If Novell Cluster Services is installed on a node, but an SBD does not exist, NLVM commands return the following error:
Error 20897 - This node is not a cluster member.
In a Novell Cluster Services cluster, NLVM uses the cluster’s SBD to detect whether a node is a cluster member and to lock against concurrent changes to physically shared storage. Without an SBD, NLVM cannot detect whether a node is a member of the cluster and cannot acquire the locks it needs to execute tasks. In this state, you can use the -s option with NLVM commands to prepare a device and create an SBD partition. To minimize the risk of corruption, you must ensure that nobody else is changing any storage on any nodes at the same time.
For information about creating an SBD partition by using NLVM commands, see Section 8.1, Creating or Mirroring an SBD Partition.