ltcluster node rejoin — rejoin a dormant (stopped) node to the replication cluster
Enables a dormant (stopped) node to be rejoined to the replication cluster.
This can optionally use lt_rewind to re-integrate a node which has diverged from the rest of the cluster, typically a failed primary.
If the node is running and needs to be attached to the current primary, use ltcluster standby follow.
Note ltcluster standby follow can only be used for standbys which have not diverged from the rest of the cluster.
ltcluster node rejoin -d '$conninfo'
where $conninfo
is the LightDB conninfo
string of the
current primary node (or that of any reachable node in the cluster, but
not the local node). This is so that ltcluster can fetch up-to-date information
about the current state of the cluster.
ltcluster.conf
for the stopped node *must* be supplied explicitly if not
otherwise available.
--dry-run
Check prerequisites but don't actually execute the rejoin.
--force-rewind[=/path/to/lt_rewind]
Execute lt_rewind.
--config-files
comma-separated list of configuration files to retain after executing lt_rewind.
Currently lt_rewind will overwrite the local node's configuration files with the files from the source node, so it's advisable to use this option to ensure they are kept.
--config-archive-dir
Directory to temporarily store configuration files specified with
--config-files
; default: /tmp
.
-W/--no-wait
Don't wait for the node to rejoin cluster.
If this option is supplied, ltcluster will restart the node but not wait for it to connect to the primary.
node_rejoin_timeout
:
the maximum length of time (in seconds) to wait for
the node to reconnect to the replication cluster (defaults to
the value set in standby_reconnect_timeout
,
60 seconds).
Note that standby_reconnect_timeout
must be
set to a value equal to or greater than
node_rejoin_timeout
.
A node_rejoin
event notification will be generated.
One of the following exit codes will be emitted by ltcluster node rejoin
:
SUCCESS (0)
The node rejoin succeeded; or if --dry-run
was provided,
no issues were detected which would prevent the node rejoin.
ERR_BAD_CONFIG (1)
A configuration issue was detected which prevented ltcluster from continuing with the node rejoin.
ERR_NO_RESTART (4)
The node could not be restarted.
ERR_REJOIN_FAIL (24)
The node rejoin operation failed.
Currently ltcluster node rejoin
can only be used to attach
a standby to the current primary, not another standby.
The node's LightDB instance must have been shut down cleanly. If this was not the case, it will need to be started up until it has reached a consistent recovery point, then shut down cleanly.
In LightDB 21 and later, this will be done automatically
if the --force-rewind
is provided (even if an actual rewind
is not necessary).
If LightDB is started in single-user mode and
input is directed from /dev/null/
, it will perform recovery
then immediately quit, and will then be in a state suitable for use by
lt_rewind.
rm -f /var/lib/pgsql/data/recovery.conf lightdb --single -D /var/lib/pgsql/data/ < /dev/null
Note that standby.signal
must be removed
from the data directory for LightDB to be able to start in single
user mode.
lt_rewind
ltcluster node rejoin
can optionally use lt_rewind
to re-integrate a
node which has diverged from the rest of the cluster, typically a failed primary.
lt_rewind
is available in LightDB 21 and later as part of the core distribution.
lt_rewind
requires that either
wal_log_hints
is enabled, or that
data checksums were enabled when the cluster was initialized. See the
lt_rewind
documentation for details.
We strongly recommend familiarizing yourself with lt_rewind
before attempting
to use it with ltcluster, as while it is an extremely useful tool, it is not
a "magic bullet" which can resolve all problematic replication situations.
A typical use-case for lt_rewind
is when a scenario like the following
is encountered:
$ ltcluster node rejoin -f /etc/ltcluster.conf -d 'host=node3 dbname=ltcluster user=ltcluster' \ --force-rewind --config-files=postgresql.local.conf,lightdb.conf --verbose --dry-run INFO: replication connection to the rejoin target node was successful INFO: local and rejoin target system identifiers match DETAIL: system identifier is 6652184002263212600 ERROR: this node cannot attach to rejoin target node 3 DETAIL: rejoin target server's timeline 2 forked off current database system timeline 1 before current recovery point 0/610D710 HINT: use --force-rewind to execute lt_rewind
Here, node3
was promoted to a primary while the local node was
still attached to the previous primary; this can potentially happen during e.g. a
network split. lt_rewind
can re-sync the local node with node3
,
removing the need for a full reclone.
To have ltcluster node rejoin
use lt_rewind
,
pass the command line option --force-rewind
, which will tell ltcluster
to execute lt_rewind
to ensure the node can be rejoined successfully.
lt_rewind
and configuration file retention
Be aware that if lt_rewind
is executed and actually performs a
rewind operation, any configuration files in the LightDB data directory will be
overwritten with those from the source server.
To prevent this happening, provide a comma-separated list of files to retain
using the --config-file
command line option; the specified files
will be archived in a temporary directory (whose parent directory can be specified with
--config-archive-dir
, default: /tmp
)
and restored once the rewind operation is complete.
ltcluster node rejoin
and lt_rewind
Example, first using --dry-run
, then actually executing the
node rejoin command
.
