EDB Postgres Failover Manager Guide v2.1

EDB Postgres Failover Manager Guide
EDB Postgres Failover Manager Version 2.1

formerly EDB Failover Manager
August 15, 2016

EDB Postgres Failover Manager Guide, Version 2.1

by EnterpriseDB Corporation
Copyright © 2013 - 2016 EnterpriseDB Corporation. All rights reserved.
EnterpriseDB Corporation, 34 Crosby Drive Suite 100, Bedford, MA 01730, USA

T +1 781 357 3390 F +1 978 589 5701 E [email protected] www.enterprisedb.com

Table of Contents
1 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 5
1.1 What’s New ........................................................................................................ 6
1.2 Typographical Conventions Used in this Guide ................................................. 7
2 Failover Manager - Overview ..................................................................................... 8
2.1 Supported Platforms............................................................................................ 9
2.2 Prerequisites ...................................................................................................... 10
2.3 Failover Manager Product Keys ....................................................................... 13
3 Installing and Configuring Failover Manager........................................................... 14
3.1 Extending Failover Manager Permissions ........................................................ 15
3.2 Configuring Failover Manager ......................................................................... 17
3.2.1 The Cluster Properties File ........................................................................... 17
3.2.1.1 Specifying Cluster Properties ............................................................... 18
3.2.1.2 Encrypting Your Database Password.................................................... 30
3.2.2 The Cluster Members File ............................................................................ 32
3.3 Using Failover Manager with Virtual IP Addresses ......................................... 33
4 Using Failover Manager .......................................................................................... 36
4.1 Managing a Failover Manager Cluster ............................................................. 37
4.1.1 Starting the Failover Manager Cluster .......................................................... 37
4.1.2 Adding Nodes to a Cluster ............................................................................ 38
4.1.3 Changing the Priority of a Standby............................................................... 39
4.1.4 Promoting a Failover Manager Node ............................................................ 40
4.1.5 Stopping a Failover Manager Agent ............................................................. 41
4.1.6 Stopping a Failover Manager Cluster ........................................................... 41
4.1.7 Restarting a Failover Manager Cluster ......................................................... 42
4.1.8 Removing a Node from a Cluster ................................................................. 42
4.2 Monitoring a Failover Manager Cluster ........................................................... 43
4.2.1 Reviewing the Cluster Status Report ............................................................ 43
4.2.2 Monitoring Streaming Replication with Postgres Enterprise Manager ........ 46
4.3 Running Multiple Agents on a Single Node ..................................................... 49
4.3.1 RHEL 6.x or CentOS 6.x .............................................................................. 51
4.3.2 RHEL 7.x or CentOS 7.x .............................................................................. 51
5 Controlling the Failover Manager Service ................................................................ 53

5.1 Using the service Utility on RHEL 6.x and CentOS 6.x .................................. 53
5.2 Using the systemctl Utility on RHEL 7.x and CentOS 7.x ............................... 55
5.3 Using the efm Utility ........................................................................................ 56
6 Controlling Logging.................................................................................................. 60
7 Notifications............................................................................................................. 61
8 Supported Failover and Failure Scenarios ................................................................ 68
8.1 Master Database is Down ................................................................................. 69
8.2 Standby Database is Down ............................................................................... 71
8.3 Master Agent Exits or Node Fails ..................................................................... 72
8.4 Standby Agent Exits or Node Fails ................................................................... 74
8.5 Dedicated Witness Agent Exits / Node Fails .................................................... 75
8.6 Nodes Become Isolated from the Cluster ......................................................... 76
9 Upgrading an Existing Cluster .................................................................................. 77
9.1 Un-installing Failover Manager ........................................................................ 78
10 Appendix A - Configuring Streaming Replication ................................................... 79
11 Appendix B - Configuring SSL Authentication on a Failover Manager Cluster ...... 84
12 Inquiries .................................................................................................................... 86

1 Introduction
EDB Postgres Failover Manager (EFM) is a high-availability module from EnterpriseDB
that enables a Postgres Master node to automatically failover to a Standby node in the
event of a software or hardware failure on the Master.
This guide provides information about installing, configuring and using Failover
Manager 2.1.
This document uses Postgres to mean either the PostgreSQL or EDB Postgres Advanced
Server database. For more information about using EDB Postgres products, please visit
the EnterpriseDB website at:
http://www.enterprisedb.com/documentation
5
1.1 What’s New

The following changes have been made to EDB Postgres Failover Manager 2.0 to create
EDB Postgres Failover Manager 2.1:
 Failover Manager now supports use of a notification script for user notifications.
For more information, see Section 3.2.1.1.
 Failover Manager allows you to pass in values to scripts that are invoked during
Failover. For more information, see Section 3.2.1.1.
 Failover Manager now simplifies cluster startup with the auto.allow.hosts

property. For more information, see Section 3.2.1.1.
 Failover Manager now includes the minimum.standbys parameter, allowing you

to specify how many standbys must remain in the replication scenario in the event
of failover. For more information, see Section 3.2.1.1.
 Failover Manager includes the auto.resume.period property; the property

instructs Failover Manager to recheck the health of a failed database. For more
information, see Section 3.2.1.1.
 Failover Manager can use either pg_ctl or the operating system service script to
restart the server. For more information, see Section 3.2.1.1.
 The Failover Manager Membership Coordinator simplifies adding a new standby

node to an existing cluster. For more information, see Section 3.2.2.
 efm promote now includes a -switchover option; the -switchover option

instructs Failover Manager to perform a failover, promoting a Standby to Master,
and then, return the Master node to the cluster as a Standby node. For more
information, see Section 5.3.
 The efm add-node command has been deprecated; while the syntax is still
supported, the command is now replaced by efm allow-node. For more
 The efm remove-node command has been deprecated; while the syntax is still
supported, the command is now replaced by efm disallow-node. For more
 The efm set-priority command allows you to set a failover priority for a
Standby node. For more information, see Section 5.3.
6
 Failover Manager provides an upgrade utility that copies configuration

information from an existing EFM 2.0 installation into EFM 2.1 configuration
files. For more information, see Section 9.
1.2 Typographical Conventions Used in this Guide

Certain typographical conventions are used in this manual to clarify the meaning and
usage of various commands, statements, programs, examples, etc. This section provides a
summary of these conventions.
In the following descriptions a term refers to any word or group of words that are
language keywords, user-supplied values, literals, etc. A term’s exact meaning depends
upon the context in which it is used.
 Italic font introduces a new term, typically, in the sentence that defines it for the
first time.
 Fixed-width (mono-spaced) font is used for terms that must be given
literally such as SQL commands, specific table and column names used in the
examples, programming language keywords, etc. For example, SELECT * FROM
emp;
 Italic fixed-width font is used for terms for which the user must
substitute values in actual usage. For example, DELETE FROM table_name;
 A vertical pipe | denotes a choice between the terms on either side of the pipe. A
vertical pipe is used to separate two or more alternative terms within square
brackets (optional choices) or braces (one mandatory choice).
 Square brackets [ ] denote that one or none of the enclosed term(s) may be
substituted. For example, [ a | b ], means choose one of “a” or “b” or neither
of the two.
 Braces {} denote that exactly one of the enclosed alternatives must be specified.
For example, { a | b }, means exactly one of “a” or “b” must be specified.
 Ellipses ... denote that the proceeding term may be repeated. For example, [ a |
b ] ... means that you may have the sequence, “b a a b a”.
7
2 Failover Manager - Overview

An EDB Postgres Failover Manager (EFM) cluster is comprised of Failover Manager
processes that reside on the following hosts on a network:
 A Master node - The Master node is the primary database server that is servicing
database clients.
 One or more Standby nodes - A Standby node is a streaming replication server

associated with the Master node.
 A Witness node - The Witness node confirms assertions of either the Master or a
Standby in a failover scenario. A cluster does not need a dedicated witness node
if the cluster contains three or more nodes; if you do not have a third cluster
member that is a database host, you can add a dedicated Witness node.
Traditionally, a cluster is a single instance of Postgres managing multiple databases. In

this document, the term cluster refers to a Failover Manager cluster. A Failover Manager
cluster consists of a Master agent, one or more Standby agents, and an optional Witness
agent that reside on servers in a cloud or on a traditional network and communicate using
the JGroups toolkit.
Figure 2.1 - A FM scenario employing a Virtual IP address.
8
When a non-witness agent starts, it connects to the local database and checks the state of
the database:
 If the agent cannot reach the database, it will start in IDLE mode.
 If it finds that the database is in recovery, the agent assumes the role of standby;
 If the database is not in recovery, the agent assumes the role of master.
In the event of a failover, Failover Manager attempts to ensure that the promoted standby
is the most up-to-date standby in the cluster; please note that data loss is possible if the
standby node is not in sync with the master node.
JGroups provides technology that allows Failover Manager to create clusters whose
member nodes can communicate with each other and detect node failures. For more
information about JGroups, visit the official project site at:
http://www.jgroups.org
Figure 2.1 illustrates a Failover Manager cluster that employs a virtual IP address. You
can use a load balancer in place of a virtual IP address if you provide your own fencing
script to re-configure the load balancer in the event of a failure. For more information
about using Failover Manager with a virtual IP address, see Section 3.3. For more
information about using a fencing script, see Section 3.2.
2.1 Supported Platforms

Failover Manager 2.1 is supported on EDB Postgres Advanced Server or PostgreSQL
(version 9.2 and higher) installations running on:
 CentOS 6.x and 7.x
 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.x and 7.x
 Oracle Enterprise Linux 6.x and 7.x
 Red Hat Enterprise Linux (IBM Power8 Little Endian or ppc64le) 7.x
9
2.2 Prerequisites
Before configuring a Failover Manager cluster, you must satisfy the prerequisites
described below.
Provide an SMTP Server
You can receive notifications from Failover Manager as specified by a user-defined

notification script, by email, or both. If an event occurs, Failover Manager invokes the
script (if provided), and sends a notification email to any email addresses specified in the
user.email parameter of the cluster properties file. If you are using email notifications,
an SMTP server must be running on each node of the Failover Manager scenario. For
more information about using an SMTP server, visit:
https://access.redhat.com/site/documentation
For more information, see Section 3.2.1.1.
Configure Streaming Replication
Failover Manager requires that PostgreSQL streaming replication be configured between

the Master node and the Standby node or nodes. Failover Manager does not support
other types of replication. For more information about streaming replication, see
Appendix A - Configuring Streaming Replication.
Please note that Failover Manager does not support automatic reconfiguration of the
standby databases after a failover if you use replication slots to manage your WAL
segments. If you use replication slots, you should set the auto.reconfigure parameter
to false, and manually reconfigure the standby servers in the event of a failover.
Modify the pg_hba.conf File
You must modify the pg_hba.conf file on the Master and Standby nodes, adding
entries that allow communication between the all of the nodes in the cluster. The
following example demonstrates entries that might be made to the pg_hba.conf file on
the Master node:
# access for itself

host fmdb efm 127.0.0.1/32 md5
# access for standby
host fmdb efm 192.168.27.1/32 md5
# access for witness
host fmdb efm 192.168.27.34/32 md5
Where:
efm specifies the name of a valid database user.

10
fmdb specifies the name of a database to which the efm user may connect.
For more information about the properties file, see Section 3.2.
By default, the pg_hba.conf file resides in the data directory, under your Postgres
installation. After modifying the pg_hba.conf file, you must reload the configuration
file on each node for the changes to take effect. You can use the following command:
# /etc/init.d/ppas-9.x reload
Where x specifies the Postgres version.
Using Autostart for the Database Servers
If a Master node reboots, Failover Manager may detect the database is down on the
Master node and promote a Standby node to the role of Master. If this happens, the
Failover Manager agent on the (rebooted) Master node will not get a chance to write the
recovery.conf file; the rebooted Master node will return to the cluster as a second
Master node.
To prevent this, start the Failover Manager agent before starting the database server. The
agent will start in IDLE mode, and check to see if there is already a master in the cluster.
If there is a master node, the agent will verify that a recovery.conf file exists, and the
database will not start as a second master.
Ensure Communication Through Firewalls
If a Linux firewall (i.e. iptables) is enabled on the host of a Failover Manager node,
you may need to add rules to the firewall configuration that allow tcp communication
between the Failover Manager processes in the cluster. For example:
# iptables -I INPUT -p tcp --dport 7800:7810 -j ACCEPT

/sbin/service iptables save
The command shown above opens a small range of ports (7800 through 7810). Failover
Manager will connect via the port that corresponds to the port specified in the cluster
properties file.
Install Java 1.6 (or later)
Before using Failover Manager, you must first install Java (version 1.6 or later). You can
use the Yum package manager to install Java. For example, to install Java 1.7, open a
terminal window, assume superuser privileges, and enter:
# yum install java-1.7.0
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Ensure that the db.user has Sufficient Privileges
The database user specified in the efm.properties file must have sufficient privileges
to invoke the following functions on behalf of Failover Manager:
version()
pg_is_in_recovery()
pg_current_xlog_location()
pg_last_xlog_replay_location()
pg_xlog_replay_pause()
pg_is_xlog_replay_paused()
pg_xlog_replay_resume()
For detailed information about each of these functions, please see the PostgreSQL core
documentation, available at:
http://www.enterprisedb.com/products-services-
training/products/documentation/enterpriseedition
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2.3 Failover Manager Product Keys

