MAN06 Failover for MySQL grid-based services

Implementing failover of MySQL grid-based services.

Document control

Property	Value
Title	MAN06 Failover for MySQL grid-based services
Policy Group	Operations Management Board (OMB)
Document status	Approved
Procedure Statement	Implementing failover of MySQL grid-based services.
Owner	SDIS team

Introduction

Several critical grid services such as the VO Management Service (VOMS) server represent single points of failure in a grid infrastructure. When unavailable, a user can no longer access to the infrastructure since it is prevented from issuing new proxies, or is no longer able to access to the physical location of his data.
However, those services rely on MySQL backends which opens a window to replicate the relevant databases to different / backup services which could be used when the primary instances are unavailable. The MySQL DB replication process is one of the ways to get scalability and higher availability.

Architecture

In this document we propose to follow a Master-Slave architecture for the MySQL replication, consisting in keeping DB copies of a main host (MASTER) in a secondary host (SLAVE). The slave host will only have read access to the Database entries.

Security

For better availability, it is preferable to deploy the Master and the Slave services in different geographical locations, which normally means exposing the generated traffic to the internet. In that case, you will have to find a mechanism to encrypt the communication between the two hosts.
In this document, we propose to use Stunnel:

Stunnel is a free multi-platform computer program, used to provide universal TLS/SSL tunneling service.
Stunnel can be used to provide secure encrypted connections for clients or servers that do not speak TLS or SSL natively. It runs on a variety of operating systems, including most Unix-like operating systems and Windows.
Stunnel relies on a separate library such as OpenSSL or SSLeay to implement the underlying TLS or SSL protocol.
Stunnel uses Public-key cryptography with X.509 digital certificates to secure the SSL connection. Clients can optionally be authenticated via a certificate too
For more references, please check www.stunnel.org

There are other possibilities for encryption, like enabling SSL Support directly in MySQL, but these approach was not tested. Details can be obtained here.

MySQL replication

Assumptions

We are assuming that both grid services instances were previously installed and configured (manually or via YAIM) so that they support the same VOs.

Generic information

Description	Value
MASTER hostname	server1.domain.one
MASTER username	root
MASTER mysql superuser	root
MASTER mysql replication user	db_rep
SLAVE hostname	server2.domain.two
SLAVE username	root
SLAVE mysql superuser	root
DB to replicate	DB_1 DB_2 …

Setup the MySQL MASTER for replication

Step 1: Install stunnel. It is available in the SL5 repositories.

$ yum install stunnel

(...)

$ date; rpm -qa | grep stunnel

Wed Jun 15 16:00:23 WEST 2011
stunnel-4.15-2.el5.1

Step 2: Configure stunnel (via /etc/stunnel/stunnel.conf) to:

Accept incoming connections on port 3307, and allow to connect to port 3306
Use the server X509 certificates to encrypt data

$ cat /etc/stunnel/stunnel.conf

# Authentication stuff verify = 2
CApath = /etc/grid-security/certificates
cert = /etc/grid-security/hostcert.pem
key = /etc/grid-security/hostkey.pem

# Auth fails in chroot because CApath is not accessible
#chroot = /var/run/stunnel
#debug = 7
output = /var/log/stunnel.log
pid = /var/run/stunnel/master.pid

setuid = nobody
setgid = nobody

# Service-level configuration
[mysql]
accept = 3307
connect = 127.0.0.1:3306

Step 3: Start the stunnel service and add it to rc.local

$ mkdir /var/run/stunnel
$ chown nobody:nobody /var/run/stunnel
$ stunnel /etc/stunnel.conf
$ echo 'stunnel /etc/stunnel.conf' >> /etc/rc.local

Step 4: Setup the firewall to allow connections from the SLAVE instance (server2.domain.two with IP XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX) on port 3307 TCP

# MySQL replication
-A INPUT -s XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX -m state --state NEW -m tcp -p tcp \
  --dport 3307 -j ACCEPT

Step 5: Configure MySQL (via /etc/my.cnf) setting up the Master server-id (usually 1), and declaring the path for the MySQL binary log and the DBs to be replicated. Please make sure that the path declared under log-bin has the mysql:mysql ownerships, and that the binary log exists.

