You need three configuration files to make heartbeat happy, and they all go in this directory. They are: ha.cf Main configuration file haresources Resource configuration file authkeys Authentication information These first two may be readable by everyone, but the authkeys file must not be. The good news is that sample versions of these files may be found in the documentation directory (providing you installed the documentation). If you installed heartbeat using rpm packages then this command will show you where they are on your system: rpm -q heartbeat -d If you installed heartbeat using Debian packages then this command should show you where they are on your system: dpkg -L heartbeat | fgrep doc