On 06/12/2013 05:45 PM, Andrew Beekhof wrote:

On 13/06/2013, at 1:57 AM, Digimer <li...@alteeve.ca> wrote:

On 06/12/2013 03:06 AM, Michael Schwartzkopff wrote:
Am Mittwoch, 12. Juni 2013, 09:42:13 schrieb Andrew Beekhof:
On 12/06/2013, at 4:48 AM, Michael Schwartzkopff
<mi...@clusterbau.com> wrote:
Am Dienstag, 11. Juni 2013, 22:33:32 schrieb Andrey Groshev:
Hi,
I want to make Postgres cluster.
As far as I understand, for the proper functioning of the cluster
must
use a quorum (ie, at least three nodes).
No. Two nodes are enough. See: no-quorum-policy="ignore".
But if the databases are large - it is
too expensive.
One master, two slave, and in addition backup.
So I'm trying to make the schema with one master, one slave, and one
node
only for a quorum.
One master and one slave should be enough.
But three nodes is better.
Definitely yes. But if he has financial limitations (see above) it is
better to invest in good fencing than in a third node.

I build exclusively two-node clusters, and the biggest draw-back is the possibility of a 
"fence loop". That is, without quorum and with a network error, a node can come 
up on it's own, fail to contact it's peer and fence it. When the fenced node boots, it 
comes up, fails to contact it's peer, and fences it. Wash, rinse, repeat.

To prevent this, I recommend *not* letting your cluster stack start on boot. 
This does mean that you need to manually start the node(s) on boot, but I have 
found this to not be an issue. The only times this is needed is when I am 
cold-booting the cluster or after a node has failed and been fenced.

In the former case, it is usually at the end of scheduled maintenance so I am 
there to do it anyway. In the latter case, I don't want a node to rejoin the 
cluster until I've been able to look into the failure first anyway.

I also recommend, as a matter of course but doubly so in two-node clusters, to 
have redundant fence methods. My personal favourite combination is IPMI as the 
first fence method with switched PDUs as the backup fence method. Run IPMI 
through your primary fence and the PDUs through your backup switch and you have 
good fencing, even if a switch or link has failed.

Its certainly possible to build a decent 2-node cluster, but there are several 
non-obvious steps that are required - preventing fencing loops being one.
For this reason I cannot recommend them for newcomers, because they are also 
the most likely group to be unaware of the caveats.

This is certainly a fair point.

--
Digimer
Papers and Projects: https://alteeve.ca/w/
What if the cure for cancer is trapped in the mind of a person without access to education?

_______________________________________________
Pacemaker mailing list: Pacemaker@oss.clusterlabs.org
http://oss.clusterlabs.org/mailman/listinfo/pacemaker

Project Home: http://www.clusterlabs.org
Getting started: http://www.clusterlabs.org/doc/Cluster_from_Scratch.pdf
Bugs: http://bugs.clusterlabs.org

Reply via email to