A node shutdown terminates the cockroach
process on the node.
There are two ways to handle node shutdown:
To temporarily stop a node and restart it later, drain the node and terminate the
cockroach
process. This is done when upgrading the cluster version or performing cluster maintenance (e.g., upgrading system software). With a drain, the data stored on the node is preserved, and will be reused if the node restarts within a reasonable timeframe. There is little node-to-node traffic involved, which makes a drain lightweight.To permanently remove the node from the cluster, decommission the node and then terminate the
cockroach
process. This is done when scaling down a cluster or reacting to hardware failures. With a decommission, the data is moved out of the node. Replica rebalancing creates network traffic throughout the cluster, which makes a decommission heavyweight.
This page describes:
- The details of the node shutdown sequence from the point of view of the
cockroach
process on a CockroachDB node. - How to prepare for graceful shutdown on CockroachDB Self-Hosted clusters by coordinating load balancer, client application server, process manager, and cluster settings.
- How to perform node shutdown on CockroachDB Self-Hosted deployments by manually draining or decommissioning a node.
- How to handle node shutdown when CockroachDB is deployed using Kubernetes or in a CockroachDB Dedicated cluster.
This guidance applies to primarily to manual deployments. For more details about graceful termination when CockroachDB is deployed using Kubernetes, refer to Decommissioning and draining on Kubernetes. For more details about graceful termination in a CockroachDB Dedicated cluster, refer to Decommissioning and draining on CockroachDB Dedicated.
Node shutdown sequence
When a node is temporarily stopped, the following stages occur in sequence:
When a node is permanently removed, the following stages occur in sequence:
Decommissioning
An operator initiates the decommissioning process on the node.
The node's is_decommissioning
field is set to true
and its membership
status is set to decommissioning
, which causes its replicas to be rebalanced to other nodes. If the rebalancing stalls during decommissioning, replicas that have yet to move are printed to the SQL shell and written to the OPS
logging channel. By default, the OPS
channel logs output to a cockroach.log
file.
The node's /health?ready=1
endpoint continues to consider the node "ready" so that the node can function as a gateway to route SQL client connections to relevant data.
After this stage, the node is automatically drained. However, to avoid possible disruptions in query performance, we recommend manually draining before decommissioning. For more information, see Perform node shutdown.
Draining
An operator initiates the draining process on the node. Draining a node disconnects clients after active queries are completed, and transfers any range leases and Raft leaderships to other nodes, but does not move replicas or data off of the node.
After all replicas on a decommissioning node are rebalanced, the node is automatically drained.
Node drain consists of the following consecutive phases:
Unready phase: The node's
/health?ready=1
endpoint returns an HTTP503 Service Unavailable
response code, which causes load balancers and connection managers to reroute traffic to other nodes. This phase completes when the fixed duration set byserver.shutdown.drain_wait
is reached.SQL wait phase: New SQL client connections are no longer permitted, and any remaining SQL client connections are allowed to close or time out. This phase completes either when all SQL client connections are closed or the maximum duration set by
server.shutdown.connection_wait
is reached.SQL drain phase: All active transactions and statements for which the node is a gateway are allowed to complete, and CockroachDB closes the SQL client connections immediately afterward. After this phase completes, CockroachDB closes all remaining SQL client connections to the node. This phase completes either when all transactions have been processed or the maximum duration set by
server.shutdown.query_wait
is reached.DistSQL drain phase: All distributed statements initiated on other gateway nodes are allowed to complete, and DistSQL requests from other nodes are no longer accepted. This phase completes either when all transactions have been processed or the maximum duration set by
server.shutdown.query_wait
is reached.Lease transfer phase: The node's
is_draining
field is set totrue
, which removes the node as a candidate for replica rebalancing, lease transfers, and query planning. Any range leases or Raft leaderships must be transferred to other nodes. This phase completes when all range leases and Raft leaderships have been transferred.Since all range replicas were already removed from the node during the decommissioning stage, this step immediately resolves.