The initial installation of Failover Manager does not require a product key. Upon
installation you are granted full access to the cluster monitoring and failover features
under a Limited Use License for evaluation purposes for a 60-day trial period.
At the end of the trial period, you are required to either un-install the software or
purchase a valid subscription. In addition, at the end of the trial period, the Failover
Manager agents will exit making cluster monitoring and failover non-operational.
Failover Manager will send multiple email alerts alerting your system administrator of
the approaching end of trial period.
To use Failover Manager beyond the evaluation period, you are required to purchase a
database server subscription (i.e. Standard Edition with the Failover Manager option or
Enterprise Edition) from EnterpriseDB. With the purchase of a subscription you will
receive a product key, which will re-enable Failover Manager's cluster monitoring and
failover operations. The product key is applied to the Failover Manager configuration
file and will restore full functionality for the term of your subscription.
After purchasing a product key, edit the cluster properties file, adding the value to the
right of the efm.license parameter:
efm.license=license_key
Where license_key specifies the product key you received from EnterpriseDB.
You do not need to restart the agents after adding the product key. Every 6 hours,
Failover Manager agents check for and validate the product key, so the parameter update
will be detected dynamically. For more information about editing the properties file, see
Section 3.2.1.
To purchase a database subscription that includes Failover Manager, contact one of the
EnterpriseDB offices listed at:
http://www.enterprisedb.com/company/offices
or contact EnterpriseDB at:
[email protected]
13
3 Installing and Configuring Failover

Manager
Creating a Failover Manager cluster is a relatively simple process. After creating a
Postgres streaming replication scenario and ensuring that the nodes have sufficient
permissions to communicate with each other, you must:
1. Use Yum to install a Failover Manager agent on each node in the cluster.
Failover Manager is packaged and delivered as an RPM. To install Failover

Manager, copy the RPM package to the Master, Standby and Witness systems.
After copying the archive to each system, use yum to install the package:
# yum install efm21-x.x.x-x.distribution.rpm
Failover Manager must be installed by root. During the installation process, the
installer will also create a user named efm that has sufficient privileges to invoke
scripts that control the Failover Manager service for clusters owned by
enterprisedb or postgres.
If you are using Failover Manager to monitor a cluster owned by a user other than
enterprisedb or postgres, see Section 3.1, Extending Failover Manager
Permissions.
2. Modify the cluster properties file on each node. For detailed information about
modifying the cluster properties file, see Section 3.2.1.
3. Modify the cluster members file on each node. For more information about the
cluster members file, see Section 3.2.2.
4. If applicable, configure and test virtual IP address settings and any scripts that are
identified in the cluster properties file.
5. Start the Failover Manager agent on each node of the cluster. For more
information about using the Failover Manager service, see Section 5.
14
Failover Manager File Locations
Failover Manager components are installed in the following locations:
 Executables: /usr/efm-2.1/bin
 Libraries: /usr/efm-2.1/lib
 Cluster configuration files: /etc/efm-2.1
 Logs: /var/log/efm-2.1
 Lock files: /var/lock/efm-2.1
 Log rotation file: /etc/logrotate.d/efm-2.1
 sudo configuration file: /etc/sudoers.d/efm-21
3.1 Extending Failover Manager Permissions
During the Failover Manager installation, the installer creates a user named efm. efm
does not have sufficient privileges to perform management functions that are normally
limited to the database owner or operating system superuser.
 When performing management functions requiring database superuser privileges,

efm invokes the efm_db_functions script.
 When performing management functions requiring operating system superuser

privileges, efm invokes the efm_root_functions script.
 When assigning or releasing a virtual IP address, efm invokes the efm_address

script.
The efm_db_functions or efm_root_functions scripts perform management

functions on behalf of the efm user.
The sudoers file contains entries that allow the user efm to control the Failover Manager
service for clusters owned by postgres or enterprisedb. You can modify a copy of
the sudoers file to grant permission to manage Postgres clusters owned by other users to
efm.
The efm-21 file is located in /etc/sudoers.d, and contains the following entries:
# Copyright EnterpriseDB Corporation, 2014-2016. All Rights

# Reserved.
#
# Do not edit this file. Changes to the file may be overwritten
# during an upgrade.
#
# This file assumes you are running your efm cluster as user
# 'efm'. If not, then you will need to copy this file.
15
# Allow user 'efm' to sudo efm_db_functions as either 'postgres'

# or 'enterprisedb'. If you run your db service under a
# non-default account, you will need to copy this file to grant
# the proper permissions and specify the account in your efm
# cluster properties file by changing the 'db.service.owner'
# property.
efm ALL=(postgres) NOPASSWD: /usr/efm-2.1/bin/efm_db_functions

efm ALL=(enterprisedb) NOPASSWD: /usr/efm-2.1/bin/efm_db_functions
# Allow user 'efm' to sudo efm_root_functions as 'root' to

# write/delete the PID file, validate the db.service.owner
# property, etc.
efm ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: /usr/efm-2.1/bin/efm_root_functions
# Allow user 'efm' to sudo efm_address as root for VIP tasks.
efm ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: /usr/efm-2.1/bin/efm_address
# relax tty requirement for user 'efm'
Defaults:efm !requiretty
If you are using Failover Manager to monitor clusters that are owned by users other than
postgres or enterprisedb, make a copy of the efm-21 file, and modify the content
to allow the user to access the efm_functions script to manage their clusters.
If an agent cannot start because of permission problems, make sure the default
/etc/sudoers file contains the following line at the end of the file:
## Read drop-in files from /etc/sudoers.d (the # here does not

# mean a comment)
#includedir /etc/sudoers.d
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3.2 Configuring Failover Manager

Configurable Failover Manager properties are specified in two user-modifiable files:
 efm.properties
 efm.nodes
The efm.properties file contains the properties of the individual node on which it
resides, while the efm.nodes file contains a list of the current Failover Manager cluster
members.
By default, the installer places the files in the /etc/efm-2.1 directory.
3.2.1 The Cluster Properties File
The Failover Manager installer creates a file template for the cluster properties file named
efm.properties.in in the /etc/efm-2.1 directory. After completing the Failover
Manager installation, you must make a working copy of the template before modifying
the file contents.
The following command copies the efm.properties.in file, creating a properties file
named efm.properties:
# cp /etc/efm-2.1/efm.properties.in /etc/efm-2.1/efm.properties
Please note: By default, Failover Manager expects the cluster properties file to be named
efm.properties. If you name the properties file something other than
efm.properties, you must modify the service script to instruct Failover Manager to
use a different name.
After creating the cluster properties file, add (or modify) configuration parameter values
as required. For detailed information about each parameter, see Section 3.2.1.1.
The property files are owned by root. The Failover Manager service script expects to
find the files in the /etc/efm-2.1 directory. If you move the property file to another
location, you must create a symbolic link that specifies the new location.
Note that you must use the efm encrypt command to encrypt the value supplied in the
db.password.encrypted parameter. For more information about encrypting a
password, see Section 3.2.1.2.
17
3.2.1.1 Specifying Cluster Properties

You can use the parameters listed in the cluster properties file to specify connection
properties and behaviors for your Failover Manager cluster. Modifications to
configuration parameter settings will be applied when Failover Manager starts. If you
modify a parameter value (with the exception of the efm.license parameter) you must
restart Failover Manager to apply the changes.
Property values are case-sensitive. Note that while Postgres uses quoted strings in
parameter values, Failover Manager does not allow quoted strings in the parameter
values. For example, while you might specify an IP address in a Postgres configuration
parameter as:
listen_addresses='192.168.2.47'
Failover Manager requires that the value not be enclosed in quotes:
bind.address=192.168.2.54:5444
Use the parameters in the efm.properties file to specify connection, administrative,

and operational details for Failover Manager.
Use the efm.license parameter to provide the Failover Manager product key:
# The full license to run failover manager.
efm.license=
The trial period is 60 days. When there are five (or fewer) days left in the trial period,
Failover Manager will send an email warning you that it is time to provide a valid license
number. If you have not provided a product key before the trial period expires, all
Failover Manager agents will exit.
You do not need to restart the agents after adding the product key to the properties file.
Every six hours the Failover Manager agent will attempt to locate and validate the
product key.
Use the following parameters to specify connection properties for each node of the
Failover Manager cluster:
# The value for the password property should be the output from
# 'efm encrypt' -- do not include a cleartext password here. To
# prevent accidental sharing of passwords among clusters, the
# cluster name is incorporated into the encrypted password. If
# you change the cluster name (the name of this file), you must
# encrypt the password again with the new name.
# The db.port property must be the same for all nodes.
18
db.user=
db.password.encrypted=
db.port=
db.database=
The db.user specified must have sufficient privileges to invoke selected PostgreSQL
commands on behalf of Failover Manager. For more information, please see Section 2.2.
For information about encrypting the password for the database user, see 3.2.1.2.
Use the db.service.owner parameter to specify the name of the operating system user
that owns the cluster that is being managed by Failover Manager. This property is not
required on a dedicated witness node.
# This property tells EFM which OS user owns the $PGDATA dir for
# the 'db.database'. By default, the owner is either 'postgres'
# for PostgreSQL or 'enterprisedb' for EDB Postgres Advanced
# Server. However, if you have configured your db to run as a
# different user, you will need to copy the /etc/sudoers.d/efm-XX
# conf file to grant the necessary permissions to your db owner.
#
# This username must have write permission to the
# 'db.recovery.conf.dir' specified below.
db.service.owner=
Specify the name of the database server in the db.service.name parameter if you use
the service or systemctl command when starting or stopping the service.
# Specify the proper service name in order to use service

# commands rather than pg_ctl to start/stop/restart a database.
# For instance, if this property is set, then 'service <name>
# restart' or 'systemctl restart <name>' (depending on OS
# version) will be used to restart the database rather than
# pg_ctl. This property is required unless db.bin is set.
db.service.name=
You should use the same service control mechanism (pg_ctl, service, or
systemctl) each time you start or stop the database service. If you use the pg_ctl
program to control the service, specify the location of the pg_ctl program in the db.bin
parameter.
# Specify the directory containing the pg_ctl command, for

# example: /usr/pgsql-9.3/bin. The pg_ctl command is used to
# restart standby databases after a failover so that they are
# streaming from the new master node. Unless the db.service.name
# property is used, the pg_ctl command is used to
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# start/stop/restart databases as needed after a

# failover or switchover. This property is required unless
# db.service.name is set.
db.bin=
Use the db.recovery.conf.dir parameter to specify the location to which a recovery

file will be written on the Master node of the cluster, and a trigger file is written on a
Standby. This property is not required on a dedicated witness node.
# Specify the location of the db recovery.conf file on the node.

# On a standby node, the trigger file location is read from the
# file in this directory. After a failover, the recovery.conf
# files on remaining standbys are changed to point to the new
# master db (a copy of the original is made first). On a master
# node, a recovery.conf file will be written during failover and
# promotion to ensure that the master node can not be restarted
# as the master database.
db.recovery.conf.dir=
Use the jdbc.ssl parameter to instruct Failover Manager to use SSL connections. If
you have enabled SSL, use the jdbc.ssl.mode parameter to specify behaviors related to
server certificates.
# Use the jdbc.ssl property to enable ssl for EFM connections.

# Setting this property to true will force the agents to use
# 'ssl=true' for all JDBC database connections (to both local
# and remote databases).
# When jdbc.ssl is true (and ssl is enabled), the jdbc.ssl.mode
# property will determine how server certificates are handled.
# Valid values are:
#
# verify-ca - EFM will perform CA verification before allowing
# the certificate. This is the default value in case
# ssl is used and the mode property is not set.
# require - Verification will not be performed on the server
# certificate.
jdbc.ssl=false
jdbc.ssl.mode=verify-ca
For information about configuring and using SSL, please see:
https://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.5/static/ssl-tcp.html
and
https://jdbc.postgresql.org/documentation/94/ssl.html
20
Use the user.email parameter to specify an email address (or multiple email addresses)
that will receive any notifications sent by Failover Manager.
# Email address(es) for notifications. The value of this

# property must be the same across all agents. Multiple email
# addresses must be separated by space. If using a notification
# script instead, this property can be left blank.
user.email=
Use the script.notification parameter to specify the path to a user-supplied script

that acts as a notification service; the script will be passed a message subject and a
message body. The script will be invoked each time Failover Manager generates a user
notification.
# Absolute path to script run for user notifications.

