Head"), is a technique for fencing in computer clusters.
Fencing is the isolation of a failed node so that it does not cause disruption to a computer cluster. As its name suggests, STONITH fences failed nodes by resetting or powering down the failed node.
Multi-node error-prone contention in a cluster can have catastrophic results, such as if both nodes try writing to a shared storage resource. STONITH provides effective, if rather drastic, protection against these problems.
Single node systems use a comparable mechanism called a watchdog timer. A watchdog timer will reset the node if the node does not tell the watchdog circuit that it is operating well. A STONITH decision can be based on various decisions which can be customer specific plugins.
Google's inclusive language developer documentation discourages usage of this term.
References
External links
Definition from the Linux-HA Project
STONITH Deathmatch Explained (and Some Hints for Resource Agent Authors and Systems Engineers)