When draining manually, if the above steps have not completed after 10 minutes by default, node draining will stop and must be restarted to continue. For more information, see Drain timeout.
Status change
After decommissioning and draining are both complete, the node membership changes from decommissioning
to decommissioned
.
This node is now cut off from communicating with the rest of the cluster. A client attempting to connect to a decommissioned
node and run a query will get an error.
At this point, the cockroach
process is still running. It is only stopped by process termination.
Process termination
An operator terminates the node process.
After draining completes, the node process is automatically terminated (unless the node was manually drained).
A node process termination stops the cockroach
process on the node. The node will stop updating its liveness record.
If the node then stays offline for the duration set by server.time_until_store_dead
(5 minutes by default), the cluster considers the node "dead" and starts to rebalance its range replicas onto other nodes.
If the node is brought back online, its remaining range replicas will determine whether or not they are still valid members of replica groups. If a range replica is still valid and any data in its range has changed, it will receive updates from another replica in the group. If a range replica is no longer valid, it will be removed from the node.
A node that stays offline for the duration set by the server.time_until_store_dead
cluster setting (5 minutes by default) is usually considered "dead" by the cluster. However, a decommissioned node retains decommissioned status.
CockroachDB's node shutdown behavior does not match any of the PostgreSQL server shutdown modes.
Prepare for graceful shutdown
Each of the node shutdown steps is performed in order, with each step commencing once the previous step has completed. However, because some steps can be interrupted, it's best to ensure that all steps complete gracefully.
Before you perform node shutdown, review the following prerequisites to graceful shutdown:
- Configure your load balancer to monitor node health.
- Review and adjust cluster settings and drain timeout as needed for your deployment.
- Configure the termination grace period of your process manager or orchestration system.
- Ensure that the size and replication factor of your cluster are sufficient to handle decommissioning.
Load balancing
Your load balancer should use the /health?ready=1
endpoint to actively monitor node health and direct SQL client connections away from draining nodes.
To handle node shutdown effectively, the load balancer must be given enough time by the server.shutdown.drain_wait
duration.
Cluster settings
server.shutdown.drain_wait
server.shutdown.drain_wait
sets a fixed duration for the "unready phase" of node drain. Because a load balancer reroutes connections to non-draining nodes within this duration (0s
by default), this setting should be coordinated with the load balancer settings.
Increase server.shutdown.drain_wait
so that your load balancer is able to make adjustments before this phase times out. Because the drain process waits unconditionally for the server.shutdown.drain_wait
duration, do not set this value too high.
For example, HAProxy uses the default settings inter 2000 fall 3
when checking server health. This means that HAProxy considers a node to be down (and temporarily removes the server from the pool) after 3 unsuccessful health checks being run at intervals of 2000 milliseconds. To ensure HAProxy can run 3 consecutive checks before timeout, set server.shutdown.drain_wait
to 8s
or greater:
SET CLUSTER SETTING server.shutdown.drain_wait = '8s';
server.shutdown.connection_wait
server.shutdown.connection_wait
sets the maximum duration for the "connection phase" of node drain. SQL client connections are allowed to close or time out within this duration (0s
by default). This setting presents an option to gracefully close the connections before CockroachDB forcibly closes those that remain after the "SQL drain phase".
Change this setting only if you cannot tolerate connection errors during node drain and cannot configure the maximum lifetime of SQL client connections, which is usually configurable via a connection pool. Depending on your requirements:
- Lower the maximum lifetime of a SQL client connection in the pool. This will cause more frequent reconnections. Set
server.shutdown.connection_wait
above this value. - If you cannot tolerate more frequent reconnections, do not change the SQL client connection lifetime. Instead, use a longer
server.shutdown.connection_wait
. This will cause a longer draining process.
server.shutdown.query_wait
server.shutdown.query_wait
sets the maximum duration for the "SQL drain phase" and the maximum duration for the "DistSQL drain phase" of node drain. Active local and distributed queries must complete, in turn, within this duration (10s
by default).
