Deploying PostgreSQL for high availability with Patroni on RHEL or CentOS

This guide provides instructions on how to set up a highly available PostgreSQL cluster with Patroni on Red Hat Enterprise Linux or CentOS.

Considerations

1. This is the example deployment suitable to be used for testing purposes in non-production environments.
2. In this setup ETCD resides on the same hosts as Patroni. In production, consider deploying ETCD cluster on dedicated hosts because ETCD writes every request from the cluster to disk which requires significant amount of disk space. See hardware recommendations for details.

3. For this setup, we use the nodes running on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 as the base operating system:

   Node name	Application	IP address
   node1	Patroni, PostgreSQL, ETCD	10.104.0.1
   node2	Patroni, PostgreSQL, ETCD	10.104.0.2
   node3	Patroni, PostgreSQL, ETCD	10.104.0.3
   HAProxy-demo	HAProxy	10.104.0.6

Note

Ideally, in a production (or even non-production) setup, the PostgreSQL and ETCD nodes will be within a private subnet without any public connectivity to the Internet, and the HAProxy will be in a different subnet that allows client traffic coming only from a selected IP range. To keep things simple, we have implemented this architecture in a private environment, and each node can access the other by its internal, private IP.

Initial setup

Set up hostnames in the /etc/hosts file

It’s not necessary to have name resolution, but it makes the whole setup more readable and less error prone. Here, instead of configuring a DNS, we use a local name resolution by updating the file /etc/hosts. By resolving their hostnames to their IP addresses, we make the nodes aware of each other’s names and allow their seamless communication.

1. Run the following command on each node. Change the node name to node1, node2 and node3 respectively:

   $ sudo hostnamectl set-hostname node1
   

2. Modify the /etc/hosts file of each PostgreSQL node to include the hostnames and IP addresses of the remaining nodes. Add the following at the end of the /etc/hosts file on all nodes:

   node1node2node3HAproxy-demo

   # Cluster IP and names 
   10.104.0.1 node1 
   10.104.0.2 node2 
   10.104.0.3 node3
   

   # Cluster IP and names 
   10.104.0.1 node1 
   10.104.0.2 node2 
   10.104.0.3 node3
   

   # Cluster IP and names 
   10.104.0.1 node1 
   10.104.0.2 node2 
   10.104.0.3 node3
   

   The HAProxy instance should have the name resolution for all the three nodes in its /etc/hosts file. Add the following lines at the end of the file:

   # Cluster IP and names
   10.104.0.6 HAProxy-demo
   10.104.0.1 node1
   10.104.0.2 node2
   10.104.0.3 node3
   

Install the software

1. Install Percona Distribution for PostgreSQL on node1, node2 and node3 from Percona repository:

   • Install percona-release.

   • Enable the repository:

     $ sudo percona-release setup ppg11
     

   • Install Percona Distribution for PostgreSQL packages.

   Important

   Don’t initialize the cluster and start the postgresql service. The cluster initialization and setup are handled by Patroni during the bootsrapping stage.

2. Install some Python and auxiliary packages to help with Patroni and ETCD

   $ sudo yum install python3-pip python3-devel binutils
   

3. Install ETCD, Patroni, pgBackRest packages. Check platform specific notes for Patroni:

   $ sudo yum install percona-patroni \
   etcd python3-python-etcd\
   percona-pgbackrest
   

4. Stop and disable all installed services:

   $ sudo systemctl stop {etcd,patroni,postgresql}
   $ systemctl disable {etcd,patroni,postgresql}
   

Configure ETCD distributed store

The distributed configuration store provides a reliable way to store data that needs to be accessed by large scale distributed systems. The most popular implementation of the distributed configuration store is ETCD. ETCD is deployed as a cluster for fault-tolerance and requires an odd number of members (n/2+1) to agree on updates to the cluster state. An ETCD cluster helps establish a consensus among nodes during a failover and manages the configuration for the three PostgreSQL instances.

The etcd cluster is first started in one node and then the subsequent nodes are added to the first node using the addcommand. The configuration is stored in the /etc/etcd/etcd.conf configuration file.

