[Debian-ha-maintainers] Bug#899139: Init script waits forever if peer is unavailable

[Carlos Ramos]

Package: drbd-utils
Version: 8.9.10-2

The startup script for drbd blocks the startup of the server until the
remote peer is available and gives no indication of interactivity.
This same problem was fixed for sysv by adding the `X-Interactive:
true` parameter to the startup script as described here:
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=613654

Currently drbd-utils does not provide a native systemd unit and
instead relies on the `systemd-sysv-generator` but the interactive
flag is not supported by this generator as stated here:
https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/Incompatibilities/

As a workaround I set the timeout parameters: wfc-timeout,
degr-wfc-timeout, outdated-wfc-timeout to 5 seconds in the startup
section of the global_common.conf. This forces the init script to
continue after 5 seconds of waiting for the remote peer.

For a more permanent fix the previous workaround could be applied by
default with a sensible value and maybe indicate failure if the remote
peer could bot be contacted.

Also apparently it is possible to write systemd services that support
interactivity. So maybe a native interactive systemd unit could be
created. More information here:
https://alan-mushi.github.io/2014/10/26/execute-an-interactive-script-at-boot-with-systemd.html

Cheers.
-- 
Carlos Ramos