# FAQ

## History

Why is the Project Called Pacemaker?

First of all, the reason its not called the CRM is because of the abundance of terms that are commonly abbreviated to those three letters.

The Pacemaker name came from Kham, a good friend of mine, and was originally used by a Java GUI that I was prototyping in early 2007. Alas other commitments have prevented the GUI from progressing much and, when it came time to choose a name for this project, Lars suggested it was an even better fit for an independent CRM.

The idea stems from the analogy between the role of this software and that of the little device that keeps the human heart pumping. Pacemaker monitors the cluster and intervenes when necessary to ensure the smooth operation of the services it provides.

There were a number of other names (and acronyms) tossed around, but suffice to say "Pacemaker" was the best

Why was the Pacemaker Project Created?

The decision was made to spin-off the CRM into its own project after the 2.1.3 Heartbeat release in order to

- support both the Corosync and Heartbeat cluster stacks equally

- decouple the release cycles of two projects at very different stages of their life-cycles

- foster the clearer package boundaries, thus leading to

- better and more stable interfaces

## Setup

What Messaging Layers are Supported?

- Corosync ()

- Heartbeat ()

Can I Choose which Messaging Layer to use at Run Time?

Yes. The CRM will automatically detect who started it and behave accordingly.

Can I Have a Mixed Heartbeat-Corosync Cluster?

No.

Which Messaging Layer Should I Choose?

This is discussed in .

Where Can I Get Pre-built Packages?

Official packages for most major .rpm and based distributions are available from:

For Debian packages, building from source and details on using the above repositories, see our installation page.

What Versions of Pacemaker Are Supported?

Please refer to the Releases page for an up-to-date list of versions supported directly by the project.

When seeking assistance, please try to ensure you have one of these versions.