#
# This is an optional user-supplied script that can be used for
# notifications instead of email. This is required if not using
# email notifications. Either/both can be used. The script will
# be passed two parameters: the message subject and the message
# body.
script.notification=
The bind.address parameter specifies the IP address and port number of the agent on
the current node of the Failover Manager cluster.
# This property specifies the ip address and port that jgroups

# will bind to on this node. The value is of the form
# <ip>:<port>.
# Note that the port specified here is used for communicating
# with other nodes, and is not the same as the admin.port below,
# used only to communicate with the local agent to send control
# signals.
bind.address=
Use the admin.port parameter to specify a port on which Failover Manager listens for
administrative commands.
# This property controls the port binding of the administration

# server which is used for some commands (ie cluster-status).
admin.port=
Set the is.witness parameter to true to indicate that the current node is a witness
node. If is.witness is true, the local agent will not check to see if a local database is
running.
21
# Specifies whether or not this is a witness node. Witness nodes

# do not have local databases running.
is.witness=
The Postgres pg_is_in_recovery() function is a boolean function that reports the

recovery state of a database. The function returns true if the database is in recovery, or
false if the database is not in recovery. When an agent starts, it connects to the local
database and invokes the pg_is_in_recovery() function. If the server responds
true, the agent assumes the role of standby; if the server responds false, the agent
assumes the role of master. If there is no local database, the agent will assume an IDLE
state.
If is.witness is true, Failover Manager will not check the recovery state.
The local.period parameter specifies how many seconds between attempts to contact
the database server.
The local.timeout parameter specifies how long an agent will wait for a positive
response from the local database server.
The local.timeout.final parameter specifies how long an agent will wait after the
final attempt to contact the database server on the current node. If a response is not
received from the database within the number of seconds specified by the
local.timeout.final parameter, the database is assumed to have failed.
For example, given the default values of these parameters, a check of the local database
happens once every 10 seconds. If an attempt to contact the local database does not come
back positive within 60 seconds, Failover Manager makes a final attempt to contact the
database. If a response is not received within 10 seconds, Failover Manager declares
database failure and notifies the administrator listed in the user.email parameter.
These properties are not required on a dedicated witness node.
# These properties apply to the connection(s) EFM uses to monitor

# the local database. Every 'local.period' seconds, a database
# check is made in a background thread. If the main monitoring
# thread does not see that any checks were successful in
# 'local.timeout' seconds, then the main thread makes a final
# check with a timeout value specified by the
# 'local.timeout.final' value. All values are in seconds.
# Whether EFM uses single or multiple connections for database
# checks is controlled by the 'db.reuse.connection.count'
# property.
local.period=10
local.timeout=60
local.timeout.final=10
If necessary, you should modify these values to suit your business model.
22
Use the remote.timeout parameter to specify how many seconds an agent waits for a
response from a remote database server (i.e., how long a standby agent waits to verify
that the master database is actually down before performing failover).
# Timeout for a call to check if a remote database is responsive.

# For example, this is how long a standby would wait for a
# DB ping request from itself and the witness to the master DB
# before performing failover.
remote.timeout=10
Use the node.timeout parameter to specify the number of seconds that an agent will
wait for a response from a node when determining if a node has failed. The
node.timeout parameter value specifies a timeout value for agent-to-agent
communication; other timeout parameters in the cluster properties file specify values for
agent-to-database communication.
# The total amount of time in seconds to wait before determining

# that a node has failed or been disconnected from this node.
#
# The value of this property must be the same across all agents.
node.timeout=50
Use the pingServer parameter to specify the IP address of a server that Failover
Manager can use to confirm that network connectivity is not a problem.
# This is the address of a well-known server that EFM can ping

# in an effort to determine network reachability issues. It
# might be the IP address of a nameserver within your corporate
# firewall or another server that *should* always be reachable
# via a 'ping' command from each of the EFM nodes.
#
# There are many reasons why this node might not be considered
# reachable: firewalls might be blocking the request, ICMP might
# be filtered out, etc.
#
# Do not use the IP address of any node in the EFM cluster
# (master, standby, or witness because this ping server is meant
# to provide an additional layer of information should the EFM
# nodes lose sight of each other.
#
# The installation default is Google's DNS server.
pingServerIp=8.8.8.8
Use the pingServerCommand parameter to specify the command used to test network
connectivity.
23
# This command will be used to test the reachability of certain

# nodes.
#
# Do not include an IP address or hostname on the end of
# this command - it will be added dynamically at runtime with the
# values contained in 'virtualIp' and 'pingServer'.
#
# Make sure this command returns reasonably quickly - test it
# from a shell command line first to make sure it works properly.
pingServerCommand=/bin/ping -q -c3 -w5
Use the auto.allow.hosts parameter to instruct the server to use the addresses
specified in the .nodes file of the first node started to update the allowed host list.
Enabling this parameter (setting auto.allow.hosts to true) can simplify cluster start-
up.
# Have the first node started automatically add the addresses

# from its .nodes file to the allowed host list. This will make
# it faster to start the cluster when the initial set of hosts
# is already known.
auto.allow.hosts=false
The db.reuse.connection.count parameter allows the administrator to specify the

number of times Failover Manager reuses the same database connection to check the
database health. The default value is 0, indicating that Failover Manager will create a
fresh connection each time. This property is not required on a dedicated witness node.
# This property controls how many times a database connection is

# reused before creating a new one. If set to zero, a new
# connection will be created every time an agent pings its local
# database.
db.reuse.connection.count=0
The auto.failover parameter enables automatic failover. By default,

auto.failover is set to true.
# Whether or not failover will happen automatically when the master

# fails. Set to false if you want to receive the failover notifications
# but not have EFM actually perform the failover steps.
# The value of this property must be the same across all agents.
auto.failover=true
Use the auto.reconfigure parameter to instruct Failover Manager to enable or disable

automatic reconfiguration of remaining Standby servers after the primary standby is
promoted to Master. Set the parameter to true to enable automatic reconfiguration (the
24
default) or false to disable automatic reconfiguration. This property is not required on

a dedicated witness node.
# After a standby is promoted, failover manager will attempt to

# update the remaining standbys to use the new master. Failover
# manager will back up recovery.conf, change the host parameter
# of the primary_conninfo entry, and restart the database. The
# restart command is contained in either the efm_db_functions or
# efm_root_functions file; default when not running db as an os
# service is:
# "pg_ctl restart -m fast -w -t <timeout> -D <directory>"
# where the timeout is the local.timeout property value and the
# directory is specified by db.recovery.conf.dir. To turn off
# automatic reconfiguration, set this property to false.
auto.reconfigure=true
Please note: primary_conninfo is a space-delimited list of keyword=value pairs.
Please note: If you are using replication slots to manage your WAL segments, automatic
reconfiguration is not supported; you should set auto.reconfigure to false. For
more information, see Section 2.2.
Use the promotable parameter to indicate that a node should not be promoted. To
override the setting, use the efm set-priority command at runtime; for more
information about the efm set-priority command, see Section 5.3.
# A standby with this set to false will not be added to the

# failover priority list, and so will not be available for
# promotion. The property will be used whenever an agent starts
# as a standby or resumes as a standby after being idle. After
# startup/resume, the node can still be added or removed from the
# priority list with the 'efm set-priority' command. This
# property is required for all non-witness nodes.
promotable=true
Use the minimum.standbys parameter to specify the minimum number of standby

nodes that will be retained on a cluster; if the standby count drops to the specified
minimum, a replica node will not be promoted in the event of a failure of the master
node.
# Instead of setting specific standbys as being unavailable for

# promotion, this property can be used to set a minimum number
# of standbys that will not be promoted. Set to one, for
# example, promotion will not happen if it will drop the number
# of standbys below this value. This property must be the same on
# each node.
25
minimum.standbys=0
Use the recovery.check.period parameter to specify the number of seconds that

Failover Manager will wait before checks to see if a database is out of recovery.
# Time in seconds between checks to see if a promoting database

# is out of recovery.
recovery.check.period=2
Use the auto.resume.period parameter to specify the number of seconds (after a

monitored database fails, and an agent has assumed an IDLE state) that an agent will
attempt to resume monitoring that database.
# Period in seconds for IDLE agents to try to resume monitoring

# after a database failure. Set to 0 for agents to not try to
# resume (in which case the 'efm resume <cluster>' command is
# used after bringing a database back up).
auto.resume.period=0
Use the virtualIp parameter to specify virtual IP address information for the Failover
Manager cluster.
Use the virtualIp.interface parameter to specify an alias for your network adaptor
(for example, eth0:1 specifies an alias for the adaptor, eth0). You might create
multiple aliases for each adaptor on a given host; for more information about running
multiple agents on a single node, please see Section 4.3.
Use the virtualIp.netmask parameter to specify which bits in the virtual IP address
refer to the network address (as opposed to the host address).
For information about using a virtual IP address, see Section 3.3.
# This is the IP and netmask that will be remapped during fail

# over. If you do not use VIPs as part of your failover
# solution, then leave these properties blank to disable EFM's
# support for VIP processing (assigning, releasing, testing
# reachability, etc).
#
# If you enable VIP, then all three properties are required.
#
# The address and netmask must be the same across all agents.
# The 'interface' value must contain the secondary virtual ip
# id (ie ":1", etc).
virtualIp=
virtualIp.interface=
virtualIp.netmask=
26
script.fence specifies the path to an optional user-supplied script that will be invoked
during the promotion of a standby node to master node.
# absolute path to fencing script run during promotion

#
# This is an optional user-supplied script that will be run
# during failover on the standby database node. If left blank,
# no action will be taken. If specified, EFM will execute this
# script before promoting the standby. The script is run as the
# efm user.
#
# Parameters can be passed into this script for the failed master
# and new primary node addresses. Use %p for new primary and %f
# for failed master. On a node that has just been promoted, %p
# should be the same as the node's efm binding address.
#
# Example:
# script.fence=/somepath/myscript %p %f
#
# NOTE: FAILOVER WILL NOT OCCUR IF THIS SCRIPT RETURNS A NON-ZERO
EXIT CODE.
script.fence=
Please note that the fencing script runs as the efm user; you must ensure that the efm user
has sufficient privileges to invoke any commands included in the fencing script. For
more information about Failover Manager permissions, please see Section 3.1.
Use the script.post.promotion parameter to specify the path to an optional user-

supplied script that will be invoked after a standby node has been promoted to master.
# Absolute path to fencing script run after promotion

#
# This is an optional user-supplied script that will be run after
# failover on the standby node after it has been promoted and
# is no longer in recovery. The exit code from this script has
# no effect on failover manager, but will be included in a
# notification sent after the script executes. The script is run
# as the efm user.
#
# Parameters can be passed into this script for the failed master
# and new primary node addresses. Use %p for new primary and %f
# for failed master. On a node that has just been promoted, %p
# should be the same as the node's efm binding address.
#
# Example:
# script.post.promotion=/somepath/myscript %f %p
script.post.promotion=
27
Use the script.resumed parameter to specify an optional path to a user-supplied script

that will be invoked when an agent resumes monitoring of a database.
# Absolute path to resume script

#
# This script is run whenever an IDLE agent is resumed and starts
# monitoring its local database.
script.resumed=
Use the script.db.failure parameter to specify the complete path to an optional user-
supplied script that Failover Manager will invoke if an agent detects that the database that
it monitors has failed.
# Absolute path to script run after database failure

#
# an agent detects that its local database has failed. The script
# is run as the efm user.
script.db.failure=
Use the script.master.isolated parameter to specify the complete path to an

optional user-supplied script that Failover Manager will invoke if the agent monitoring
the master database detects that the master is isolated from the majority of the Failover
Manager cluster. This script is called immediately after the VIP is released (if a VIP is in
use).
# Absolute path to script run on isolated master

#
# a master agent detects that it has been isolated from the
# majority of the efm cluster. The script is run as the efm user.
script.master.isolated=
Use the sudo.command parameter to specify a command that will be invoked by Failover
Manager when performing tasks that require extended permissions. Use this option to
include command options that might be specific to your system authentication.
# Command to use in place of 'sudo' if desired when efm runs

# the efm_db_functions or efm_root_functions, or efm_address
# scripts.
# Sudo is used in the following ways by efm:
#
# sudo /usr/efm-<version>/bin/efm_address <arguments>
# sudo /usr/efm-<version>/bin/efm_address <arguments>
# sudo /usr/efm-<version>/bin/efm_root_functions <arguments>
28
# sudo -u <db service owner> /usr/

efm-<version>/bin/efm_db_functions <arguments>
sudo.command=sudo
Use the jgroups.loglevel and efm.loglevel parameters to specify the level of

detail logged by Failover Manager. The default value is INFO. For more information
about logging, see Section 6, Controlling Logging.
# Logging levels for JGroups and EFM.

# Valid values are: FINEST, FINER, FINE, CONFIG, INFO, WARNING,
# SEVERE
# Default value: INFO
# It is not necessary to increase these values unless debugging a
# specific issue. If nodes are not discovering each other at
# startup, increasing the jgroups level to FINER will show
# information about the TCP connection attempts that may help
# diagnose the connection failures.
jgroups.loglevel=INFO
efm.loglevel=INFO
Use the jvm.options parameter to pass JVM-related configuration information. The

default setting specifies the amount of memory that the Failover Manager agent will be
allowed to use.
# Extra information that will be passed to the JVM when starting

# the agent.
jvm.options=-Xmx32m
29
3.2.1.2 Encrypting Your Database Password
Failover Manager requires you to encrypt your database password before including it in
the cluster properties file. Use the efm utility (located in the /usr/efm-2.1/bin
directory) to encrypt the password; open a command line, and enter the command:
# efm encrypt cluster_name
Where cluster_name specifies the name of the Failover Manager cluster.
The Failover Manager service will prompt you to enter the database password twice
before generating an encrypted password for you to place in your cluster property file.
When the utility shares the encrypted password, copy and paste the encrypted password
into the cluster property files.
Please note: Many Java vendors ship their version of Java with full-strength encryption
included, but not enabled due to export restrictions. If you encounter an error that refers
to an illegal key size when attempting to encrypt the database password, you should
download and enable a Java Cryptography Extension (JCE) that provides an unlimited
policy for your platform.
The following example demonstrates using the encrypt utility to encrypt a password for
the acctg cluster:
# efm encrypt acctg

This utility will generate an encrypted password for you to place
in your EFM cluster property file.
Please enter the password and hit enter:

Please enter the password again to confirm:
The encrypted password is: 835fb18954f198e94fd3d6f4b070350b
Please paste this into your cluster properties file.

db.password.encrypted=835fb18954f198e94fd3d6f4b070350b
After receiving your encrypted password, paste the password into the cluster properties
file and start the Failover Manager service. If there is a problem with the encrypted
password, the Failover Manager service will not start:
[witness@localhost ~]# service efm-2.1 start

