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<title>Berkeley DB Reference Guide: Elections</title>
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<td><dl><dt>Berkeley DB Reference Guide:<dd>Berkeley DB Replication</dl></td>
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Elections
When using the Base replication API, it is the responsibility of the
application to initiate elections if desired. It is never dangerous
to hold an election, as the Berkeley DB election process ensures there is
never more than a single master database environment. Clients should
initiate an election whenever they lose contact with the master
environment, whenever they see a return of <a href="../../api_c/rep_message.html#DB_REP_HOLDELECTION">DB_REP_HOLDELECTION</a>
from the <a href="../../api_c/rep_message.html">DB_ENV-&gt;rep_process_message</a> method, or when, for whatever reason, they do
not know who the master is. It is not necessary for applications to
immediately hold elections when they start, as any existing master
will be discovered after calling <a href="../../api_c/rep_start.html">DB_ENV-&gt;rep_start</a>. If no master has
been found after a short wait period, then the application should call
for an election.
For a client to win an election, the replication group must currently
have no master, and the client must have the most recent log records.
In the case of clients having equivalent log records, the priority of
the database environments participating in the election will determine
the winner. The application specifies the minimum number of replication
group members that must participate in an election for a winner to be
declared. We recommend at least ((N/2) + 1) members. If fewer than the
simple majority are specified, a warning will be given.
If an application's policy for what site should win an election can be
parameterized in terms of the database environment's information (that
is, the number of sites, available log records and a relative priority
are all that matter), then Berkeley DB can handle all elections transparently.
However, there are cases where the application has more complete
knowledge and needs to affect the outcome of elections. For example,
applications may choose to handle master selection, explicitly
designating master and client sites. Applications in these cases may
never need to call for an election. Alternatively, applications may
choose to use <a href="../../api_c/rep_elect.html">DB_ENV-&gt;rep_elect</a>'s arguments to force the correct outcome
to an election. That is, if an application has three sites, A, B, and
C, and after a failure of C determines that A must become the winner,
the application can guarantee an election's outcome by specifying
priorities appropriately after an election:
<blockquote><pre>on A: priority 100, nsites 2
on B: priority 0, nsites 2</pre></blockquote>
It is dangerous to configure more than one master environment using the
<a href="../../api_c/rep_start.html">DB_ENV-&gt;rep_start</a> method, and applications should be careful not to do so.
Applications should only configure themselves as the master environment
if they are the only possible master, or if they have won an election.
An application knows it has won an election when it receives the
<a href="../../api_c/env_event_notify.html#DB_EVENT_REP_ELECTED">DB_EVENT_REP_ELECTED</a> event.
Normally, when a master failure is detected it is desired that an
election finish quickly so the application can continue to service
updates. Also, participating sites are already up and can participate.
However, in the case of restarting a whole group after an administrative
shut down, it is possible that a slower booting site had later logs than
any other site. To cover that case, an application would like to give
the election more time to ensure all sites have a chance to participate.
Since it is intractable for a starting site to determine which case
the whole group is in, the use of a long timeout gives all sites a
reasonable chance to participate. If an application wanting full
participation sets the nvotes arg to the <a href="../../api_c/rep_elect.html">DB_ENV-&gt;rep_elect</a> method to
the number of sites in the group and one site does not reboot, a master
can never be elected without manual intervention.

In those cases, the desired action at a group level is to hold
a full election if all sites crashed and a majority election if
a subset of sites crashed or rebooted. Since an individual site cannot know
which number of votes to require, a mechanism is available to
accomplish this using timeouts. By setting a long timeout (perhaps
on the order of minutes) using the DB_REP_FULL_ELECTION_TIMEOUT
flag to the <a href="../../api_c/rep_timeout.html">DB_ENV-&gt;rep_set_timeout</a> method, an application can
allow Berkeley DB to elect a master even without full participation.
Sites may also want to set a normal election timeout for majority
based elections using the DB_REP_ELECTION_TIMEOUT flag
to the <a href="../../api_c/rep_timeout.html">DB_ENV-&gt;rep_set_timeout</a> method.

