# Drbdadm create-md error ; Parse error: 'an option keyword' expected, but got 'on-no-quorum'

**URL:** <https://forums.linbit.com/t/drbdadm-create-md-error-parse-error-an-option-keyword-expected-but-got-on-no-quorum/888>\
**Category:** DRBD\
**Tags:** drbd\
**Created:** [July 1, 2025, 12:31pm UTC](https://forums.linbit.com/t/drbdadm-create-md-error-parse-error-an-option-keyword-expected-but-got-on-no-quorum/888 "2025-07-01T12:31:08Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 8\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mrB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c2a13f/32.png) [@mrB](https://forums.linbit.com/u/mrB)\
**Post date:** [July 1, 2025, 12:31pm UTC](https://forums.linbit.com/t/drbdadm-create-md-error-parse-error-an-option-keyword-expected-but-got-on-no-quorum/888/1 "2025-07-01T12:31:08Z")

</div>

Following “[NFS High Availability with Pacemaker & DRBD - LINBIT](https://linbit.com/blog/highly-available-nfs-targets-with-drbd-pacemaker/)” to create a testing cluster and all goes well until I call `drbdadm create-md ha_nfs`

```auto
drbd.d/global_common.conf:13: Parse error: 'an option keyword' expected,
        but got 'on-no-quorum'

vi global_common.conf
resource "ha_nfs" {
  volume 0 {
    device "/dev/drbd1000";
    disk "/dev/nfs_vg/ha_nfs_internal_lv";
    meta-disk internal;
  }
  volume 1 {
    device "/dev/drbd1001";
    disk "/dev/nfs_vg/ha_nfs_exports_lv";
    meta-disk internal;
   }
  options {
    on-no-quorum suspend-io;
    quorum majority;
  }
  on "node-0" {
    address 10.170.2.146:7788;
    node-id 0;
  }
  on "node-1" {
    address 10.170.2.133:7788;
    node-id 1;
  }
  on "node-2" {
    volume 0 {
      disk none;
    }
    volume 1 {
      disk none;
    }
    address 10.170.2.135:7788;
    node-id 2;
  }
  connection-mesh {
    hosts "node-0" "node-1" "node-2";
  }
}

```

Any ideas what is the issue?

Thanks in advance.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![candlerb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@candlerb](https://forums.linbit.com/u/candlerb)\
**Post date:** [July 1, 2025, 6:39pm UTC](https://forums.linbit.com/t/drbdadm-create-md-error-parse-error-an-option-keyword-expected-but-got-on-no-quorum/888/2 "2025-07-01T18:39:22Z")

</div>

What version of the drbd kernel module and drbd-utils do you have installed?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mrB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c2a13f/32.png) [@mrB](https://forums.linbit.com/u/mrB)\
**Post date:** [July 2, 2025, 7:51am UTC](https://forums.linbit.com/t/drbdadm-create-md-error-parse-error-an-option-keyword-expected-but-got-on-no-quorum/888/3 "2025-07-02T07:51:08Z")

</div>

```auto
[root@p01-uks ~]# rpm -qa drbd*
drbd-selinux-9.28.0-1.el9.x86_64
drbd-utils-9.28.0-1.el9.x86_64
drbd-udev-9.28.0-1.el9.x86_64
drbd-9.28.0-1.el9.x86_64

[root@p01-uks ~]# drbdadm --version
DRBDADM_BUILDTAG=GIT-hash:\ ba2ce9037989b6141222c7901d1219cf852949f1\ build\ by\ mockbuild@buildhw-x86-07.iad2.fedoraproject.org\,\ 2024-08-24\ 21:30:23
DRBDADM_API_VERSION=1
DRBD_KERNEL_VERSION_CODE=0x000000
DRBDADM_VERSION_CODE=0x091c00
DRBDADM_VERSION=9.28.0

[root@p01-uks ~]# uname -a
Linux p01-uks 6.12.0-1.23.3.2.el9uek.x86_64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Tue May 13 17:24:00 PDT 2025 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

[root@p01-uks ~]# cat /etc/os-release
NAME="Oracle Linux Server"
VERSION="9.6"
ID="ol"
ID_LIKE="fedora"
VARIANT="Server"
VARIANT_ID="server"
VERSION_ID="9.6"
PLATFORM_ID="platform:el9"
PRETTY_NAME="Oracle Linux Server 9.6"
ANSI_COLOR="0;31"
CPE_NAME="cpe:/o:oracle:linux:9:6:server"
HOME_URL="https://linux.oracle.com/"
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://github.com/oracle/oracle-linux"

ORACLE_BUGZILLA_PRODUCT="Oracle Linux 9"
ORACLE_BUGZILLA_PRODUCT_VERSION=9.6
ORACLE_SUPPORT_PRODUCT="Oracle Linux"
ORACLE_SUPPORT_PRODUCT_VERSION=9.6

```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Devin](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex003/user_avatar/forums.linbit.com/devin/32/26_2.png) [@Devin](https://forums.linbit.com/u/Devin)\
**Post date:** [July 2, 2025, 10:07pm UTC](https://forums.linbit.com/t/drbdadm-create-md-error-parse-error-an-option-keyword-expected-but-got-on-no-quorum/888/4 "2025-07-02T22:07:17Z")

</div>

> [@mrB](#):
>
> ```auto
> [root@p01-uks ~]# drbdadm --version
> DRBDADM_BUILDTAG=GIT-hash:\ ba2ce9037989b6141222c7901d1219cf852949f1\ build\ by\ mockbuild@buildhw-x86-07.iad2.fedoraproject.org\,\ 2024-08-24\ 21:30:23
> DRBDADM_API_VERSION=1
> DRBD_KERNEL_VERSION_CODE=0x000000
> DRBDADM_VERSION_CODE=0x091c00
> DRBDADM_VERSION=9.28.0
> 
> ```

The `DRBD_KERNEL_VERSION_CODE` should give us some clue as to what version of DRBD you’re running, but this just seems to return with zeros. Could you get us the output of `cat /proc/drbd` that should, without a doubt, let us know what version you’re running.