Starting local efm-2.1 service: [FAILED]
If you receive this message when starting the Failover Manager service, please see the
startup log (located in /var/log/efm-2.1/startup-efm.log) for more information.
30
If you are using RHEL 7.x or CentOS 7.x, startup information is available via the
following command:
systemctl status efm-2.1
To prevent a cluster from inadvertently connecting to the database of another cluster, the
cluster name is incorporated into the encrypted password. If you modify the cluster
name, you will need to re-encrypt the database password and update the cluster properties
file.
31
3.2.2 The Cluster Members File
Each node in a Failover Manager cluster has a cluster members file. When an agent
starts, it uses the file to locate other cluster members. The Failover Manager installer
creates a file template for the cluster members file named efm.nodes.in in the
/etc/efm-2.1 directory. After completing the Failover Manager installation, you must
make a working copy of the template:
# cp /etc/efm-2.1/efm.nodes.in /etc/efm-2.1/efm.nodes
By default, Failover Manager expects the cluster members file to be named efm.nodes.
If you name the cluster members file something other than efm.nodes, you must modify
the Failover Manager service script to instruct Failover Manager to use the new name.
The cluster members file on the first node started can be empty; this node will become
the Membership Coordinator. On each subsequent node, the cluster member file must
contain the address and port number of the Membership Coordinator. Each entry in the
cluster members file must be listed in an address:port format, with multiple entries
separated by white space.
If the Membership Coordinator leaves the cluster, another node will assume the role of
Membership Coordinator. You can use the efm cluster-status command to find the
address of the Membership Coordinator.
Please note: If you know the IP addresses and ports of the nodes that will be joining the
cluster, you can include the addresses in the cluster members file at any time. At startup,
any addresses that do not identify cluster members will be ignored unless the
auto.allow.hosts parameter (in the cluster properties file) is set to true. For more
information, see Section 4.1.2.
Some Failover Manager commands modify the contents of the cluster members file:
 When you start an agent on a new node, the existing agents will update the cluster
members files to include the address of the new node.
 When you stop the agent on a node, Failover Manager will remove the node's
address from the cluster members list on all of the running nodes of the cluster.
If you invoke the efm stop-cluster command, Failover Manager does not modify the
cluster member file.
If nodes join or leave a cluster while an agent is down, you must manually ensure that the
file includes at least the current Membership Coordinator.
32
3.3 Using Failover Manager with Virtual IP Addresses
Failover manager uses the efm_address script to assign or release a virtual IP address.
By default, the script resides in:
/usr/efm-2.1/bin/efm_address
The following command invokes the efm_address script to assign a virtual IP address:
# efm_address assign interface_name ip_address netmask
The following command invokes the efm_address script to release a virtual IP

address:
# efm_address release interface_name ip_address
Where:
interface_name matches the name specified in the virtualIp.interface

parameter in the cluster properties file.
ip_address matches the name specified in the virtualIp parameter in the

cluster properties file.
netmask matches the name specified in the virtualIp.netmask parameter in

the cluster properties file.
For more information about properties that describe a virtual IP address, see Section
3.2.1.
You must invoke the efm_address script as the root user. The efm user is created
during the installation, and is granted privileges in the sudoers file to run the
efm_address script. For more information about the sudoers file, see Section 3.1,
Extending Failover Manager Permissions.
When using a virtual IP (VIP) address with Failover Manager, it is important to test the
VIP functionality manually before starting failover manager. This will catch any
network-related issues before they cause a problem during an actual failover. The
following steps test the actions that failover manager will take. The example uses the
following property values:
virtualIp=172.24.38.239
virtualIp.interface=eth0:0
virtualIp.netmask=255.255.255.0
pingServerCommand=/bin/ping -q -c3 -w5
33
When instructed to ping the VIP from a node, use the command defined by the
pingServerCommand property.
1. Ping the VIP from all nodes to confirm that the address is not already in use:
# /bin/ping -q -c3 -w5 172.24.38.239

PING 172.24.38.239 (172.24.38.239) 56(84) bytes of data.
--- 172.24.38.239 ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 0 received, +3 errors, 100% packet
loss, time 3000ms
You should see 100% packet loss.
2. Run the efm_address assign command on the Master node to assign the VIP and
then confirm with ifconfig:
# efm_address assign eth0:0 172.24.38.239 255.255.255.0

# ifconfig
<output truncated>
eth0:0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 36:AA:A4:F4:1C:40
inet addr:172.24.38.239 Bcast:172.24.38.255
Mask:255.255.255.0
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500
Metric:1
Interrupt:247
3. Ping the VIP from the other nodes to verify that they can reach the VIP:
# /bin/ping -q -c3 -w5 172.24.38.239

--- 172.24.38.239 ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 3 received, 0% packet loss, time
1999ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.023/0.025/0.029/0.006 ms
You should see no packet loss.
4. Use the efm_address release command to release the address on the master node
and confirm the node has been released with ifconfig:
# efm_address release eth0:0 172.24.38.239

# ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 22:00:0A:89:02:8E
inet addr:10.137.2.142 Bcast:10.137.2.191
...
The output from this step should not show an eth0:0 interface
34
5. Repeat step 3, this time verifying that the Standby and Witness do not see the VIP in
use:
# /bin/ping -q -c3 -w5 172.24.38.239

--- 172.24.38.239 ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 0 received, +3 errors, 100% packet
loss, time 3000ms
You should see 100% packet loss. Repeat this step on all nodes.
6. Repeat step 2 on all Standby nodes to assign the VIP to every node. You can ping the
VIP from any node to verify that it is in use.
# efm_address assign eth0:0 172.24.38.239 255.255.255.0

# ifconfig
<output truncated>
eth0:0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 36:AA:A4:F4:1C:40
inet addr:172.24.38.239 Bcast:172.24.38.255
Mask:255.255.255.0
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500
Metric:1
Interrupt:247
After the test steps above, release the VIP from any non-Master node before attempting
to start Failover Manager.
35
4 Using Failover Manager

Failover Manager 2.1 offers support for monitoring and failover of clusters with one or
more Standby servers. You can add or remove nodes from the cluster as your demand for
resources grows or shrinks.
For failover protection, the initial cluster should have a master and one or more standby
nodes. If the cluster contains more than one Standby node, a dedicated Witness node is
not required. If there is only one Standby node, the cluster should include a dedicated
Witness node.
Before configuring and starting Failover Manager, configure PostgreSQL Streaming

Replication between the Master node and one or more Standby nodes on an Advanced
Server or PostgreSQL installation. For more information about implementing streaming
replication, see the PostgreSQL core documentation at
http://www.enterprisedb.com/warm-standby.html.
Before starting a Failover Manager agent, you must install Failover Manager (see Section
3), and specify your configuration preferences in the cluster properties file (see Section
3.2.1) and the cluster members file (see Section 3.2.2) on the server on which the agent
will be running.
Using WAL Archiving on Advanced Server 9.2 or PostgreSQL 9.2 Instances
If you use WAL archiving on your Postgres 9.2 instance, and a failover occurs,
Failover Manager does not automatically reconfigure WAL archiving on the new
master node. You must manually configure WAL archiving on the new master
node of your cluster to ensure that it will work properly during the next failover.
Please Note: If a Master node reboots, Failover Manager may detect the database is down
on the Master node and promote a Standby node to the role of Master. If this happens, the
Failover Manager agent on the (rebooted) Master node will not get a chance to write the
recovery.conf file; the rebooted Master node will return to the cluster as a second
Master node. To prevent this, start the Failover Manager agent before starting the
database server. The agent will start in IDLE mode, and check to see if there is already a
master in the cluster. If there is a master node, the agent will verify that a
recovery.conf file exists, and the database will not start as a second master..
36
4.1 Managing a Failover Manager Cluster

Once configured, a Failover Manager cluster requires no regular maintenance. The
following sections provide information about performing the management tasks that may
occasionally be required by a Failover Manager Cluster.
By default, some of the commands listed below must be invoked by efm or by an OS

superuser; an administrator can selectively permit users to invoke these commands by
adding the user to the efm group. The commands are:
 efm allow-node
 efm disallow -node
 efm stop-cluster
 efm promote
 efm resume
 efm upgrade-conf
4.1.1 Starting the Failover Manager Cluster
You can start the nodes of a Failover Manager cluster in any order.
To start the Failover Manager cluster on RHEL 6.x or CentOS 6.x, assume superuser
privileges, and invoke the command:
service efm-2.1 start
To start the Failover Manager cluster on RHEL 7.x or CentOS 7.x, assume superuser
systemctl start efm-2.1
If the cluster properties file for the node specifies that is.witness is true, the node
will start as a Witness node.
If the node is not a dedicated Witness node, Failover Manager will connect to the local
database and invoke the pg_is_in_recovery() function. If the server responds
false, the agent assumes the node is a Master node, and assigns a virtual IP address to
the node (if applicable). If the server responds true, the Failover Manager agent
37
assumes that the node is a Standby server. If the server does not respond, the agent will
start in an IDLE state.
After joining the cluster, the Failover Manager agent checks the supplied database
credentials to ensure that it can connect to all of the databases within the cluster. If the
agent cannot connect, the agent will shut down.
If a new master or standby node joins a cluster, all of the existing nodes will also confirm
that they can connect to the database on the new node.
4.1.2 Adding Nodes to a Cluster
You can add a node to a Failover Manager cluster at any time. When you add a node to a
cluster, you must modify the cluster to allow the new node, and then tell the new node
how to find the cluster. The following steps detail adding a node to a cluster:
1. Unless auto.allow.hosts is set to true, use the efm allow-node command,

to add the IP address of the new node to the Failover Manager allowed node host
list. When invoking the command, specify the cluster name and the IP address of
the new node:
efm allow-node cluster_name ip_address
For more information about using the efm allow-node command or controlling
a Failover Manager service, see Section 5.
2. Install a Failover Manager agent and configure the cluster properties file on the
new node. For more information about modifying the properties file, see Section
3.2.1.
3. Configure the cluster members file on the new node, adding an entry for the
Membership Coordinator. For more information about modifying the cluster
members file, see Section 3.2.2.
4. Assume superuser privileges on the new node, and start the Failover Manager
agent. To start the Failover Manager cluster on RHEL 6.x or CentOS 6.x, assume
superuser privileges, and invoke the command:
To start the Failover Manager cluster on RHEL 7.x or CentOS 7.x, assume
superuser privileges, and invoke the command:
38
When the new node joins the cluster, Failover Manager will send a notification to the
administrator email provided in the user.email parameter, and/or will invoke the
specified notification script.
Please Note: To be a useful Standby for the current node, the node must be a standby in
the PostgreSQL Streaming Replication scenario.
4.1.3 Changing the Priority of a Standby
If your Failover Manager cluster includes more than one Standby server, you can use the
efm set-priority command to influence the promotion priority of a Standby node.
Invoke the command on any existing member of the Failover Manager cluster, and
specify a priority value after the IP address of the member.
For example, the following command instructs Failover Manager that the acctg cluster
member that is monitoring 10.0.1.9:7800 is the primary Standby (1):
efm set-priority acctg 10.0.1.9:7800 1
In the event of a failover, Failover Manager will first retrieve information from Postgres
streaming replication to confirm which Standby node has the most recent data, and
promote the node with the least chance of data loss. If two Standby nodes contain
equally up-to-date data, the node with a higher user-specified priority value will be
promoted to Master. To check the priority value of your Standby nodes, use the
command:
efm cluster-status cluster_name
Please note: The promotion priority may change if a node becomes isolated from the
cluster, and later re-joins the cluster.
39
4.1.4 Promoting a Failover Manager Node
You can invoke efm promote on any node of a Failover Manager cluster to start a
manual promotion of a Standby database to Master database. Include the –switchover
option to reconfigure the original Master as a Standby.
Manual promotion should only be performed during a maintenance window for your
database cluster. If you do not have an up-to-date Standby database available, you will
be prompted before continuing. To start a manual promotion, assume the identity of efm
or the OS superuser, and invoke the command:
efm promote cluster_name [-switchover]
Please note that if you include the –switchover keyword, the cluster must include a
master node and at least one standby, and the nodes must be in sync. During switchover:
 The master database is stopped.