Ensure that server.shutdown.query_wait
is greater than:
- The longest possible transaction in the workload that is expected to complete successfully.
- The
sql.defaults.idle_in_transaction_session_timeout
cluster setting, which controls the duration a session is permitted to idle in a transaction before the session is terminated (0s
by default). - The
sql.defaults.statement_timeout
cluster setting, which controls the duration a query is permitted to run before it is canceled (0s
by default).
server.shutdown.query_wait
defines the upper bound of the duration, meaning that node drain proceeds to the next phase as soon as the last open transaction completes.
If there are still open transactions on the draining node when the server closes its connections, you will encounter errors. You may need to adjust your application server's connection pool settings.
New in v22.2: Use ALTER ROLE ALL SET {sessionvar} = {val}
instead of the sql.defaults.*
cluster settings. This allows you to set a default value for all users for any session variable that applies during login, making the sql.defaults.*
cluster settings redundant.
server.shutdown.lease_transfer_wait
In the "lease transfer phase" of node drain, the server attempts to transfer all range leases and Raft leaderships from the draining node. server.shutdown.lease_transfer_wait
sets the maximum duration of each iteration of this attempt (5s
by default). Because this phase does not exit until all transfers are completed, changing this value only affects the frequency at which drain progress messages are printed.
In most cases, the default value is suitable. Do not set server.shutdown.lease_transfer_wait
to a value lower than 5s
. In this case, leases can fail to transfer and node drain will not be able to complete.
Since decommissioning a node rebalances all of its range replicas onto other nodes, no replicas will remain on the node by the time draining begins. Therefore, no iterations occur during this phase. This setting can be left alone.
The sum of server.shutdown.drain_wait
, server.shutdown.connection_wait
, server.shutdown.query_wait
times two, and server.shutdown.lease_transfer_wait
should not be greater than the configured drain timeout.
kv.allocator.recovery_store_selector
When a node is dead or decommissioning and all of its range replicas are being up-replicated onto other nodes, this setting controls the algorithm used to select the new node for each range replica. Regardless of the algorithm, a node must satisfy all available constraints for replica placement and survivability to be eligible.
Possible values are good
(the default) and best
. When set to good
, a random node is selected from the list of all eligible nodes. When set to best
, a node with a low range count is preferred.
server.time_until_store_dead
server.time_until_store_dead
sets the duration after which a node is considered "dead" and its data is rebalanced to other nodes (5m0s
by default). In the node shutdown sequence, this follows process termination.
Before temporarily stopping nodes for planned maintenance (e.g., upgrading system software), if you expect any nodes to be offline for longer than 5 minutes, you can prevent the cluster from unnecessarily moving data off the nodes by increasing server.time_until_store_dead
to match the estimated maintenance window:
During this window, the cluster has reduced ability to tolerate another node failure. Be aware that increasing this value therefore reduces fault tolerance.
SET CLUSTER SETTING server.time_until_store_dead = '15m0s';
After completing the maintenance work and restarting the nodes, you would then change the setting back to its default:
RESET CLUSTER SETTING server.time_until_store_dead;
Drain timeout
When draining manually with cockroach node drain
, all drain phases must be completed within the duration of --drain-wait
(10m
by default) or the drain will stop. This can be observed with an ERROR: drain timeout
message in the terminal output. To continue the drain, re-initiate the command.
A very long drain may indicate an anomaly, and you should manually inspect the server to determine what blocks the drain.
CockroachDB automatically increases the verbosity of logging when it detects a stall in the range lease transfer stage of node drain
. Messages logged during such a stall include the time an attempt occurred, the total duration stalled waiting for the transfer attempt to complete, and the lease that is being transferred.