Configure node1

1. Backup the etcd.conf file:

   $ sudo mv /etc/etcd/etcd.conf /etc/etcd/etcd.conf.orig
   

2. Export environment variables to simplify the config file creation

   • Node name:

   $ export NODE_NAME=`hostname -f`
   

   • Node IP:

   $ export NODE_IP=`hostname -i | awk '{print $1}'`
   

   • Initial cluster token for the ETCD cluster during bootstrap:

   $ export ETCD_TOKEN='PostgreSQL_HA_Cluster_1'
   

   • ETCD data directory:

   $ export ETCD_DATA_DIR='/var/lib/etcd/postgresql'
   

3. Modify the /etc/etcd/etcd.conf configuration file:

   $ echo "
   ETCD_NAME=${NODE_NAME}
   ETCD_INITIAL_CLUSTER="${NODE_NAME}=http://${NODE_IP}:2380"
   ETCD_INITIAL_CLUSTER_STATE="new"
   ETCD_INITIAL_CLUSTER_TOKEN="${ETCD_TOKEN}"
   ETCD_INITIAL_ADVERTISE_PEER_URLS="http://${NODE_IP}:2380"
   ETCD_DATA_DIR="${ETCD_DATA_DIR}"
   ETCD_LISTEN_PEER_URLS="http://${NODE_IP}:2380"
   ETCD_LISTEN_CLIENT_URLS="http://${NODE_IP}:2379,http://localhost:2379"
   ETCD_ADVERTISE_CLIENT_URLS="http://${NODE_IP}:2379"
   " | sudo tee -a /etc/etcd/etcd.conf 
   

4. Start the etcd to apply the changes on node1:

   $ sudo systemctl enable --now etcd
   $ sudo systemctl start etcd
   $ sudo systemctl status etcd
   

5. Check the etcd cluster members on node1.

   $ sudo etcdctl member list
   

   The output resembles the following:

   21d50d7f768f153a: name=default peerURLs=http://10.104.0.5:2380 clientURLs=http://10.104.0.5:2379 isLeader=true
   

6. Add node2 to the cluster. Run the following command on node1:

   $ sudo etcdctl member add node2 http://10.104.0.2:2380
   

   The output resembles the following one:

   Added member named node2 with ID 10042578c504d052 to cluster
   
   ETCD_NAME="node2"
   ETCD_INITIAL_CLUSTER="node2=http://10.104.0.2:2380,node1=http://10.104.0.1:2380"
   ETCD_INITIAL_CLUSTER_STATE="existing"
   

Configure node2

1. Back up the configuration file and export environment variables as described in steps 1-2 of the node1 configuration

2. Edit the /etc/etcd/etcd.conf configuration file on node2 and add the output from the add command:

   $ echo "
   ETCD_NAME="node2"
   ETCD_INITIAL_CLUSTER="node1=http://10.0.100.1:2380,node2=http://10.0.100.2:2380"
   ETCD_INITIAL_CLUSTER_STATE="existing"
   
   ETCD_INITIAL_CLUSTER_TOKEN="${ETCD_TOKEN}"
   ETCD_INITIAL_ADVERTISE_PEER_URLS="http://${NODE_IP}:2380"
   ETCD_DATA_DIR="${ETCD_DATA_DIR}"
   ETCD_LISTEN_PEER_URLS="http://${NODE_IP}:2380"
   ETCD_LISTEN_CLIENT_URLS="http://${NODE_IP}:2379,http://localhost:2379"
   ETCD_ADVERTISE_CLIENT_URLS="http://${NODE_IP}:2379"
   " | sudo tee -a /etc/etcd/etcd.conf
   

3. Start the etcd to apply the changes on node2:

   $ sudo systemctl enable --now etcd
   $ sudo systemctl start etcd
   $ sudo systemctl status etcd
   

Configure node3

1. Add node3 to the cluster. Run the following command on node1:

   $ sudo etcdctl member add node3 http://10.104.0.3:2380
   

2. On node3, back up the configuration file and export environment variables as described in steps 1-2 of the node1 configuration

3. Modify the /etc/etcd/etcd.conf configuration file on node3 and add the output from the add command as follows:

   $ echo "
   ETCD_NAME=node3
   ETCD_INITIAL_CLUSTER="node1=http://10.104.0.1:2380,node2=http://10.104.0.2:2380,node3=http://10.104.0.3:2380"
   ETCD_INITIAL_CLUSTER_STATE="existing"  
   ETCD_INITIAL_CLUSTER_TOKEN="${ETCD_TOKEN}"
   ETCD_INITIAL_ADVERTISE_PEER_URLS="http://${NODE_IP}:2380"
   ETCD_DATA_DIR="${ETCD_DATA_DIR}"
   ETCD_LISTEN_PEER_URLS="http://${NODE_IP}:2380"
   ETCD_LISTEN_CLIENT_URLS="http://${NODE_IP}:2379,http://localhost:2379"
   ETCD_ADVERTISE_CLIENT_URLS="http://${NODE_IP}:2379"
   " | sudo tee -a /etc/etcd/etcd.conf
   

4. Start the etcd service on node3:

   $ sudo systemctl enable --now etcd
   $ sudo systemctl start etcd
   $ sudo systemctl status etcd
   

5. Check the etcd cluster members.

   $ sudo etcdctl member list
   

   The output resembles the following:

   2d346bd3ae7f07c4: name=node2 peerURLs=http://10.104.0.2:2380 clientURLs=http://10.104.0.2:2379 isLeader=false
   8bacb519ebdee8db: name=node3 peerURLs=http://10.104.0.3:2380 clientURLs=http://10.104.0.3:2379 isLeader=false
   c5f52ea2ade25e1b: name=node1 peerURLs=http://10.104.0.1:2380 clientURLs=http://10.104.0.1:2379 isLeader=true
   

Configure Patroni

Run the following commands on all nodes. You can do this in parallel:

1. Export and create environment variables to simplify the config file creation:

   • Node name:

   $ export NODE_NAME=`hostname -f`
   

   • Node IP:

   $ export NODE_IP=`hostname -i | awk '{print $1}'`
   

   • Create variables to store the PATH:

   DATA_DIR="/var/lib/pgsql/data/"
   PG_BIN_DIR="/usr/pgsql-11/bin"
   

   NOTE: Check the path to the data and bin folders on your operating system and change it for the variables accordingly.

   • Patroni information:

   NAMESPACE="percona_lab"
   SCOPE="cluster_1
   

2. Create the directories required by Patroni

   • Create the directory to store the configuration file and make it owned by the postgres user.

   $ sudo mkdir -p /etc/patroni/
   $ sudo chown -R  postgres:postgres /etc/patroni/
   

   • Create the data directory to store PostgreSQL data. Change its ownership to the postgres user and restrict the access to it

   $ sudo mkdir /data/pgsql -p
   $ sudo chown -R postgres:postgres /data/pgsql
   $ sudo chmod 700 /data/pgsql
   

3. Create the /etc/patroni/patroni.yml configuration file. Add the following configuration:

   echo "
   namespace: ${NAMESPACE}
   scope: ${SCOPE}
   name: ${NODE_NAME}
   
   restapi:
       listen: 0.0.0.0:8008
       connect_address: ${NODE_IP}:8008
   
   etcd:
       host: ${NODE_IP}:2379
   
   bootstrap:
     # this section will be written into Etcd:/<namespace>/<scope>/config after initializing new cluster
     dcs:
         ttl: 30
         loop_wait: 10
         retry_timeout: 10
         maximum_lag_on_failover: 1048576
         slots:
             percona_cluster_1:
             type: physical
   
         postgresql:
             use_pg_rewind: true
             use_slots: true
             parameters:
                 wal_level: replica
                 hot_standby: "on"
                 wal_keep_segments: 10
                 max_wal_senders: 5
                 max_replication_slots: 10
                 wal_log_hints: "on"
                 logging_collector: 'on'
   
     # some desired options for 'initdb'
     initdb: # Note: It needs to be a list (some options need values, others are switches)
         - encoding: UTF8
         - data-checksums
   
     pg_hba: # Add following lines to pg_hba.conf after running 'initdb'
         - host replication replicator 127.0.0.1/32 trust
         - host replication replicator 0.0.0.0/0 md5
         - host all all 0.0.0.0/0 md5
         - host all all ::0/0 md5
   
     # Some additional users which needs to be created after initializing new cluster
     users:
         admin:
             password: qaz123
             options:
                 - createrole
                 - createdb
         percona:
             password: qaz123
             options:
                 - createrole
                 - createdb 
   
   postgresql:
       cluster_name: cluster_1
       listen: 0.0.0.0:5432
       connect_address: ${NODE_IP}:5432
       data_dir: ${DATADIR}
       bin_dir: ${PG_BIN_DIR}
       pgpass: /tmp/pgpass
       authentication:
           replication:
               username: replicator
               password: replPasswd
           superuser:
               username: postgres
               password: qaz123
       parameters:
           unix_socket_directories: "/var/run/postgresql/"
       create_replica_methods:
           - basebackup
       basebackup:
           checkpoint: 'fast'
   
   tags:
       nofailover: false
       noloadbalance: false
       clonefrom: false
       nosync: false
   " | sudo tee -a /etc/patroni/patroni.yml
   

4. Check that the systemd unit file patroni.service is created in /etc/systemd/system. If it is created, skip this step.

   If it’s not created, create it manually and specify the following contents within:

   /etc/systemd/system/patroni.service

   [Unit]
   Description=Runners to orchestrate a high-availability PostgreSQL
   After=syslog.target network.target 
   