 The address of the new master node is added to the recovery.conf file.
 The old master is restarted; the agent will resume monitoring it as a standby.
During a manual promotion, the Master agent releases the virtual IP address before
creating a recovery.conf file in the directory specified by the db.recovery.conf.dir
parameter. The Master agent remains running, and assumes a status of Idle.
The Standby agent confirms that the virtual IP address is no longer in use before pinging
a well-known address to ensure that the agent is not isolated from the network. The
Standby agent runs the fencing script and promotes the Standby database to Master. The
Standby agent then assigns the virtual IP address to the Standby node, and runs the post-
promotion script (if applicable).
Please note that this command instructs the service to ignore the value specified in the
auto.failover parameter in the cluster properties file.
To return a node to the role of master, place the node first in the promotion list:
efm set-priority cluster_name ip_address priority
Then, perform a manual promotion:
efm promote cluster_name -switchover
For more information about using the efm utility, see Section 5.3.
40
4.1.5 Stopping a Failover Manager Agent
When you stop an agent, Failover Manager will remove the node's address from the
cluster members list on all of the running nodes of the cluster, but will not remove the
address from the Failover Manager Allowed node host list.
To stop the Failover Manager agent on RHEL 6.x or CentOS 6.x, assume superuser
service efm-2.1 stop
To stop the Failover Manager agent on RHEL 7.x or CentOS 7.x, assume superuser
systemctl stop efm-2.1
Until you invoke the efm disallow -node command (removing the node's address of
the node from the Allowed node host list), you can use the service efm-2.1
start command to restart the node at a later date without first running the efm allow-
node command again.
Please note that stopping an agent does not signal the cluster that the agent has failed.
4.1.6 Stopping a Failover Manager Cluster
To stop a Failover Manager cluster, connect to any node of a Failover Manager cluster,
assume the identity of efm or the OS superuser, and invoke the command:
efm stop-cluster cluster_name
The command will cause all Failover Manager agents to exit. Terminating the Failover
Manager agents completely disables all failover functionality.
Please Note: when you invoke the efm stop-cluster command, all authorized node
information is lost from the Allowed node host list. For detailed information about
restarting a Failover Manager cluster, please see Section 4.1.7.
41
4.1.7 Restarting a Failover Manager Cluster
To restart a cluster, you must:
1. Restart the Failover Manager agent on any node of the cluster.
2. Unless the auto.allow.hosts parameter is set to true, use the efm allow-
node command to add the IP address of each node of the cluster to the Failover
Manager Allowed node host list. When invoking the command, specify the
cluster name and the IP address of the node:
efm allow-node cluster_name ip_address
3. Start a Failover Manager agent on each node of the cluster. When you start the
agent, the node will join the cluster.
If a node's address is not in the allowed node host list before you start the Failover
Manager agent on a member node, Failover Manager will write the following error to the
startup-efm.log file:
There was an error starting service: authentication failed

If other nodes are already running in the cluster, please verify
that the address for this node is on the allowed node host list.
4.1.8 Removing a Node from a Cluster
The efm disallow -node command removes the IP address of a node from the
Failover Manager Allowed node host list. Assume the identity of efm or the OS
superuser on any existing node (that is currently part of the running cluster), and invoke
the efm disallow -node command, specifying the cluster name and the IP address of
the node:
efm disallow -node cluster_name ip_address
The efm disallow -node command will not stop a running agent; the service will
continue to run on the node until you stop the agent (for information about controlling the
agent, see Section 5). If the agent or cluster is subsequently stopped, the node will not be
allowed to rejoin the cluster, and will be removed from the failover priority list (and will
be ineligible for promotion).
After invoking the efm disallow -node command, you must use the efm allow-
node command to add the node to the cluster again. For more information about using
the efm utility, see Section 5.3.
42
4.2 Monitoring a Failover Manager Cluster
You can use either the Failover Manager efm cluster-status command or the PEM
Client graphical interface to check the current status of a monitored node of a Failover
Manager cluster.
4.2.1 Reviewing the Cluster Status Report
The cluster-status command returns a report that contains information about the
status of the Failover Manager cluster. To invoke the command, enter:
# efm cluster-status acctg
The following status report is for a cluster with five nodes running:
Cluster Status: acctg

VIP:
Agent Type Address Agent DB Info

-------------------------------------------------------
Idle 172.24.38.106 UP UNKNOWN
Standby 172.24.38.123 UP UP
Master 172.24.38.163 UP UP
Allowed node host list:

172.24.38.106 172.24.38.163 172.24.38.103 172.24.38.123
172.24.38.152
Membership coordinator: 172.24.38.123
Standby priority host list:

172.24.38.103 172.24.38.123
Promote Status:
DB Type Address XLog Loc Info

-------------------------------------------------------
Master 172.24.38.163 2/35000230
Standby 172.24.38.103 2/35000230
Standby 172.24.38.123 2/35000230
Standby database(s) in sync with master. It is safe to

promote.
Idle Node Status (idle nodes ignored in XLog location

comparisons):
Address XLog Loc Info

43
-------------------------------------------------------
172.24.38.152 2/35000160 DB is not in
recovery.
172.24.38.106 UNKNOWN Connection refused.
Check that the hostname and port are correct and that the
postmaster is accepting TCP/IP connections.
The Cluster Status section provides an overview of the status of the agents that reside
on each node of the cluster:
Cluster Status: acctg
Agent Type Address Agent DB Info

-------------------------------------------------------
Master 172.24.38.163 UP UP
Failover Manager agents provide the information displayed in the Cluster Status
section.
The Allowed node host list and Standby priority host list provide an
easy way to tell which nodes are allowed to join the cluster, and the promotion order of
the standby nodes:
Allowed node host list:

172.24.38.106 172.24.38.163 172.24.38.103 172.24.38.123
172.24.38.152
Standby priority host list:

172.24.38.103 172.24.38.123
The Promote Status section of the report is the result of a direct query from the node
on which you are invoking the cluster-status command to each database in the
cluster; the query also returns the transaction log location of each database.
Promote Status:
DB Type Address XLog Loc Info

-------------------------------------------------------
Master 172.24.38.163 2/35000230
Standby 172.24.38.103 2/35000230
Standby 172.24.38.123 2/35000230
Standby database(s) in sync with master. It is safe to promote.
44
If a database is down (or if the database has been restarted, but the resume command has
not yet been invoked), the state of the agent that resides on that host will be Idle. If an
agent is idle, the cluster status report will include a summary of the condition of the node.
Idle Node Status (idle nodes ignored in XLog location

comparisons):
Address XLog Loc Info

-------------------------------------------------------
172.24.38.152 2/35000160 DB is not in recovery.
172.24.38.106 UNKNOWN Connection refused.
Check that the hostname and port are correct and that the
postmaster is accepting TCP/IP connections.
Exit Codes
The cluster status process returns an exit code that is based on the state of the cluster:
 An exit code of 0 indicates that all agents are running, and the databases on the
Master and Standby nodes are running and in sync.
 A non-zero exit code indicates that there is a problem. The following problems
can trigger a non-zero exit code:
A database is down or unknown (or has an idle agent).

Failover Manager cannot decrypt the provided database password.
There is a problem contacting the databases to get xlog locations.
There is no Master agent.
There are no Standby agents.
One or more Standby nodes are not in sync with the Master.
45
4.2.2 Monitoring Streaming Replication with Postgres Enterprise

Manager
If you use Postgres Enterprise Manager (PEM) to monitor your servers, you can
configure the Streaming Replication Analysis dashboard (part of the PEM client
graphical interface) to display the state of a Master or Standby node that is part of a
Streaming Replication scenario.
Figure 4.1 - The Streaming Replication dashboard (Master node)
The Streaming Replication Analysis Dashboard (shown in Figure 4.1) displays statistical
information about activity for any monitored server on which streaming replication is
enabled. The dashboard header identifies the status of the monitored server (either
46
Replication Master or Replication Slave), and displays the date and time that
the server was last started, the date and time that the page was last updated, and a current
count of triggered alerts for the server.
When reviewing the dashboard for a Replication Slave (a Standby node), a label at the
bottom of the dashboard confirms the status of the server (see Figure 4.2).
Figure 4.2 - The Streaming Replication dashboard (Standby node)
By default, the PEM replication probes that provide information for the Streaming
Replication Analysis dashboard are disabled. To view the Streaming Replication
Analysis dashboard for the Master node of a replication scenario, you must enable the
following probes:
 Streaming Replication
 WAL Archive Status
To view the Streaming Replication Analysis dashboard for the Standby node of a
replication scenario, you must enable the following probes:
 Streaming Replication Lag Time
47
To enable a probe, highlight the name of the replication master in the PEM client
Object browser pane, and select Probe Configuration... from the Management
menu. Use the Probe Configuration dialog to enable each probe.
For more information about PEM, please visit the EnterpriseDB website at:
http://www.enterprisedb.com/products-services-training/products/postgres-enterprise-manager
48
4.3 Running Multiple Agents on a Single Node

You can monitor multiple database clusters that reside on the same host by running
multiple Master or Standby agents on that Failover Manager node. You may also run
multiple Witness agents on a single node. To configure Failover Manager to monitor
more than one database cluster, while ensuring that Failover Manager agents from
different clusters do not interfere with each other, you must:
1. Create a cluster properties file for each member of each cluster that defines a
unique set of properties and the role of the node within the cluster.
2. Create a cluster members file for each member of each cluster that lists the
members of the cluster.
3. Customize the service script for each cluster to specify the names of the cluster
properties and the cluster members files.
4. Start the services for each cluster.
The examples that follow uses two database clusters (acctg and sales) running on the
same node:
 Data for acctg resides in /opt/pgdata1; its server is monitoring port 5444.
 Data for sales resides in /opt/pgdata2; its server is monitoring port 5445.
To run a Failover Manager agent for both of these database clusters, use the
efm.properties.in template to create two properties files. Each cluster properties file
must have a unique name. For this example, we create acctg.properties and
sales.properties to match the acctg and sales database clusters.
The following parameters must be unique in each cluster properties file:
admin.port
bind.address
db.port
db.recovery.conf.dir
script.fence (if used)
virtualIp (if used)
virtualIp.interface (if used)
Within each cluster properties file, the db.port parameter should specify a unique value
for each cluster, while the db.user and db.database parameter may have the same
value or a unique value. For example, the acctg.properties file may specify:
49
db.user=efm_user
db.password.encrypted=7c801b32a05c0c5cb2ad4ffbda5e8f9a
db.port=5444
db.database=acctg_db
While the sales.properties file may specify:
db.user=efm_user
db.password.encrypted=e003fea651a8b4a80fb248a22b36f334
db.port=5445
db.database=sales_db
Some parameters require special attention when setting up more than one Failover
Manager cluster agent on the same node. If multiple agents reside on the same node,
each port must be unique. Any two ports will work, but it may be easier to keep the
information clear if using ports that are not too close to each other.
When creating the cluster properties file for each cluster, the db.recovery.conf.dir
parameters must also specify values that are unique for each respective database cluster.
If you are using a fencing script, use the script.fence parameter to identify a fencing
script that is unique for each cluster.
The following parameters are used when assigning the virtual IP address to a node. If
your Failover Manager cluster does not use a virtual IP address, leave these parameters
blank.
virtualIp
You must specify a unique virtual IP address for each cluster. If the same address
is used, a failure of one database cluster would cause the address to be released
from the master, breaking existing connections to the remaining database cluster.
virtualIp.interface
You must specify a unique interface name for each cluster. For example,
acctg.properties might include a value of eth0:0, while
sales.properties might specify eth0:1.
virtualIp.netmask
This parameter value is determined by the virtual IP addresses being used and may or
may not be the same for both acctg.properties and sales.properties.
After creating the acctg.properties and sales.properties files, create a service

script for each cluster that points to the respective property files; this step is platform
50
specific. If you are using RHEL 6.x or CentOS 6.x, see Section 4.3.1; if you are using
RHEL 7.x or CentOS 7.x, see Section 4.3.2.
4.3.1 RHEL 6.x or CentOS 6.x
If you are using RHEL 6.x or CentOS 6.x, you should copy the efm-2.1 service script to
new file with a name that is unique for each cluster. For example:
# cp /etc/init.d/efm-2.1 /etc/init.d/efm-acctg
# cp /etc/init.d/efm-2.1 /etc/init.d/efm-sales
Then edit the CLUSTER variable, modifying the cluster name from efm to acctg or
sales.
After creating the service scripts, run:
# chkconfig efm-acctg on
# chkconfig efm-sales on
Then, use the new service scripts to start the agents. For example, you can start the
acctg agent with the command:
# service efm-acctg start
4.3.2 RHEL 7.x or CentOS 7.x
If you are using RHEL 7.x or CentOS 7.x, you should copy the efm-2.1 service script to
new file with a name that is unique for each cluster. For example:
# cp /usr/lib/systemd/system/efm-2.1.service
/usr/lib/systemd/system/efm-acctg.service
# cp /usr/lib/systemd/system/efm-2.1.service
/usr/lib/systemd/system/efm-sales.service
Then edit the CLUSTER variable, modifying the cluster name from efm to acctg or
sales.
After copying the service scripts, use the following commands to enable the services:
# systemctl enable efm-acctg.service

51
# systemctl enable efm-sales.service
Then, use the new service scripts to start the agents. For example, you can start the
acctg agent with the command:
# systemctl start efm-acctg
52
5 Controlling the Failover Manager