--drain-wait
sets the timeout for all draining phases and is not related to the server.shutdown.drain_wait
cluster setting, which configures the "unready phase" of draining. The value of --drain-wait
should be greater than the sum of server.shutdown.drain_wait
, server.shutdown.connection_wait
, server.shutdown.query_wait
times two, and server.shutdown.lease_transfer_wait
.
Termination grace period
On production deployments, a process manager or orchestration system can disrupt graceful node shutdown if its termination grace period is too short.
If the cockroach
process has not terminated at the end of the grace period, a SIGKILL
signal is sent to perform a "hard" shutdown that bypasses CockroachDB's node shutdown logic and forcibly terminates the process. This can corrupt log files and, in certain edge cases, can result in temporary data unavailability, latency spikes, uncertainty errors, ambiguous commit errors, or query timeouts. When decommissioning, a hard shutdown will leave ranges under-replicated and vulnerable to another node failure until up-replication completes, which could cause loss of quorum.
When using
systemd
to run CockroachDB as a service, set the termination grace period withTimeoutStopSec
setting in the service file.When using Kubernetes to orchestrate CockroachDB, refer to Decommissioning and draining on Kubernetes.
To determine an appropriate termination grace period:
Run
cockroach node drain
with--drain-wait
and observe the amount of time it takes node drain to successfully complete.In general, we recommend setting the termination grace period to the sum of all
server.shutdown.*
settings. If a node requires more time than this to drain successfully, this may indicate a technical issue such as inadequate cluster sizing.Increasing the termination grace period does not increase the duration of a node shutdown. However, the termination grace period should not be excessively long, in case an underlying hardware or software issue causes node shutdown to become "stuck".
Size and replication factor
Before decommissioning a node, make sure other nodes are available to take over the range replicas from the node. If fewer nodes are available than the replication factor, CockroachDB will automatically reduce the replication factor (for example, from 5 to 3) to try to allow the decommission to succeed. However, the replication factor will not be reduced lower than 3. If three nodes are not available, the decommissioning process will hang indefinitely until nodes are added or you update the zone configurations to use a replication factor of 1.
3-node cluster with 3-way replication
In this scenario, each range is replicated 3 times, with each replica on a different node:
If you try to decommission a node, the process will hang indefinitely because the cluster cannot move the decommissioning node's replicas to the other 2 nodes, which already have a replica of each range:
To successfully decommission a node in this cluster, you need to add a 4th node. The decommissioning process can then complete:
5-node cluster with 3-way replication
In this scenario, like in the scenario above, each range is replicated 3 times, with each replica on a different node:
If you decommission a node, the process will run successfully because the cluster will be able to move the node's replicas to other nodes without doubling up any range replicas:
Perform node shutdown
After preparing for graceful shutdown, do the following to temporarily stop a node. This both drains the node and terminates the cockroach
process.
After preparing for graceful shutdown, do the following to permanently remove a node.
This guidance applies to manual deployments. In a Kubernetes deployment or a CockroachDB Dedicated cluster, terminating the cockroach
process is handled through Kubernetes. Refer to Decommissioning and draining on Kubernetes and Decommissioning and draining on CockroachDB Dedicated.
Drain the node
Although draining automatically follows decommissioning, we recommend first running cockroach node drain
to manually drain the node of active queries, SQL client connections, and leases before decommissioning. This is optional, but prevents possible disruptions in query performance. For specific instructions, see the example.
Decommission the node
Run cockroach node decommission
to decommission the node and rebalance its range replicas. For specific instructions and additional guidelines, see the example.
If the rebalancing stalls during decommissioning, replicas that have yet to move are printed to the SQL shell and written to the OPS
logging channel with the message possible decommission stall detected
. By default, the OPS
channel logs output to a cockroach.log
file.
