DRBD comes with a set of administration tools which communicate with the kernel module in order to configure and administer DRBD resources.

drbdadm. The high-level administration tool of the DRBD program suite. Obtains all DRBD configuration parameters from the configuration file /etc/drbd.conf and acts as a front-end for drbdsetup and drbdmeta. drbdadm has a dry-run mode, invoked with the -d option, that shows which drbdsetup and drbdmeta calls drbdadm would issue without actually calling those commands.

drbdsetup. Configures the DRBD module loaded into the kernel. All parameters to drbdsetup must be passed on the command line. The separation between drbdadm and drbdsetup allows for maximum flexibility. Most users will rarely need to use drbdsetup directly, if at all.

drbdmeta. Allows to create, dump, restore, and modify DRBD meta data structures. Like drbdsetup, most users will only rarely need to use drbdmeta directly.