Service
Each node in a Failover Manager cluster hosts a Failover Manager agent that is controlled
by a service script. By default, the service script expects to find:
 A configuration file named efm.properties that contains the properties used by

the Failover Manager service. Each node of a replication scenario must contain a
properties file that provides information about the node.
 A cluster members file named efm.nodes that contains a list of the cluster
members. Each node of a replication scenario must contain a cluster members
list.
Note that if you are running multiple clusters on a single node you will need to manually
create configuration files with cluster-specific names and modify the service script for the
corresponding clusters.
The commands that control the Failover Manager service are platform-specific; for
information about controlling Failover Manager on a RHEL 6.x or CentOS 6.x host, see
Section 5.1. If you are using RHEL 7.x or CentOS 7.x, see Section 5.2.
5.1 Using the service Utility on RHEL 6.x and CentOS 6.x
On RHEL 6.x and CentOS 6.x, Failover Manager runs as a Linux service named (by
default) efm-2.1 that is located in /etc/init.d. Each database cluster monitored by
Failover Manager will run a copy of the service on each node of the replication cluster.
Use the following service commands to control a Failover Manager agent that resides
on a RHEL 6.x or CentOS 6.x host:
The start command starts the Failover Manager agent on the current node. The
local Failover Manager agent monitors the local database and communicates with
Failover Manager on the other nodes. You can start the nodes in a Failover
Manager cluster in any order.
This command must be invoked by root.
53
service efm-2.1 stop
Stop the Failover Manager on the current node. This command must be invoked
by root.
service efm-2.1 status
The status command returns the status of the Failover Manager agent on which it
is invoked. You can invoke the status command on any node to instruct
Failover Manager to return status information. For example:
[witness@localhost ~]# service efm-2.1 status

efm-2.1 (pid 50836) is running...
service efm-2.1 help
Display online help for the Failover Manager service script.
54
5.2 Using the systemctl Utility on RHEL 7.x and CentOS 7.x
On RHEL 7.x and CentOS 7.x, Failover Manager runs as a Linux service named (by
default) efm-2.1.service that is located in /usr/lib/systemd/system. Each
database cluster monitored by Failover Manager will run a copy of the service on each
node of the replication cluster.
Use the following systemctl commands to control a Failover Manager agent that
resides on a RHEL 7.x or CentOS 7.x host:
The start command starts the Failover Manager agent on the current node. The
local Failover Manager agent monitors the local database and communicates with
Failover Manager on the other nodes. You can start the nodes in a Failover
Manager cluster in any order.
This command must be invoked by root.
systemctl stop efm-2.1
Stop the Failover Manager on the current node. This command must be invoked
by root.
systemctl status efm-2.1
The status command returns the status of the Failover Manager agent on which it
is invoked. You can invoke the status command on any node to instruct
Failover Manager to return status and server startup information.
[root@ONE ~]}> systemctl status efm-2.1

efm-2.1.service - EnterpriseDB Failover Manager 2.1
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/efm-2.1.service;
disabled)
Active: active (running) since Tue 2015-04-07 06:05:49
PDT; 25s ago
Process: 28446 ExecStart=/bin/java -cp /usr/efm-
2.1/lib/EFM-2.1.0.jar
com.enterprisedb.hal.main.ServiceCommand start /etc/efm-
2.1/${CLUSTER}.properties (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
Main PID: 28456 (java)
CGroup: /system.slice/efm-2.1.service
 java -cp /usr/efm-2.1/lib/EFM-2.1.0.jar
com.enterprisedb.hal.main.ServiceCommand __int_start
/etc/efm-2.1/efm
....
55
5.3 Using the efm Utility
Failover Manager provides the efm utility to assist with cluster management. The RPM
installer adds the utility to the /usr/efm-2.1/bin directory when you install Failover
Manager.
efm allow-node cluster_name
Invoke the efm allow-node command to allow the specified node to join the
cluster. When invoking the command, provide the name of the cluster and the IP
address of the joining node.
This command must be invoked by efm, a member of the efm group, or root.
efm cluster-status cluster_name
Invoke the efm cluster-status command to display the status of a Failover

Manager cluster. For more information about the cluster status report, see Section
4.2.1.
efm cluster-status-json cluster_name
Invoke the efm cluster-status-json command to display the status of a

Failover Manager cluster in json format. While the format of the displayed
information is different than the display generated by the efm cluster-status
command, the information source is the same.
The following example is generated by querying the status of a healthy cluster

with two nodes:
{
"nodes": {
"172.16.144.161": {
"type": "Idle",
"agent": "UP",
"db": "UNKNOWN",
"info": " ",
"xlog": "UNKNOWN",
"xloginfo": "Connection to 172.16.144.161:5432
refused. Check that the hostname and port are correct and that
the postmaster is accepting TCP\/IP connections."
},
"172.16.144.160": {
"type": "Standby",
"agent": "UP",
"db": "UP",
"info": " ",
"xlog": "3\/80001A18",
"xloginfo": ""
},
56
"172.16.144.159": {
"type": "Master",
"agent": "UP",
"db": "UP",
"info": " ",
"xlog": "3\/80001A18",
"xloginfo": ""
},
"172.16.144.172": {
"type": "Standby",
"agent": "UP",
"db": "UP",
"info": " ",
"xlog": "3\/80001A18",
"xloginfo": ""
}
},
"allowednodes": [
"172.16.144.160",
"172.16.144.159",
"172.16.144.161",
"172.16.144.172"
],
"membershipcoordinator": "172.16.144.160",
"failoverpriority": [
"172.16.144.160",
"172.16.144.172"
],
"VIP": "",
"minimumstandbys": 0,
"messages": []
}
efm disallow-node cluster_name ip_address
Invoke the efm disallow-node command to remove the specified node from
the allowed hosts list, and prevent the node from joining a cluster. Provide the
name of the cluster and the IP address of the node when calling the efm
disallow -node command. This command must be invoked by efm, a member
of the efm group, or root.
efm encrypt cluster_name
Invoke the efm encrypt command to encrypt the database password before
include the password in the cluster properties file.
efm promote cluster_name [-switchover]
The promote command instructs Failover Manager to perform a manual failover

of standby to master. Include the –switchover option to promote a standby
node, and reconfigure a master node as a standby node.
57
Manual promotion should only be attempted if the status command reports that
the cluster includes a Standby node that is up-to-date with the Master. If there is
no up-to-date Standby, Failover Manager will prompt you before continuing.
Please note that this command instructs the service to ignore the value specified in
the auto.failover parameter in the cluster properties file.
efm prop-check cluster_name
The efm prop-check command invokes a utility that may help to identify
configuration problems caused by mismatched property files.
When invoked on the Witness node with a cluster named employees, the prop-
check command might display:
# efm prop-check employees

Agents: 172.24.38.107:7800
Binding address: 172.24.38.107
I am witness node: true
Cluster name: employees
User email: [[email protected]]
Notification script: null
VIP: 172.24.38.239
Automatic failover set to: true
Network adapters: eth0
fe80:0:0:0:10a8:bff:fe7c:70cf%2
172.24.38.185
lo
0:0:0:0:0:0:0:1%1
127.0.0.1
efm resume cluster_name
Invoke the efm resume command to resume monitoring a previously stopped

database. This command must be invoked by efm, a member of the efm group,
or root.
efm set-priority cluster_name ip_address priority
Invoke the efm set-priority command to assign a failover priority to a

standby node. The value specifies the order in which the new node will be used
in the event of a failover.
priority is an integer value of 1 to n, where n is the number of standby nodes

in the list. Specify a value of 1 to indicate that the new node is the primary
58
standby, and will be the first node promoted in the event of a failover. A
priority of 0 instructs Failover Manager to not promote the standby.
efm stop-cluster cluster_name
Invoke the efm stop-cluster command to stop Failover Manager on all nodes.
This command instructs Failover Manager to connect to each node on the cluster
and instruct the existing members to shut down. The command has no effect on
running databases, but when the command completes, there is no failover
protection in place.
Please note: when you invoke the efm stop-cluster command, all authorized
node information is removed from the Allowed node host list. For detailed
information about restarting a Failover Manager cluster, please see Section 4.1.7.
efm upgrade-conf cluster_name
Invoke the efm upgrade-conf command to copy the configuration files from a
Failover Manager 2.0 installation, and add parameters required by a Failover
Manager 2.1 installation. Provide the name of the 2.0 cluster when invoking the
utility. This command must be invoked with root privileges.
efm --help
Invoke the efm --help command to display online help for the Failover Manager
utility commands.
59
6 Controlling Logging
Failover Manager writes and stores one log file per agent and one startup log per agent in
/var/log/efm-2.1. You can control the level of detail written to the agent log by
modifying the jgroups.loglevel and efm.loglevel parameters in the cluster
properties file:
# Logging levels for JGroups and EFM.

# Valid values are: FINEST, FINER, FINE, CONFIG, INFO,
# WARNING,SEVERE
# Default value: INFO
# It is not necessary to increase these values unless
# debugging a specific issue. If nodes are not discovering
# each other at startup, increasing the jgroups level to
# FINER will show information about the TCP connection
# attempts that may help diagnose the connection failures.
jgroups.loglevel=INFO
efm.loglevel=INFO
The logging facilities use the Java logging library and logging levels. The log levels (in
order from most logging output to least) are:
FINEST
FINER
FINE
CONFIG
INFO
WARNING
SEVERE
For example, if you set the efm.loglevel parameter to WARNING, Failover Manager
will only log messages at the WARNING level and above (WARNING and SEVERE).
By default, Failover Manager log files are rotated daily, compressed, and stored for a
week. You can modify the file rotation schedule by changing settings in the log rotation
file (/etc/logrotate.d/efm-2.1). For more information about modifying the log
rotation schedule, consult the logrotate man page:
$ man logrotate
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7 Notifications
Failover Manager will send e-mail notifications and/or invoke a notification script when a
notable event occurs that affects the cluster. If you have configured Failover Manager to
send an email notification, you must have an SMTP server running on port 25 on each
node of the cluster. Use the following parameters to configure notification behavior for
Failover Manager:
user.email
script.notification
For more information about editing the configuration properties, see Section 3.2.1.1.
The body of the notification contains details about the event that triggered the
notification, and about the current state of the cluster. For example:
EFM node: 10.0.1.11

Cluster name: acctg
Database name: postgres
VIP support: DISABLED
Database health is not being monitored.
Failover Manager assigns a severity level to each notification. The following levels
indicate increasing levels of attention required:
INFO indicates an informational message about the agent and does not require
any manual intervention (for example, Failover Manager has started or stopped).
WARNING indicates that an event has happened that requires the administrator to
check on the system (for example, failover has occurred).
SEVERE indicates that a serious event has happened and requires the immediate
attention of the administrator (for example, failover was attempted, but was
unable to complete).
The severity level designates the urgency of the notification. A notification with a
severity level of SEVERE requires user attention immediately, while a notification with a
severity level of INFO will call your attention to operational information about your
cluster that does not require user action. Notification severity levels are not related to
logging levels; all notifications are sent regardless of the log level detail specified in the
configuration file.
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The conditions listed in the table below will trigger an INFO level notification:
Subject Description
Executed fencing script Executed fencing script script_name Results:
script_results
Executed post-promotion script Executed post-promotion script script_name
Results: script_results
Executed post-database failure script Executed post-database failure script script_name
Executed master isolation script Executed master isolation script script_name
Witness agent running on node_address for Witness agent is running.
cluster cluster_name
Master agent running on node_address for cluster Master agent is running and database health is being
cluster_name monitored.
Standby agent running on node_address for Standby agent is running and database health is
cluster cluster_name being monitored.
Idle agent running on node node_address for Idle agent is running. After starting the local
cluster cluster_name database, the agent can be resumed.
Assigning VIP to node node_address Assigning VIP VIP_address to node
node_address Results: script_results
Releasing VIP from node node_address Releasing VIP VIP_address from node
node_address Results: script_results
Witness agent exited on node_address for cluster Witness agent has exited.
cluster_name
Master agent exited on node_address for cluster Database health is not being monitored.
cluster_name
Cluster cluster_name notified that master node Failover is disabled for the cluster until the master
has left agent is restarted.
Standby agent exited on node_address for cluster Database health is not being monitored.
cluster_name
Agent exited during promotion on node_address Database health is not being monitored.
for cluster cluster_name
Agent exited on node_address for cluster The agent has exited. This is generated by an agent
cluster_name in the Idle state.
Starting auto resume check for cluster The agent on this node will check every
cluster_name auto.resume.period seconds to see if it can
resume monitoring the failed database. The cluster
should be checked during this time and the agent
stopped if the database will not be started again.
See the agent log for more details.
Executed agent resumed script Executed agent resumed script script_name
Agent exited for cluster cluster_name The agent has exited. This notification is usually
generated during startup when an agent exits before
startup has completed.
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The conditions listed in the table below will trigger a WARNING level notification:
Subject Description
Virtual IP address assigned to non-master node The virtual IP address appears to be assigned to a
non-master node. To avoid any conflicts, Failover
Manager will release the VIP. You should confirm
that the VIP is assigned to your master node and
manually reassign the address if it is not.
No standby agent in cluster for cluster The standbys on cluster_name have left the
cluster_name cluster.
Standby agent failed for cluster cluster_name A standby agent on cluster_name has left the
cluster, but the coordinator has detected that the
standby database is still running.
Standby database failed for cluster cluster_name A standby agent has signaled that its database has
failed. The other nodes also cannot reach the
standby database.
Standby agent cannot reach database for cluster A standby agent has signaled database failure, but
cluster_name the other nodes have detected that the standby
database is still running.
Cluster cluster_name has dropped below three At least three nodes are required for full failover
nodes protection. Please add witness or agent node to the
cluster.
Subset of cluster cluster_name disconnected This node is no longer connected to the majority of
from master the cluster cluster_name. Because this node is
part of a subset of the cluster, failover will not be
attempted. Current nodes that are visible are:
node_address
Promotion has started on cluster cluster_name. The promotion of a standby has started on cluster
cluster_name.
Witness failure for cluster cluster_name Witness running at node_address has left the
cluster.
Idle agent failure for cluster cluster_name. Idle agent running at node_address has left the
cluster.
One or more nodes isolated from network for This node appears to be isolated from the network.
cluster cluster_name Other members seen in the cluster are: node_name
Node no longer isolated from network for cluster This node is no longer isolated from the network.
cluster_name.
Standby agent tried to promote, but master DB is The standby EFM agent tried to promote itself, but
still running detected that the master DB is still running on
node_address. This usually indicates that the
master EFM agent has exited. Failover has NOT
occurred.
Standby agent started to promote, but master has The standby EFM agent started to promote itself,
rejoined. but found that a master agent has rejoined the
cluster. Failover has NOT occurred.
Standby agent tried to promote, but could not verify The standby EFM agent tried to promote itself, but
master DB could not detect whether or not the master DB is
still running on node_address. Failover has NOT
occurred.
Standby agent tried to promote, but VIP appears to The standby EFM agent tried to promote itself, but
still be assigned could not because the virtual IP address
(VIP_address) appears to still be assigned to
another node. Promoting under these circumstances
could cause data corruption. Failover has NOT
occurred.
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Standby agent tried to promote, but appears to be The standby EFM agent tried to promote itself, but
orphaned could not because the well-known server
(server_address) could not be reached. This
usually indicates a network issue that has separated
the standby agent from the other agents. Failover
has NOT occurred.
Failover has not occurred An agent has detected that the master database is no
longer available in cluster cluster_name, but
there are no standby nodes available for failover.
Potential manual failover required on cluster A potential failover situation was detected for
cluster_name. cluster cluster_name. Automatic failover has
been disabled for this cluster, so manual
intervention is required.
Failover has completed on cluster cluster_name Failover has completed on cluster cluster_name.
Lock file for cluster cluster_name has been The lock file for cluster cluster_name has been
removed removed from: path_name on node
node_address. This lock prevents multiple
agents from monitoring the same cluster on the
same node. Please restore this file to prevent
accidentally starting another agent for cluster.
recovery.conf file for cluster cluster_name A recovery.conf file for cluster cluster_name has
has been found been found at: path_name on master node
node_address. This may be problematic should
you attempt to restart the DB on this node.
Promotion has not occurred for cluster A promotion was attempted but there is already a
cluster_name node being promoted: ip_address.
Standby not reconfigured after failover in cluster The auto.reconfigure property has been set to
cluster_name false for this node. The node has not been
reconfigured to follow the new master node after a
failover.
Could not resume replay for cluster cluster_name Could not resume replay for standby being
promoted. Manual intervention may be required.
Error: error_decription
This error is returned if the server encounters an
error when invoking replay during the promotion of
a standby.
Could not resume replay for standby standby_id. Could not resume replay for standby. Manual
intervention may be required. Error:
error_message.
Trial license expiring soon Your trial license for EDB Postgres Failover
Manager will expire on expiration_date. A
valid product key is required for continued
operation once the initial trial period has ended.
Without a valid product key, at the end of the trial,
Failover Manager will exit and no longer run.
Please contact your EnterpriseDB account manager
to purchase a license for Failover Manager.
Full license expiring soon Your Full Use license for EDB Postgres Failover
Manager will expire on expiration_date. A
valid product key is required is required for
continued operation once your current license
subscription ends. Without a valid product key, at
the end of your subscription, Failover Manager will
exit and no longer run. Please contact your
EnterpriseDB account manager to renew your
64
subscription for Failover Manager.