Do not terminate the node process, delete the storage volume, or remove the VM before a decommissioning
node has changed its membership status to decommissioned
. Prematurely terminating the process will prevent the node from rebalancing all of its range replicas onto other nodes gracefully, cause transient query errors in client applications, and leave the remaining ranges under-replicated and vulnerable to loss of quorum if another node goes down.
Terminate the node process
Drain the node and terminate the node process
To drain the node without process termination, see Drain a node manually.
We do not recommend sending SIGKILL
to perform a "hard" shutdown, which bypasses CockroachDB's node shutdown logic and forcibly terminates the process. This can corrupt log files and, in certain edge cases, can result in temporary data unavailability, latency spikes, uncertainty errors, ambiguous commit errors, or query timeouts. When decommissioning, a hard shutdown will leave ranges under-replicated and vulnerable to another node failure, causing quorum loss in the window before up-replication completes.
On production deployments, use the process manager to send
SIGTERM
to the process.- For example, with
systemd
, runsystemctl stop {systemd config filename}
.
- For example, with
When using CockroachDB for local testing:
- When running a server on the foreground, use
ctrl-c
in the terminal to sendSIGINT
to the process. - When running with the
--background
flag, usepkill
,kill
, or look up the process ID withps -ef | grep cockroach | grep -v grep
and then runkill -TERM {process ID}
.
- When running a server on the foreground, use
Monitor shutdown progress
After you initiate a node shutdown or restart, the node's progress is regularly logged to the default logging destination until the operation is complete. The following sections provide additional ways to monitor the operation's progress.
OPS
During node shutdown, progress messages are generated in the OPS
logging channel. The frequency of these messages is configured with server.shutdown.lease_transfer_wait
. By default, the OPS
logs output to a cockroach.log
file.
Node decommission progress is reported in node_decommissioning
and node_decommissioned
events:
grep 'decommission' node1/logs/cockroach.log
I220211 02:14:30.906726 13931 1@util/log/event_log.go:32 â‹® [-] 1064 ={"Timestamp":1644545670665746000,"EventType":"node_decommissioning","RequestingNodeID":1,"TargetNodeID":4}
I220211 02:14:31.288715 13931 1@util/log/event_log.go:32 â‹® [-] 1067 ={"Timestamp":1644545670665746000,"EventType":"node_decommissioning","RequestingNodeID":1,"TargetNodeID":5}
I220211 02:16:39.093251 21514 1@util/log/event_log.go:32 â‹® [-] 1680 ={"Timestamp":1644545798928274000,"EventType":"node_decommissioned","RequestingNodeID":1,"TargetNodeID":4}
I220211 02:16:39.656225 21514 1@util/log/event_log.go:32 â‹® [-] 1681 ={"Timestamp":1644545798928274000,"EventType":"node_decommissioned","RequestingNodeID":1,"TargetNodeID":5}
Node drain progress is reported in unstructured log messages:
grep 'drain' node1/logs/cockroach.log
I220202 20:51:21.654349 2867 1@server/drain.go:210 â‹® [n1,server drain process] 299 drain remaining: 15
I220202 20:51:21.654425 2867 1@server/drain.go:212 â‹® [n1,server drain process] 300 drain details: descriptor leases: 7, liveness record: 1, range lease iterations: 7
I220202 20:51:23.052931 2867 1@server/drain.go:210 â‹® [n1,server drain process] 309 drain remaining: 1
I220202 20:51:23.053217 2867 1@server/drain.go:212 â‹® [n1,server drain process] 310 drain details: range lease iterations: 1
W220202 20:51:23.772264 681 sql/stmtdiagnostics/statement_diagnostics.go:162 ⋮ [n1] 313 error polling for statement diagnostics requests: ‹stmt-diag-poll›: cannot acquire lease when draining
E220202 20:51:23.800288 685 jobs/registry.go:715 ⋮ [n1] 314 error expiring job sessions: ‹expire-sessions›: cannot acquire lease when draining