$ ltcluster node rejoin -f /etc/ltcluster.conf -d 'host=node3 dbname=ltcluster user=ltcluster' \ --config-files=postgresql.local.conf,lightdb.conf --verbose --force-rewind --dry-run INFO: replication connection to the rejoin target node was successful INFO: local and rejoin target system identifiers match DETAIL: system identifier is 6652460429293670710 NOTICE: lt_rewind execution required for this node to attach to rejoin target node 3 DETAIL: rejoin target server's timeline 2 forked off current database system timeline 1 before current recovery point 0/610D710 INFO: prerequisites for using lt_rewind are met INFO: file "postgresql.local.conf" would be copied to "/tmp/ltcluster-config-archive-node2/postgresql.local.conf" INFO: file "postgresql.replication-setup.conf" would be copied to "/tmp/ltcluster-config-archive-node2/lightdb.replication-setup.conf" INFO: lt_rewind would now be executed DETAIL: lt_rewind command is: lt_rewind -D '/var/lib/lightdb/data' --source-server='host=node3 dbname=ltcluster user=ltcluster' INFO: prerequisites for executing NODE REJOIN are met
If --force-rewind
is used with the --dry-run
option,
this checks the prerequisites for using lt_rewind, but is
not an absolute guarantee that actually executing lt_rewind
will succeed. See also section Caveats below.
$ ltcluster node rejoin -f /etc/ltcluster.conf -d 'host=node3 dbname=ltcluster user=ltcluster' \ --config-files=postgresql.local.conf,lightdb.conf --verbose --force-rewind NOTICE: lt_rewind execution required for this node to attach to rejoin target node 3 DETAIL: rejoin target server's timeline 2 forked off current database system timeline 1 before current recovery point 0/610D710 NOTICE: executing lt_rewind DETAIL: lt_rewind command is "lt_rewind -D '/var/lib/lightdb/data' --source-server='host=node3 dbname=ltcluster user=ltcluster'" NOTICE: 2 files copied to /var/lib/lightdb/data NOTICE: setting node 2's upstream to node 3 NOTICE: starting server using "lt_ctl -l /var/log/lightdb/startup.log -w -D '/var/lib/pgsql/data' start" NOTICE: NODE REJOIN successful DETAIL: node 2 is now attached to node 3
ltcluster node rejoin
ltcluster node rejoin
attempts to determine whether it will succeed by
comparing the timelines and relative WAL positions of the local node (rejoin candidate) and primary
(rejoin target). This is particularly important if planning to use lt_rewind,
which currently (as of LightDB 21) may appear to succeed (or indicate there is no action
needed) but potentially allow an impossible action, such as trying to rejoin a standby to a
primary which is behind the standby. ltcluster will prevent this situation from occurring.
Currently it is not possible to detect a situation where the rejoin target
is a standby which has been "promoted" by removing recovery.conf
(LightDB 21 and later: standby.signal
) and restarting it.
In this case there will be no information about the point the rejoin target diverged
from the current standby; the rejoin operation will fail and
the current standby's LightDB log will contain entries with the text
"record with incorrect prev-link
".
We strongly recommend running ltcluster node rejoin
with the
--dry-run
option first. Additionally it might be a good idea
to execute the lt_rewind command displayed by
ltcluster with the lt_rewind --dry-run
option. Note that lt_rewind does not indicate that it
is running in --dry-run
mode.
In all current LightDB versions (as of September 2020), lt_rewind contains a corner-case bug which affects standbys in a very specific situation.
This situation occurs when a standby was shut down before its primary node, and an attempt is made to attach this standby to another primary in the same cluster (following a "split brain" situation where the standby was connected to the wrong primary). In this case, ltcluster will correctly determine that lt_rewind should be executed, however lt_rewind incorrectly decides that no action is necessary.
In this situation, ltcluster will report something like:
NOTICE: lt_rewind execution required for this node to attach to rejoin target node 1 DETAIL: rejoin target server's timeline 3 forked off current database system timeline 2 before current recovery point 0/7019C10
but when executed, lt_rewind will report:
lt_rewind: servers diverged at WAL location 0/7015540 on timeline 2 lt_rewind: no rewind required
and if an attempt is made to attach the standby to the new primary, LightDB logs on the standby will contain errors like:
[2020-09-07 15:01:41 UTC] LOG: 00000: replication terminated by primary server [2020-09-07 15:01:41 UTC] DETAIL: End of WAL reached on timeline 2 at 0/7015540. [2020-09-07 15:01:41 UTC] LOG: 00000: new timeline 3 forked off current database system timeline 2 before current recovery point 0/7019C10
Currently it is not possible to resolve this situation using lt_rewind. A patch has been submitted and will hopefully be included in a forthcoming LightDB minor release.
As a workaround, start the primary server the standby was previously attached to,
and ensure the standby can be attached to it. If lt_rewind was actually executed,
it will have copied in the .history
file from the target primary server; this must
be removed. ltcluster node rejoin
can then be used to attach the standby to the original
primary. Ensure any changes pending on the primary have propogated to the standby. Then shut down the primary
server first, before shutting down the standby. It should then be possible to
use ltcluster node rejoin
to attach the standby to the new primary.