License has expired Your license subscription to run this product
expired on expiration_date. Failover Manager
is continuing to run under the trial period. Please
contact your EnterpriseDB Account Manager to
purchase a new license subscription for Failover
Manager.
License is invalid There is a problem with the Full Use License for
EDB Postgres Failover Manager that was provided
in the cluster properties file. Please check to be sure
it was entered correctly. Failover Manager will
continue to run for the duration of the trial period.
If this problem persists, please contact your
EnterpriseDB Account Manager.
The conditions listed in the table below will trigger a SEVERE notification:
Subject Description
Unable to connect to DB on node_address The maximum connections limit has been reached.
Unable to connect to DB on node_address Invalid password for db.user= user_name.
Unable to connect to DB on node_address Invalid authorization specification.
Master cannot ping local database for cluster The master agent can no longer reach the local
cluster_name database running at node_address. Other nodes
are able to access the database remotely, so the
master will not release the VIP and/or create a
recovery.conf file. The master agent will
become IDLE until the resume command is run to
resume monitoring the database.
Communication error for cluster cluster_name This node has connected to the cluster, but cannot
resolve the IP address for one or more cluster
members. Please stop the agent running on
node_address and verify that all the existing
cluster members' addresses are in the .nodes file.
Fencing script error Fencing script script_name failed to execute
successfully.
Exit Value: exit_code
Failover has NOT occurred.
Post-promotion script failed Post-promotion script script_name failed to
execute successfully.
Post-database failure script error Post-database failure script script_name failed to
Agent resumed script error Agent resumed script script_name failed to
Master isolation script failed Master isolation script script_name failed to
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Could not promote standby The trigger file file_name could not be created on
node. Could not promote standby. Error details:
message_details
Error creating recovery.conf file on There was an error creating the recovery.conf file
node_address for cluster cluster_name on master node node_address during promotion.
Promotion has continued, but requires manual
intervention to ensure that the old master node can
not be restarted. Error details: message_details
An unexpected error has occurred for cluster An unexpected error has occurred on this node.
cluster_name Please check the agent log for more information.
Error: error_details
Master database being fenced off for cluster The master database has been isolated from the
cluster_name majority of the cluster. The cluster is telling the
master agent at ip_address to fence off the master
database to prevent two masters when the rest of the
failover manager cluster promotes a standby.
Master database being fenced off for cluster The master database has been isolated from the
cluster_name majority of the cluster. Before the master could
finish detecting isolation, a standby was promoted
and has rejoined this node in the cluster. This node
is isolating itself to avoid more than one master
database.
Could not assign VIP to node node_address Failover manager could not assign the VIP address
for some reason.
master_or_standby database failure for cluster The database has failed on the specified node.
cluster_name
Agent is timing out for cluster cluster_name This agent has timed out trying to reach the local
database. After the timeout, the agent could
successfully ping the database and has resumed
monitoring. However, the node should be checked
to make sure it is performing normally to prevent a
possible database or agent failure.
Resume timed out for cluster cluster_name This agent could not resume monitoring after
reconfiguring and restarting the local database. See
agent log for details.
Internal state mismatch for cluster cluster_name The failover manager cluster's internal state did not
match the actual state of the cluster members. This
is rare and can be caused by a timing issue of nodes
joining the cluster and/or changing their state. The
problem should be resolved, but you should check
the cluster status as well to verify. Details of the
mismatch can be found in the agent log file..
Failover has not occurred An agent has detected that the master database
is no longer available in cluster cluster_name,
but there are not enough standby nodes available for
failover..
Database in wrong state on node_address The standby agent has detected that the local
database is no longer in recovery. The agent will
now become IDLE. Manual intervention is
required.
Database in wrong state on node_address The master agent has detected that the local
database is in recovery. The agent will now become
IDLE. Manual intervention is required.
Database connection failure for cluster This node is unable to connect to the database
cluster_name running on: node_address
66
Until this is fixed, failover may not work properly

because this node will not be able to check if the
database is running or not.
License has expired EDB Postgres Failover Manager has shutdown.
Your license subscription to run this product
expired on expiration_date. Please contact
your EnterpriseDB Account Manager to purchase a
new license subscription for Failover Manager.
License is invalid EDB Postgres Failover Manager has shutdown.
There is a problem with the Full Use License for
EDB Postgres Failover Manager that was provided
in the cluster properties file. Please check to be sure
it was entered correctly. If this problem persists,
please contact your EnterpriseDB Account
Manager.
Please note: In addition to sending notices to the administrative email address, all
notifications are recorded in the cluster log file (/var/log/efm-
2.1/cluster_name.log).
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8 Supported Failover and Failure

Scenarios
Failover Manager monitors a cluster for failures that may or may not result in failover.
Failover Manager supports a very specific and limited set of failover scenarios. Failover
can occur:
 if the Master database crashes or is shutdown.
 if the node hosting the Master database crashes, reboots, or otherwise becomes
unreachable due to network connectivity issues.
Failover Manager makes every attempt to verify the accuracy of these conditions. If
agents cannot confirm that the Master database or node has failed, Failover Manager will
not perform any failover actions on the cluster.
Failover Manager also supports a no auto-failover mode for situations where you want
Failover Manager to monitor and detect failover conditions, but not perform an automatic
failover to a Standby. In this mode, a notification is sent to the administrator when
failover conditions are met. To disable automatic failover, modify the cluster properties
file, setting the auto.failover parameter to false (see Section 3.2.1).
Failover Manager will alert an administrator to situations that require administrator

intervention, but that do not merit promoting a Standby database to Master.
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8.1 Master Database is Down

If the agent running on the Master database node detects a failure of the Master database,
Failover Manager begins the process of confirming the failure (see Figure 8.1).
Figure 8.1 - Confirming the Failure of the Master Database.
69
If the agent on the Master node detects that the Master database has failed, all agents
attempt to connect directly to the Master database. If an agent can connect to the
database, Failover Manager sends a notification about the state of the Master node. If no
agent can connect, the Master agent declares database failure and releases the VIP (if
applicable).
If no agent can reach the virtual IP address or the database server, Failover Manager
starts the failover process. The Standby agent on the most up-to-date node runs a fencing
script (if applicable), promotes the Standby database to Master database, and assigns the
virtual IP address to the Standby node. Any additional Standby nodes are configured to
replicate from the new master unless auto.reconfigure is set to false. If applicable,
the agent runs a post-promotion script.
Returning the Node to the Cluster
To recover from this scenario without restarting the entire cluster, you should:
1. Restart the database on the original Master node as a Standby database.
2. Invoke the efm resume command on the original Master node.
Returning the Node to the Role of Master
After returning the node to the cluster as a Standby, you can easily return the node to the
role of Master:
1. If the cluster has more than one Standby node, use the efm allow-node
command to set the node's failover priority to 1.
2. Invoke the efm promote -switchover command to promote the node to its
original role of Master node.
70
8.2 Standby Database is Down

If a Standby agent detects a failure of its database, the agent notifies the other agents; the
other agents confirm the state of the database (see Figure 8.2).
Figure 8.2 - Confirming the failure of a Standby Database.
After returning the Standby database to a healthy state, invoke the efm resume
command to return the Standby to the cluster.
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8.3 Master Agent Exits or Node Fails

If the Failover Manager Master agent exits or the node fails, a Standby agent will detect
the failure and (if appropriate) initiate a failover (see Figure 8.3).
Figure 8.3 - Confirming the failure of the Master Agent.
If an agent detects that the Master agent has left, all agents attempt to connect directly to
the Master database. If any agent can connect to the database, an agent sends a
notification about the failure of the Master agent. If no agent can connect, the agents
attempt to ping the virtual IP address to determine if it has been released.
72
If no agent can reach the virtual IP address or the database server, Failover Manager
starts the failover process. The Standby agent on the most up-to-date node runs a fencing
script (if applicable), promotes the Standby database to Master database, and assigns the
virtual IP address to the Standby node; if applicable, the agent runs a post-promotion
script. Any additional Standby nodes are configured to replicate from the new master
unless auto.reconfigure is set to false.
If this scenario has occurred because the master has been isolated from network, the
Master agent will detect the isolation and release the virtual IP address and create the
recovery.conf file. Failover Manager will perform the previously listed steps on the
remaining nodes of the cluster.
To recover from this scenario without restarting the entire cluster, you should:
1. Restart the original Master node.
2. Bring the original Master database up as a Standby node.
3. Start the service on the original Master node.
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8.4 Standby Agent Exits or Node Fails

If a Standby agent exits or a Standby node fails, the other agents will detect that it is no
longer connected to the cluster.
Figure 8.4 - Failure of Standby Agent.
When the failure is detected, the agents attempt to contact the database that resides on the
node; if the agents confirm that there is a problem, Failover Manager sends the
appropriate notification to the administrator.
If there is only one Master and one Standby remaining, there is no failover protection in
the case of a Master node failure. In the case of a Master database failure, the Master and
Standby agents can agree that the database failed and proceed with failover.
74
8.5 Dedicated Witness Agent Exits / Node Fails

The following scenario details the actions taken if a dedicated Witness (a node that is not
hosting a database) fails.
Figure 8.5 - Confirming the Failure of a dedicated Witness.
When an agent detects that the Witness node cannot be reached, Failover Manager
notifies the administrator of the state of the Witness (see Figure 8.5).
Note: If there is only one Master and one Standby remaining, there is no failover
protection in the case of a Master node failure. In the case of a Master database failure,
the Master and Standby agents can agree that the database failed and proceed with
failover.
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8.6 Nodes Become Isolated from the Cluster

The following scenario details the actions taken if one or more nodes (a minority of the
cluster) become isolated from the majority of the cluster.
Figure 8.6 – If members of the cluster become isolated.
If one or more nodes (but less than half of the cluster) become isolated from the rest of
the cluster, the remaining cluster behaves as if the nodes have failed. The agents attempt
to discern if the Master node is among the isolated nodes; it is, the Master fences itself off
from the cluster, while a Standby node (from within the cluster majority) is promoted to
replace it. Other Standby nodes are configured to replicate from the new master unless
auto.reconfigure is set to false.
Failover Manager then notifies an administrator, and the isolated nodes rejoin the cluster
when they are able. When the nodes rejoin the cluster, the failover priority may change.
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9 Upgrading an Existing Cluster

Failover Manager 2.1 provides a utility to assist you when upgrading a Failover Manager
2.0 cluster to Failover Manager 2.1. To upgrade an existing cluster, you must:
1. Install Failover Manager 2.1 on each node of the cluster. For detailed information
about installing Failover Manager, see Section 3.
Invoke the efm upgrade-conf utility to create the .properties and .nodes
files for Failover Manager 2.1. The Failover Manager installer adds the upgrade
utility (efm upgrade-conf) to the /usr/efm-2.1/bin directory. To invoke
the utility, assume root privileges, and invoke the command:
efm upgrade-conf cluster_name
The efm upgrade-conf utility locates the .properties and .nodes files of a
2.0 cluster (stored in /etc/efm-2.0) and copies the parameter values to a
configuration file for use by Failover Manager 2.1. The utility saves the updated
copy of the configuration files in the /etc/efm-2.1 directory for use by
Failover Manager 2.1.
2. Modify the .properties and .nodes files for EFM 2.1, specifying any new
preferences. Version 2.1 of Failover Manager adds the following configuration
parameters:
auto.allow.hosts
auto.resume.period
db.service.name
jvm.options
minimum.standbys
node.timeout
promotable
recovery.check.period
script.notification
script.resumed
Use your choice of editor to modify any additional properties in the properties file
(located in the /etc/efm-2.1 directory) before starting the service for that node.
Please note: If you use an operating system service script (via the service or
systemctl command) when starting and stopping the database on a non-witness
node, you must provide the service name in the db.service.name parameter.
The jgroups.max.tries and jgroups.timeout properties are replaced by the

node.timeout property.
77
For detailed information about parameter settings, see Section 3.2.
3. Stop the Failover Manager 2.0 cluster; for example, you can use the command:
/usr/efm-2.0/bin/efm stop-cluster efm
4. Start the efm-2.1 service on each node of the cluster. For more information
about starting the service, see Section 4.1.1.
The following example demonstrates invoking the upgrade utility to create the .properties
and .nodes files for an EFM 2.1 installation:
[root@localhost bin]# ./efm upgrade-conf efm

