[Gluster-users] Quorum in distributed-replicate volume

Dave Sherohman
Mon, 26 Feb 2018 12:44:24 -0000

On Mon, Feb 26, 2018 at 05:45:27PM +0530, Karthik Subrahmanya
wrote:
> > "In a replica 2 volume... If we set the client-quorum option to
> > auto, then the first brick must always be up, irrespective of the
> > status of the second brick. If only the second brick is up, the
> > subvolume becomes read-only."
> >
> By default client-quorum is "none" in replica 2 volume.

I'm not sure where I saw the directions saying to set it, but I do have
"cluster.quorum-type: auto" in my volume configuration.  (And I think
that's client quorum, but feel free to correct me if I've misunderstood
the docs.)

> It applies to all the replica 2 volumes even if it has just 2 brick or
more.
> Total brick count in the volume doesn't matter for the quorum, what
matters
> is the number of bricks which are up in the particular replica subvol.

Thanks for confirming that.

> If I understood your configuration correctly it should look something like
> this:
> (Please correct me if I am wrong)
> replica-1:  bricks 1 & 2
> replica-2: bricks 3 & 4
> replica-3: bricks 5 & 6

Yes, that's correct.

> Since quorum is per replica, if it is set to auto then it needs the first
> brick of the particular replica subvol to be up to perform the fop.
>
> In replica 2 volumes you can end up in split-brains.

How would that happen if bricks which are not in (cluster-wide) quorum
refuse to accept writes?  I'm not seeing the reason for using individual
subvolume quorums instead of full-volume quorum.

> It would be great if you can consider configuring an arbiter or
> replica 3 volume.

I can.  My bricks are 2x850G and 4x11T, so I can repurpose the small
bricks as arbiters with minimal effect on capacity.  What would be the
sequence of commands needed to:

1) Move all data off of bricks 1 & 2
2) Remove that replica from the cluster
3) Re-add those two bricks as arbiters

(And did I miss any additional steps?)

Unfortunately, I've been running a few months already with the current
configuration and there are several virtual machines running off the
existing volume, so I'll need to reconfigure it online if possible.

--
Dave Sherohman