   [Service]
   Type=simple 
   
   User=postgres
   Group=postgres 
   
   # Start the patroni process
   ExecStart=/bin/patroni /etc/patroni/patroni.yml 
   
   # Send HUP to reload from patroni.yml
   ExecReload=/bin/kill -s HUP $MAINPID 
   
   # only kill the patroni process, not its children, so it will gracefully stop postgres
   KillMode=process 
   
   # Give a reasonable amount of time for the server to start up/shut down
   TimeoutSec=30 
   
   # Do not restart the service if it crashes, we want to manually inspect database on failure
   Restart=no 
   
   [Install]
   WantedBy=multi-user.target
   

5. Make systemd aware of the new service:

   $ sudo systemctl daemon-reload
   

6. Now it’s time to start Patroni. You need the following commands on all nodes but not in parallel. Start with the node1 first, wait for the service to come to live, and then proceed with the other nodes one-by-one, always waiting for them to sync with the primary node:

   $ sudo systemctl enable --now patroni
   $ sudo systemctl restart patroni
   

When Patroni starts, it initializes PostgreSQL (because the service is not currently running and the data directory is empty) following the directives in the bootstrap section of the configuration file.

1. Check the service to see if there are errors:

   $ sudo journalctl -fu patroni
   

   A common error is Patroni complaining about the lack of proper entries in the pg_hba.conf file. If you see such errors, you must manually add or fix the entries in that file and then restart the service.

   Changing the patroni.yml file and restarting the service will not have any effect here because the bootstrap section specifies the configuration to apply when PostgreSQL is first started in the node. It will not repeat the process even if the Patroni configuration file is modified and the service is restarted.

   If Patroni has started properly, you should be able to locally connect to a PostgreSQL node using the following command:

   $ sudo psql -U postgres
   
   psql (11.19)
   Type "help" for help.
   
   postgres=#
   

2. When all nodes are up and running, you can check the cluster status using the following command:

   $ sudo patronictl -c /etc/patroni/patroni.yml list
   

   The output on node1 resembles the following:

   + Cluster: cluster_1 --+---------+---------+----+-----------+
   | Member | Host        | Role    | State   | TL | Lag in MB |
   +--------+-------------+---------+---------+----+-----------+
   | node-1 | 10.0.100.1  | Leader  | running |  1 |           |
   +--------+-------------+---------+---------+----+-----------+
   

   On the remaining nodes:

   + Cluster: cluster_1 --+---------+---------+----+-----------+
   | Member | Host        | Role    | State   | TL | Lag in MB |
   +--------+-------------+---------+---------+----+-----------+
   | node-1 | 10.0.100.1  | Leader  | running |  1 |           |
   | node-2 | 10.0.100.2  | Replica | running |  1 |         0 |
   +--------+-------------+---------+---------+----+-----------+
   

Configure HAProxy

HAproxy is the load balancer and the single point of entry to your PostgreSQL cluster for client applications. A client application accesses the HAPpoxy URL and sends its read/write requests there. Behind-the-scene, HAProxy routes write requests to the primary node and read requests - to the secondaries in a round-robin fashion so that no secondary instance is unnecessarily loaded. To make this happen, provide different ports in the HAProxy configuration file. In this deployment, writes are routed to port 5000 and reads - to port 5001

This way, a client application doesn’t know what node in the underlying cluster is the current primary. HAProxy sends connections to a healthy node (as long as there is at least one healthy node available) and ensures that client application requests are never rejected.

1. Install HAProxy on the HAProxy-demo node:

   $ sudo yum install percona-haproxy
   

2. The HAProxy configuration file path is: /etc/haproxy/haproxy.cfg. Specify the following configuration in this file.

   global
       maxconn 100
   
   defaults
       log global
       mode tcp
       retries 2
       timeout client 30m
       timeout connect 4s
       timeout server 30m
       timeout check 5s
   
   listen stats
       mode http
       bind *:7000
       stats enable
       stats uri /
   
   listen primary
       bind *:5000
       option httpchk /primary 
       http-check expect status 200
       default-server inter 3s fall 3 rise 2 on-marked-down shutdown-sessions
       server node1 node1:5432 maxconn 100 check port 8008
       server node2 node2:5432 maxconn 100 check port 8008
       server node3 node3:5432 maxconn 100 check port 8008
   
   listen standbys
       balance roundrobin
       bind *:5001
       option httpchk /replica 
       http-check expect status 200
       default-server inter 3s fall 3 rise 2 on-marked-down shutdown-sessions
       server node1 node1:5432 maxconn 100 check port 8008
       server node2 node2:5432 maxconn 100 check port 8008
       server node3 node3:5432 maxconn 100 check port 8008
   

   HAProxy will use the REST APIs hosted by Patroni to check the health status of each PostgreSQL node and route the requests appropriately.

3. Enable a SELinux boolean to allow HAProxy to bind to non standard ports:

   $ sudo setsebool -P haproxy_connect_any on
   

4. Restart HAProxy:

   $ sudo systemctl restart haproxy
   

5. Check the HAProxy logs to see if there are any errors:

   $ sudo journalctl -u haproxy.service -n 100 -f
   

Next steps

Configure pgBackRest

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