Managing a server cluster from the command line

You can use cluster commands to create, configure, and administer server clusters from the command prompt. You can also call the program Cluster.exe from command scripts to automate many cluster administration tasks. Cluster.exe is provided on all computers running Windows Server 2003 family operating systems.

You can use Cluster.exe to create, configure, and administer clusters from a node of the cluster, from nodes of other clusters, or from other computers running Windows NT 4.0 with Service Pack 3 or later.

Caution

When using cluster.exe to manage a server cluster, the locale settings for the user account must match the system default locale on the computer used to manage the cluster. If you remotely manage a server cluster from another computer, the system default locale on that remote computer can be different from the system default locale on all the nodes in the cluster only if the names of the cluster and all the cluster nodes use English language characters. For more information on changing the system default locale, see To change number, currency, time, and date settings.

Important

When you remotely manage a cluster using Cluster Administrator or cluster.exe, you must verify that NetBIOS over TCP/IP (NetBT) is enabled on the client. For more information on enabling NetBIOS over TCP/IP, see To configure TCP/IP settings.

You can also start the Cluster Administration tool at a command prompt using the Cluadmin.exe command.

For information about other command-line utilities, see Command-line reference. For more information about manageability, see Understanding Windows Management.

The following rules apply to cluster.exe and its subcommands when entering commands from the command prompt:

You must use quotation marks around all names that contain spaces and special characters. Examples of special characters are: the minus sign (-), the slash mark (/), quotation marks ("), the colon (:), the comma (,), and the equal sign (=). For other examples, see the cluster commands in Related Topics.
When setting properties to True or False, specify 1 (one) for True and 0 (zero) for False.
You specify the local cluster when you enter a PERIOD (.) in the command for cluster name.
You can specify multiple options for one command line. Cluster.exe processes options from left to right. If an option fails, the command will stop executing at the failed option.
Use double quotation marks (") in a string that has two consecutive double quotation marks (""). The following example shows double quotation marks in a string:
cluster resource AResource /priv aProp="a """

This section describes cluadmin.exe as well as the cluster.exe commands, command abbreviations, and property lists: