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<title>Berkeley DB Reference Guide: Master Leases</title>
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<td><dl><dt>Berkeley DB Reference Guide:<dd>Berkeley DB Replication</dl></td>
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Master Leases
Some applications have strict requirements about the consistency
of data read on a master site. Berkeley DB provides a mechanism
called master leases to provide such consistency.
Without master leases, it is sometimes possible for
Berkeley DB to return old data to an application when newer data is
available due to unfortunate scheduling as illustrated below:
<ol>
<li>Application on master site: Read data item
foo via Berkeley DB <a href="../../api_c/db_get.html">DB-&gt;get</a> or <a href="../../api_c/dbc_get.html">DBcursor-&gt;get</a> call.
<li>Application on master site: sleep, get descheduled, etc.
<li>System: Master changes role, becomes a client.
<li>System: New site is elected master.
<li>System: New master modifies data item foo.
<li>Application: Berkeley DB returns old data for foo
to application.
</ol>
By using master leases, Berkeley DB can provide guarantees about the
consistency of data read on a master site. The master site
can be considered a recognized authority for the data and
consequently can provide authoritative reads. Clients grant master
leases to a master site. By doing so, clients acknowledge
the right of that site to retain the role of master
for a period of time.
During that period of time, clients cannot elect a new
master, become master, nor grant their lease to another site.
By holding a collection of granted leases, a master site can
guarantee to the application that the data returned is the
current, authoritative value. As a master performs operations,
it continually requests updated grants from the clients.
When a read operation is required, the master guarantees
that it holds a valid collection of lease grants from clients
before returning data to the application. By holding leases,
Berkeley DB provides several guarantees to the application:
<ol>
<li>Authoritative reads: A guarantee that the data being read by the
application is the current value.
<li>Durability from rollback: A guarantee that the data being written or read by the
application is permanent across a majority of client sites and will
never be rolled back.
The rollback guarantee also depends on the <a href="../../api_c/env_set_flags.html#DB_TXN_NOSYNC">DB_TXN_NOSYNC</a> flag.
The guarantee is effective as long as there isn't total
replication group failure while clients have granted leases
but are holding the updates in their cache.
The application must weigh the performance impact of synchronous
transactions against the risk of total replication group failure.
If clients grant a lease while holding updated data in cache,
and total failure occurs, then the data is no longer present
on the clients and rollback can occur if the master also crashes.
The guarantee that data will not be rolled back applies only
to data successfully committed on a master.
Data read on a client, or read while ignoring leases
can be rolled back.
<li>Freshness: A guarantee that the data being read by the application
on the master is up-to-date and has not been
modified or removed during the read.
The read authority is only on the master. Read operations on a client
always ignore leases and consequently, that operation can return stale data.
<li>Master viability: A guarantee that a current master with valid
leases cannot encounter a duplicate master situation.
Leases remove the possibility of a duplicate master situation that
forces the current master to downgrade to a client. However, it is
still possible that old masters with expired leases can discover a later
master and return <a href="../../api_c/rep_message.html#DB_REP_DUPMASTER">DB_REP_DUPMASTER</a> to the application.
</ol>
There are several requirements of the application using leases:
<ol>
<li>Replication Manager applications must configure a majority (or larger)
acknowledgement policy via the <a href="../../api_c/repmgr_ack_policy.html">DB_ENV-&gt;repmgr_set_ack_policy</a> method. Base API
users must implement and enforce such a policy on their own.
<li>Base API users must return an error from the send callback function when
the majority acknowledgement policy is not met for permanent records
marked with <a href="../../api_c/rep_transport.html#DB_REP_PERMANENT">DB_REP_PERMANENT</a>. Note that the Replication Manager
automatically fulfills this requirement.
<li>Applications must set the number of sites in the group using the
<a href="../../api_c/rep_nsites.html">DB_ENV-&gt;rep_set_nsites</a> method before starting replication and cannot
change it during operation.
<li>Using leases in a replication group is all or none. Behavior is
undefined when some sites configure leases and others do not.
Use the <a href="../../api_c/rep_config.html">DB_ENV-&gt;rep_set_config</a> method to turn on leases.
<li>The configured lease timeout value must be the same on all sites
in a replication group, set via the <a href="../../api_c/rep_timeout.html">DB_ENV-&gt;rep_set_timeout</a> method.
<li>The configured clock_scale_factor value must be the same on all sites
in a replication group. This value defaults to no skew, but can
be set via the <a href="../../api_c/rep_clockskew.html">DB_ENV-&gt;rep_set_clockskew</a> method.
<li>Applications that care about read guarantees must perform all read
operations on the master. Reading on a client does not guarantee
freshness.
<li>The application must use elections to choose a master site. It must
never simply declare a master without having won an election (as is
allowed without Master Leases).
</ol>
Master leases are based on timeouts. Berkeley DB assumes that time
always runs forward. Users who change the system clock on
either client or master sites when leases are in use void all
guarantees and can get undefined behavior. See the
<a href="../../api_c/rep_timeout.html">DB_ENV-&gt;rep_set_timeout</a> method for more information.
Read operations on a master that should not be subject to
leases can use the <a href="../../api_c/db_get.html#DB_IGNORE_LEASE">DB_IGNORE_LEASE</a> flag to the
<a href="../../api_c/db_get.html">DB-&gt;get</a> method or the <a href="../../api_c/dbc_get.html">DBcursor-&gt;get</a> method. Read
operations on a client always imply leases are ignored.
Clients are forbidden from participating in elections while
they have an outstanding lease granted to a master.
Therefore, if the <a href="../../api_c/rep_elect.html">DB_ENV-&gt;rep_elect</a> method is called, then Berkeley DB will
block, waiting until its lease grant expires before participating in
any election. While it waits, the client attempts to
contact the current master. If the client finds a current
master, then it returns from the <a href="../../api_c/rep_elect.html">DB_ENV-&gt;rep_elect</a> method.
When leases are configured and the
lease has never yet been granted (on start-up), clients
must wait a full lease timeout before participating in
an election.
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