$ cat /etc/my.cnf

(...)

[mysqld]
server-id=1
log-bin = /path_to_log_file/log_file.index
binlog-do-db=DB_2
binlog-do-db=DB_1

Step 6: Restart MySQL

$ /etc/init.d/mysqld restart

Step 7: Add a specific user for the MySQL replication

mysql > GRANT REPLICATION SLAVE ON *.* TO 'db_rep'@'127.0.0.1' \
  IDENTIFIED BY '16_char_password';

Step 8: Backup the databases using the following command. Please note tha the option --master-data=2 writes a comment on dump.sql that shows the log file and the ID to be used on the Slave setup. This option also locks all the tables while they are being copied, avoiding problems.

$ mysqldump -u root -p --default-character-set=latin1 \
  --master-data=2 --databases DB_1 DB_2 > dump.sql

Setup the MySQL SLAVE for replication

Step 1: Configure stunnel (via /etc/stunnel/stunnel.conf) to:

Accept incoming SSL connections on port 3307, and allow to connect to server1.domain.one on port 3307
Use the server X509 certificates to encrypt data

$ cat /etc/stunnel/stunnel.conf

# Authentication stuff verify = 2
CApath = /etc/grid-security/certificates
cert = /etc/grid-security/hostcert.pem
key = /etc/grid-security/hostkey.pem

# Auth fails in chroot because CApath is not accessible
#chroot = /var/run/stunnel
#debug = 7
output = /var/log/stunnel.log
pid = /var/run/stunnel/master.pid

setuid = nobody setgid = nobody

# Use it for client mode client = yes

# Service-level configuration [mysql] accept = 127.0.0.1:3307
connect = server1.domain.one:3307

Step 2: Start stunnel and add it to rc.local

$ mkdir /var/run/stunnel $ chown nobody:nobody /var/run/stunnel
$ stunnel /etc/stunnel.conf
$ echo 'stunnel /etc/stunnel.conf' >> /etc/rc.local

Step 3: Configure MySQL to include the SLAVE server-id (typically 2) and the replicated databases

$ cat /etc/my.cnf

(...)
[mysqld]
server-id=2
replicate-do-db=DB_1
replicate-do-db=DB_2

Step 4: Restart MySQL and insert the dump.sql created on the Master

$ /etc/init.d/mysql restart
$ mysql -u root -p < dump.sql

Step 5: Start the Slave logging in the mysql of slave, and running the following queries, changing the values xxxxx and yyyyy by the values on top of dump.sql file:

mysql > CHANGE MASTER TO MASTER_HOST='127.0.0.1', MASTER_PORT=3307, \
 MASTER_USER='db_rep', MASTER_PASSWORD='16_char_password', \
 MASTER_LOG_FILE='xxxxx', MASTER_LOG_POS=yyyyy;
mysql > SLAVE START;

Step 6: Your replication should be up and running. In case of troubles, check the Troubleshooting section.

Troubleshooting

On the Slave

Check if you can connect to the Master on port 3307 from the Slave

#root@server2.domain.two]$ telnet server1.domain.one 3307

Check the /var/log/stunnel.log on the Slave to see if stunnel is working. For established connections, you should find a message like:

2011.05.30 11:57:45 LOG5[9000:1076156736]: mysql connected from XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX:PORTY
2011.05.30 11:57:45 LOG5[9000:1076156736]: VERIFY OK: depth=1, /DC=COUNTRY/DC=CA/CN=NAME
2011.05.30 11:57:45 LOG5[9000:1076156736]: VERIFY OK: depth=0, /DC=COUNTRY/DC=CA/O=INSTITUTE/CN=host/HOSTNAME

Check the MySQL process list. You should get an answer like the one bellow:

mysql> SHOW PROCESSLIST;
+----+-------------+------+------+---------+---------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+------+
| Id | User        | Host | db   | Command | Time    | State                                                                       | Info |
+----+-------------+------+------+---------+---------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+------+
| 1  | system user |      | NULL | Connect | 1236539 | Waiting for master to send event                                            | NULL |
| 2  | system user |      | NULL | Connect | 90804   | Slave has read all relay log; waiting for the slave I/O thread to update it | NULL |
+----+-------------+------+------+---------+---------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+------+