Processing efm.properties file.
Setting new property node.timeout to 40 (sec) based on existing
timeout 5000 (ms) and max tries 8.
Processing efm.nodes file.
Upgrade of files is finished. Please ensure that the new file

permissions match those of the template files before starting
EFM.
The db.service.name property should be set before starting a non-
witness agent.
9.1 Un-installing Failover Manager

After upgrading to Failover Manager 2.1, you can use Yum to remove Failover Manager
2.0. Use the following command to remove Failover Manager 2.0 and any unneeded
dependencies:
yum remove efm20
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10 Appendix A - Configuring
Streaming Replication
The following section will walk you through the process of configuring a simple two-
node replication scenario that uses streaming replication to replicate data from a Master
node to a Standby node. The replication process for larger scenarios can be complex; for
detailed information about configuration options, please see the PostgreSQL core
documentation, available at:
http://www.enterprisedb.com/docs/en/9.5/pg/warm-standby.html#STREAMING-
REPLICATION
In the example that follows, we will use a .pgpass file to enable md5 authentication for
the replication user – this may or may not be the safest authentication method for your
environment. For more information about the supported authentication options, please
see the PostgreSQL core documentation at:
http://www.enterprisedb.com/docs/en/9.5/pg/client-authentication.html
The steps that follow configure a simple streaming replication scenario with one Master
node and one Standby node, each running an installation of EDB Postgres Advanced
Server. In the example:
 The Master node resides on 146.148.46.44

 The Standby node resides on 107.178.217.178
 The replication user name is edbrepuser.
The pathnames and commands referenced in the examples are for Advanced Server hosts
that reside on a CentOS 6.5 host – you may have to modify paths and commands for your
configuration.
Configuring the Master Node
Connect to the master node of the replication scenario, and modify the pg_hba.conf
file (located in the data directory under your Postgres installation), adding connection
information for the replication user (in our example, edbrepuser):
host replication edbrepuser 107.178.217.178/32 md5
The connection information should specify the address of the standby node of the
replication scenario, and your preferred authentication method.
79
Modify the postgresql.conf file (located in the data directory, under your
Postgres installation), adding the following replication parameter and values to
the end of the file:
wal_level = hot_standby
max_wal_senders = 8
wal_keep_segments = 128
archive_mode = on
archive_command = 'cp %p /tmp/%f'
Save the configuration file and restart the server:
/etc/init.d/ppas-9.5 restart
Use the sudo su – command to assume the identity of the enterprisedb database
superuser:
sudo su - enterprisedb
Then, start a psql session, connecting to the edb database:
psql -d edb
At the psql command line, create a user with the replication attribute:
CREATE ROLE edbrepuser WITH REPLICATION LOGIN PASSWORD

'password';
Configuring the Standby Node
Connect to the Standby server, and assume the identity of the database superuser
(enterprisedb):
With your choice of editor, create a .pgpass file in the home directory of the
enterprisedb user. The .pgpass file holds the password of the replication user in
plain-text form; if you are using a .pgpass file, you should ensure that only trusted
users have access to the .pgpass file:
Add an entry that specifies connection information for the replication user:
*:5444:*:edbrepuser:password
The server will enforce restrictive permissions on the .pgpass file; use the following
command to set the file permissions:
80
chmod 600 .pgpass
Relinquish the identity of the database superuser:
exit
Then, assume superuser privileges:
sudo su -
You must stop the database server before replacing the data directory on the Standby
node with the data directory of the Master node. Use the command:
/etc/init.d/ppas-9.5 stop
Then, delete the data directory on the Standby node:
rm -rf /opt/PostgresPlus/9.5AS/data
After deleting the existing data directory, use the pg_basebackup utility to copy the
data directory of the Master node to the Standby:
./pg_basebackup –R –D /opt/PostgresPlus/9.5AS/data
--host=146.148.46.44 –port=5444
--username=edbrepuser --password
The call to pg_basebackup specifies the IP address of the Master node and the name of
the replication user created on the Master node. For more information about the options
available with the pg_basebackup utility, see the PostgreSQL core documentation at:
http://www.enterprisedb.com/docs/en/9.5/pg/app-pgbasebackup.html
When prompted by pg_basebackup, provide the password associated with the

replication user.
After copying the data directory, change ownership of the directory to the database
superuser (enterprisedb):
chown -R enterprisedb /opt/PostgresPlus/9.5AS/data
Navigate into the data directory:
cd /opt/PostgresPlus/9.5AS/data
With your choice of editor, create a file named recovery.conf( in the

/opt/PostgresPlus/9.xAS/data directory) that includes:
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standby_mode = on
primary_conninfo = 'host=146.148.46.44 port=5444 user=edbrepuser
sslmode=prefer sslcompression=1 krbsrvname=postgres'
trigger_file = '/opt/PostgresPlus/AS9.5/data/mytrigger'
restore_command = '/bin/true'
recovery_target_timeline = 'latest'
Please note: the primary_conninfo parameter specifies connection information for the
replication user on the master node of the replication scenario.
Change ownership of the recovery.conf file to enterprisedb:
chown enterprisedb:enterprisedb recovery.conf
Modify the postgresql.conf file (located in data directory, under the Postgres
installation), specifying the following values at the end of the file:
wal_level = hot_standby
max_wal_senders = 8
wal_keep_segments = 128
hot_standby = on
The data file has been copied from the Master node, and will contain the replication
parameters specified previously.
Then, restart the server:
/etc/init.d/ppas-9.5 start
At this point, the Master node will be replicating data to the Standby node.
Confirming Replication from the Master to Standby
You can confirm that the server is running and replicating by entering the command:
ps -ef | grep postgres
If replication is running, the Standby server will echo:
501 42054 1 0 07:57 pts/1 00:00:00

/opt/PostgresPlus/9.2AS/bin/edb-postgres -D
/opt/PostgresPlus/9.2AS/data
501 42055 42054 0 07:57 ? 00:00:00 postgres: logger process
501 42056 42054 0 07:57 ? 00:00:00 postgres: startup
process recovering 000000010000000000000004
501 42057 42054 0 07:57 ? 00:00:00 postgres: checkpointer
process
501 42058 42054 0 07:57 ? 00:00:00 postgres: writer process
501 42059 42054 0 07:57 ? 00:00:00 postgres: stats
82
collector process
501 42060 42054 0 07:57 ? 00:00:00 postgres: wal receiver
process streaming 0/4000150
501 42068 42025 0 07:58 pts/1 00:00:00 grep postgres
If you connect to the Standby with the psql client and query the
pg_is_in_recovery() function, the server will reply:
edb=# select pg_is_in_recovery();

pg_is_in_recovery
-------------------
t
(1 row)
Any entries made to the Master node will be replicated to the Standby node. The
Standby node will operate in read-only mode; while you can query the Standby server,
you will not be able to add entries directly to the database that resides on the Standby
node.
Manually Invoking Failover
To promote the Standby to become the Master node, assume the identity of the cluster
owner (enterprisedb):
Then, invoke pg_ctl:
/opt/PostgresPlus/9.5AS/bin/pg_ctl promote -D /
opt/PostgresPlus/9.5AS /data/
Then, if you connect to the Standby node with psql, the server will confirm that it is no
longer a standby node:
edb=# select pg_is_in_recovery();

pg_is_in_recovery
-------------------
f
(1 row)
For more information about configuring and using streaming replication, please refer to
Chapter 25 of the PostgreSQL core documentation, available at:
https://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.5/static/high-availability.html
83
11 Appendix B - Configuring SSL

Authentication on a Failover
Manager Cluster
The following steps enable SSL authentication for Failover Manager. Please note that all
connecting clients will be required to use SSL authentication when connecting to any
database server within the cluster; you will be required to modify the connection methods
currently used by existing clients.
To enable SSL on a Failover Manager cluster, you must:
1. Place a server.crt and server.key file in the data directory (under your
Advanced Server installation). You can purchase a certificate signed by an authority,
or create your own self-signed certificate. For information about creating a self-
signed certificate, see the PostgreSQL core documentation at:
http://www.enterprisedb.com/docs/en/9.5/pg/ssl-tcp.html#SSL-CERTIFICATE-
CREATION
2. Modify the postgresql.conf file on each database within the Failover Manager
cluster, enabling SSL:
ssl=on
After modifying the postgresql.conf file, you must restart the server.
3. Modify the pg_hba.conf file on each node of the Failover Manager cluster, adding
the following line to the beginning of the file:
hostnossl all all all reject
The line instructs the server to reject any connections that are not using SSL
authentication; this enforces SSL authentication for any connecting clients. For
information about modifying the pg_hba.conf file, see the PostgreSQL core
documentation at:
http://www.enterprisedb.com/docs/en/9.5/pg/auth-pg-hba-conf.html
4. After placing the server.crt and server.key file in the data directory, convert the
certificate to a form that Java understands; you can use the command:
openssl x509 -in server.crt -out server.crt.der -outform der
For more information, see:

84
https://jdbc.postgresql.org/documentation/94/ssl-client.html
5. Then, add the certificate to the Java trusted certificates file:
keytool -keystore $JAVA_HOME/lib/security/cacerts -alias

alias_name -import -file server.crt.der
Where
$JAVA_HOME is the home directory of your Java installation.
alias_name can be any string, but must be unique for each certificate.
You can use the keytool command to review a list of the available certificates or
retrieve information about a specific certificate. For more information about using
the keytool command, enter:
man keytool
The certificate from each database server must be imported into the trusted
certificates file of each agent. Note that the location of the cacerts file may vary on
each system. For more information, visit:
https://jdbc.postgresql.org/documentation/94/ssl-client.html
6. Modify the efm.properties file on each server within the cluster, enabling ssl:
jdbc.ssl=true
After modifying the efm.properties file, restart the Failover Manager agent. For
more information about restarting the Failover Manager service, see Section 5.
85
12 Inquiries
If you have any questions regarding EDB Postgres Failover Manager, please contact
EnterpriseDB at:
[email protected]
86

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EDB Postgres Failover Manager Guide

EDB Postgres Failover Manager Version 2.1

August 15, 2016

EDB Postgres Failover Manager Guide, Version 2.1

EnterpriseDB Corporation, 34 Crosby Drive Suite 100, Bedford, MA 01730, USA

Copyright © 2013 - 2016 EnterpriseDB Corporation. All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2013 - 2016 EnterpriseDB Corporation. All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2013 - 2016 EnterpriseDB Corporation. All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2013 - 2016 EnterpriseDB Corporation. All rights reserved.

1.1 What’s New

 Failover Manager now simplifies cluster startup with the auto.allow.hosts

 Failover Manager now includes the minimum.standbys parameter, allowing you

 Failover Manager includes the auto.resume.period property; the property

 The Failover Manager Membership Coordinator simplifies adding a new standby

 efm promote now includes a -switchover option; the -switchover option

Copyright © 2013 - 2016 EnterpriseDB Corporation. All rights reserved.

 Failover Manager provides an upgrade utility that copies configuration

1.2 Typographical Conventions Used in this Guide

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2 Failover Manager - Overview

 One or more Standby nodes - A Standby node is a streaming replication server

Traditionally, a cluster is a single instance of Postgres managing multiple databases. In

Figure 2.1 - A FM scenario employing a Virtual IP address.

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2.1 Supported Platforms

 CentOS 6.x and 7.x

 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.x and 7.x

 Oracle Enterprise Linux 6.x and 7.x

Copyright © 2013 - 2016 EnterpriseDB Corporation. All rights reserved.

Provide an SMTP Server

You can receive notifications from Failover Manager as specified by a user-defined

For more information, see Section 3.2.1.1.

Configure Streaming Replication

Failover Manager requires that PostgreSQL streaming replication be configured between

Modify the pg_hba.conf File

# access for itself

efm specifies the name of a valid database user.

Where x specifies the Postgres version.

Using Autostart for the Database Servers

Ensure Communication Through Firewalls

# iptables -I INPUT -p tcp --dport 7800:7810 -j ACCEPT

Install Java 1.6 (or later)

# yum install java-1.7.0

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Ensure that the db.user has Sufficient Privileges

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2.3 Failover Manager Product Keys

or contact EnterpriseDB at:

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3 Installing and Configuring Failover

Failover Manager is packaged and delivered as an RPM. To install Failover

# yum install efm21-x.x.x-x.distribution.rpm

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Failover Manager File Locations

Failover Manager components are installed in the following locations:

3.1 Extending Failover Manager Permissions

 When performing management functions requiring database superuser privileges,

 When performing management functions requiring operating system superuser

 When assigning or releasing a virtual IP address, efm invokes the efm_address

The efm_db_functions or efm_root_functions scripts perform management