Consider 3 sites, A, B, and C where A is the master. In the
case where all three sites crash and all reboot, all sites
will set a timeout for a full election, say 10 minutes, but only
require a majority for nvotes to the <a href="../../api_c/rep_elect.html">DB_ENV-&gt;rep_elect</a> method.
Once all three sites are booted the election will complete
immediately if they reboot within 10 minutes of each other. Consider
if all three sites crash and only two reboot. The two sites will
enter the election, but after the 10 minute timeout they will
elect with the majority of two sites. Using the full election
timeout sets a threshold for allowing a site to reboot and rejoin
the group.
To add a database environment to the replication group with the intent
of it becoming the master, first add it as a client. Since it may be
out-of-date with respect to the current master, allow it to update
itself from the current master. Then, shut the current master down.
Presumably, the added client will win the subsequent election. If the
client does not win the election, it is likely that it was not given
sufficient time to update itself with respect to the current master.
If a client is unable to find a master or win an election, it means that
the network has been partitioned and there are not enough environments
participating in the election for one of the participants to win.
In this case, the application should repeatedly call <a href="../../api_c/rep_start.html">DB_ENV-&gt;rep_start</a>
and <a href="../../api_c/rep_elect.html">DB_ENV-&gt;rep_elect</a>, alternating between attempting to discover an
existing master, and holding an election to declare a new one. In
desperate circumstances, an application could simply declare itself the
master by calling <a href="../../api_c/rep_start.html">DB_ENV-&gt;rep_start</a>, or by reducing the number of
participants required to win an election until the election is won.
Neither of these solutions is recommended: in the case of a network
partition, either of these choices can result in there being two masters
in one replication group, and the databases in the environment might
irretrievably diverge as they are modified in different ways by the
masters.
Note that this presents a special problem for a replication group
consisting of only two environments. If a master site fails, the
remaining client can never comprise a majority of sites in the group.
If the client application can reach a remote network site, or some other
external tie-breaker, it may be able to determine whether it is safe
to declare itself master. Otherwise it must choose between providing
availability of a writable master (at the risk of duplicate masters),
or strict protection against duplicate masters (but no master when a
failure occurs). Users of the Base replication API can accomplish
this by judicious setting of the nvotes and nsites parameters to the
<a href="../../api_c/rep_elect.html">DB_ENV-&gt;rep_elect</a> method. Replication Manager offers this choice via the
<a href="../../api_c/rep_config.html">DB_ENV-&gt;rep_set_config</a> method.
It is possible for a less-preferred database environment to win an
election if a number of systems crash at the same time. Because an
election winner is declared as soon as enough environments participate
in the election, the environment on a slow booting but well-connected
machine might lose to an environment on a badly connected but faster
booting machine. In the case of a number of environments crashing at
the same time (for example, a set of replicated servers in a single
machine room), applications should bring the database environments on
line as clients initially (which will allow them to process read queries
immediately), and then hold an election after sufficient time has passed
for the slower booting machines to catch up.
If, for any reason, a less-preferred database environment becomes the
master, it is possible to switch masters in a replicated environment.
For example, the preferred master crashes, and one of the replication
group clients becomes the group master. In order to restore the
preferred master to master status, take the following steps:
<ol>
<li>The preferred master should reboot and re-join the replication group
as a client.
<li>Once the preferred master has caught up with the replication group, the
application on the current master should complete all active transactions
and reconfigure itself as a client using the <a href="../../api_c/rep_start.html">DB_ENV-&gt;rep_start</a> method.
<li>Then, the current or preferred master should call for an election using
the <a href="../../api_c/rep_elect.html">DB_ENV-&gt;rep_elect</a> method.
</ol>
Replication Manager automatically conducts elections when necessary,
based on configuration information supplied to the
<a href="../../api_c/rep_priority.html">DB_ENV-&gt;rep_set_priority</a> method and the <a href="../../api_c/rep_nsites.html">DB_ENV-&gt;rep_set_nsites</a> method.
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