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2.3. How Should the Configuration be Updated?

There are three basic rules for updating the cluster configuration:
Now that it is clear how not to update the configuration, we can begin to explain how you should.

2.3.1. Editing the CIB Using XML

The most powerful tool for modifying the configuration is the cibadmin command. With cibadmin, you can query, add, remove, update or replace any part of the configuration. All changes take effect immediately, so there is no need to perform a reload-like operation.
The simplest way of using cibadmin is to use it to save the current configuration to a temporary file, edit that file with your favorite text or XML editor, and then upload the revised configuration. [6]

Example 2.4. Safely using an editor to modify the cluster configuration

# cibadmin --query > tmp.xml
# vi tmp.xml
# cibadmin --replace --xml-file tmp.xml

Some of the better XML editors can make use of a Relax NG schema to help make sure any changes you make are valid. The schema describing the configuration can be found in pacemaker.rng, which may be deployed in a location such as /usr/share/pacemaker or /usr/lib/heartbeat depending on your operating system and how you installed the software.
If you want to modify just one section of the configuration, you can query and replace just that section to avoid modifying any others.

Example 2.5. Safely using an editor to modify only the resources section

# cibadmin --query --scope resources > tmp.xml
# vi tmp.xml
# cibadmin --replace --scope resources --xml-file tmp.xml



[6] This process might appear to risk overwriting changes that happen after the initial cibadmin call, but pacemaker will reject any update that is "too old". If the CIB is updated in some other fashion after the initial cibadmin, the second cibadmin will be rejected because the version number will be too low.