The currently installed `drbd-9.28.0-1.el9.x86_64` package is simply going to be the userland utilites. A 9.28 version of DRBD was never created. When we refer to “DRBD version” we are generally asking about the version in-kernel usually installed via a kernel module.

Also, the `global_common.conf` is meant to be used as a place to set options you want to apply globally to all DRBD resources. The individual resource files are usually created and stored in `/etc/drbd.d/*.res`. Take a look inside the old `/etc/drbd.conf` file to see what configs are parsed. What you’re doing here with the `global_common.conf` _should_ still work, but is against the usual conventions.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mrB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c2a13f/32.png) [@mrB](https://forums.linbit.com/u/mrB)\
**Post date:** [July 3, 2025, 9:52am UTC](https://forums.linbit.com/t/drbdadm-create-md-error-parse-error-an-option-keyword-expected-but-got-on-no-quorum/888/5 "2025-07-03T09:52:21Z")

</div>

Thanks for the insights, Devin - I am not new to clustering but am new to DRBD, so thanks!  
Weirdly no drbd proc file…? As I mentioned in my first post I followed the instructions on the official article to the letter, so what am I missing? I read somewhere that /proc/drbd had been dropped from 9.x versions… so should it even be there? and more importantly, should it be there if drbd has not come up…?

```auto
[root@p01-uks ~]# cat /proc/drbd
cat: /proc/drbd: No such file or directory

```

Re the conf file, I am struggling to find an indication on what drbdadm is expecting that is not there? I’ve been through the man pages to try and figure out what I was doing differently or what I should be doing differently, I’ve searched for examples online and quite a few are very different from what I have - and again what I have is exactly as the DRBD article referenced in this thread… so at a bit of a loss here…

Thanks in advance for you time and help!!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![candlerb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@candlerb](https://forums.linbit.com/u/candlerb)\
**Post date:** [July 5, 2025, 8:09am UTC](https://forums.linbit.com/t/drbdadm-create-md-error-parse-error-an-option-keyword-expected-but-got-on-no-quorum/888/6 "2025-07-05T08:09:26Z")

</div>

This is what I see under Debian 12.11 with drbd-dkms package from Linbit public drdb-9 repo:

```auto
brian@virtual1:~$ cat /proc/drbd
version: 9.2.13 (api:2/proto:118-122)
GIT-hash: 0457237e0448663529fe161781873b356f17b3c5 build by root@virtual1, 2025-05-01 02:41:49
Transports (api:21): tcp (9.2.13)

brian@virtual1:~$ cat /sys/module/drbd/version
9.2.13

brian@virtual1:~$ lsmod | grep drbd
drbd_transport_tcp 28672 30
drbd 786432 22 drbd_transport_tcp
lru_cache 16384 1 drbd
libcrc32c 12288 8 nf_conntrack,nf_nat,dm_persistent_data,btrfs,nf_tables,drbd,raid456,sctp

```

If you don’t have `/proc/drbd` then perhaps the drbd module isn’t loaded at all?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Devin](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex003/user_avatar/forums.linbit.com/devin/32/26_2.png) [@Devin](https://forums.linbit.com/u/Devin)\
**Post date:** [July 7, 2025, 5:07pm UTC](https://forums.linbit.com/t/drbdadm-create-md-error-parse-error-an-option-keyword-expected-but-got-on-no-quorum/888/7 "2025-07-07T17:07:22Z")

</div>

> [@candlerb](#):
>
> If you don’t have `/proc/drbd` then perhaps the drbd module isn’t loaded at all?

Precisely.  
With DRBD v9 we no longer display the status of resources in `/proc/drbd`, but it should still display the version information of the loaded kmod, as demonstrated by candlerb. You likely don’t have a kernel module loaded.

> [@mrB](#):
>
> Re the conf file, I am struggling to find an indication on what drbdadm is expecting that is not there?

I believe this is an issue of `drbdadm` not being able to detect the installed DRBD version. The `drbdadm` utility will change its behavior based upon the installed the DRBD version. The error you’re seeing would be common when trying to run a DRBD v8 kernel module while using a configuration with v9 only options configured.

Firstly, get DRBD installed and displaying in `/proc/drbd`. Once you have a v9 kernel module installed and loaded, I expect things will then just work as expected.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![vsmolinski](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@vsmolinski](https://forums.linbit.com/u/vsmolinski)\
**Post date:** [June 22, 2026, 1:49pm UTC](https://forums.linbit.com/t/drbdadm-create-md-error-parse-error-an-option-keyword-expected-but-got-on-no-quorum/888/8 "2026-06-22T13:49:16Z")

</div>

Hi, I am running into the same issue, I noticed I am running the version 8 of the drbd kernel module. How do I upgrade to version 9? Currently I am installing using apt on Ubuntu 26 and I added the linbit ppa to my sources.