Check the status of the slave

mysql> SHOW SLAVE STATUS;
+----------------------------------+-------------+------------------+---------------------+
| Slave_IO_State                   | Master_Port | Master_Log_File  | Read_Master_Log_Pos |
+----------------------------------+-------------+------------------+---------------------+
| Waiting for master to send event | 3307        | mysql-bin.000001 | 126167682           |
+----------------------------------+-------------+------------------+---------------------+

On the Master

Check the /var/log/stunnel.log on the Slave to see if stunnel is working. For established connections, you should find a message like:

2011.05.30 11:57:45 LOG5[9000:1076156736]: mysql connected from XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX:PORTY
2011.05.30 11:57:45 LOG5[9000:1076156736]: VERIFY OK: depth=1, /DC=COUNTRY/DC=CA/CN=NAME
2011.05.30 11:57:45 LOG5[9000:1076156736]: VERIFY OK: depth=0, /DC=COUNTRY/DC=CA/O=INSTITUTE/CN=host/HOSTNAME

Check if you have established connections from the Slave on port 3307

$ netstat -tapn | grep 3307

tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:3307 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 9000/stunnel
tcp 0 0 XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX:3307 YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY:34378 ESTABLISHED 9000/stunnel

Check the Master status on MySQL. You should get an answer like:

mysql> SHOW MASTER STATUS;
+------------------+-----------+--------------+------------------+
| File             | Position  | Binlog_Do_DB | Binlog_Ignore_DB |
+------------------+-----------+--------------+------------------+
| mysql-bin.000001 | 126167682 | DB_1         |                  |
+------------------+-----------+--------------+------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

Check the MySQL process list. You should get an answer like the one bellow:

mysql> SHOW PROCESSLIST;
+------+-----------+-----------------+------+-------------+---------+----------------------------------------------------------------+------+
| Id   | User      | Host            | db   | Command     | Time    | State                                                          | Info |
+------+-----------+-----------------+------+-------------+---------+----------------------------------------------------------------+------+
| 2778 | ibrepifca | localhost:42281 | NULL | Binlog Dump | 1400477 | Has sent all binlog to slave; waiting for binlog to be updated | NULL |
+------+-----------+-----------------+------+-------------+---------+----------------------------------------------------------------+------+

The VOMS case

A working example

It is also possible to deploy a backup VOMS server with a MySQL replica of the main VOMS server. This will enable users to still start proxies even if the main VOMS server is down.
The VOMS Admin interface of the backup VOMS server should be switched off so that new users can only request registration via the main VOMS Admin Web interface.
User interfaces should be configured to use both VOMS servers

$ voms-proxy-init --voms ict.vo.ibergrid.eu

Enter GRID pass phrase:
Your identity: /C=PT/O=LIPCA/O=LIP/OU=Lisboa/CN=Goncalo Borges
Creating temporary proxy .............................................................. Done
Contacting voms01.ncg.ingrid.pt:40008 [/C=PT/O=LIPCA/O=LIP/OU=Lisboa/CN=voms01.ncg.ingrid.pt] "ict.vo.ibergrid.eu" Done
Creating proxy .......................................................................................................................................................... Done
Your proxy is valid until Thu Jun 16 07:27:31 2011

$ voms-proxy-init --voms ict.vo.ibergrid.eu

Enter GRID pass phrase:
Your identity: /C=PT/O=LIPCA/O=LIP/OU=Lisboa/CN=Goncalo Borges
Creating temporary proxy ............................................................. Done
Contacting ibergrid-voms.ifca.es:40008 [/DC=es/DC=irisgrid/O=ifca/CN=host/ibergrid-voms.ifca.es] "ict.vo.ibergrid.eu" Done
Creating proxy ............................................................................ Done
Your proxy is valid until Thu Jun 16 07:27:37 2011

Last modified October 4, 2022 by paolini78 : updating the list of required services (#510)