E220202 20:51:23.819957 685 jobs/registry.go:723 ⋮ [n1] 315 failed to serve pause and cancel requests: could not query jobs table: ‹cancel/pause-requested›: cannot acquire lease when draining
I220202 20:51:24.672435 2867 1@server/drain.go:210 â‹® [n1,server drain process] 320 drain remaining: 0
I220202 20:51:24.984089 1 1@cli/start.go:868 â‹® [n1] 332 server drained and shutdown completed
cockroach node status
Draining status is reflected in the cockroach node status --decommission
output:
cockroach node status --decommission --certs-dir=certs --host={address of any live node}
id | address | sql_address | build | started_at | updated_at | locality | is_available | is_live | gossiped_replicas | is_decommissioning | membership | is_draining
-----+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+----------------------------+----------------------------+----------+--------------+---------+-------------------+--------------------+----------------+--------------
1 | localhost:26257 | localhost:26257 | v22.2.0-alpha.1 | 2022-09-01 02:11:55.07734 | 2022-09-01 02:17:28.202777 | | true | true | 73 | false | active | true
2 | localhost:26258 | localhost:26258 | v22.2.0-alpha.1 | 2022-09-01 02:11:56.203535 | 2022-09-01 02:17:29.465841 | | true | true | 73 | false | active | false
3 | localhost:26259 | localhost:26259 | v22.2.0-alpha.1 | 2022-09-01 02:11:56.406667 | 2022-09-01 02:17:29.588486 | | true | true | 73 | false | active | false
(3 rows)
is_draining == true
indicates that the node is either undergoing or has completed the draining process.
Draining and decommissioning statuses are reflected in the cockroach node status --decommission
output:
cockroach node status --decommission --certs-dir=certs --host={address of any live node}
id | address | sql_address | build | started_at | updated_at | locality | is_available | is_live | gossiped_replicas | is_decommissioning | membership | is_draining
-----+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+----------------------------+----------------------------+----------+--------------+---------+-------------------+--------------------+----------------+--------------
1 | localhost:26257 | localhost:26257 | v22.2.0-alpha.1 | 2022-09-01 02:11:55.07734 | 2022-09-01 02:17:28.202777 | | true | true | 73 | false | active | false
2 | localhost:26258 | localhost:26258 | v22.2.0-alpha.1 | 2022-09-01 02:11:56.203535 | 2022-09-01 02:17:29.465841 | | true | true | 73 | false | active | false
3 | localhost:26259 | localhost:26259 | v22.2.0-alpha.1 | 2022-09-01 02:11:56.406667 | 2022-09-01 02:17:29.588486 | | true | true | 73 | false | active | false
4 | localhost:26260 | localhost:26260 | v22.2.0-alpha.1 | 2022-09-01 02:11:56.914003 | 2022-09-01 02:16:39.032709 | | false | false | 0 | true | decommissioned | true
5 | localhost:26261 | localhost:26261 | v22.2.0-alpha.1 | 2022-09-01 02:11:57.613508 | 2022-09-01 02:16:39.615783 | | false | false | 0 | true | decommissioned | true
(5 rows)
is_draining == true
indicates that the node is either undergoing or has completed the draining process.is_decommissioning == true
indicates that the node is either undergoing or has completed the decommissioning process.- When a node completes decommissioning, its
membership
status changes fromdecommissioning
todecommissioned
.
stderr
When CockroachDB receives a signal to drain and terminate the node process, this message is printed to stderr
:
When CockroachDB receives a signal to terminate the node process, this message is printed to stderr
:
initiating graceful shutdown of server
After the cockroach
process has stopped, this message is printed to stderr
:
server drained and shutdown completed
Examples
These examples assume that you have already prepared for a graceful node shutdown.
Stop and restart a node
To drain and shut down a node that was started in the foreground with cockroach start
:
Press
ctrl-c
in the terminal where the node is running.initiating graceful shutdown of server server drained and shutdown completed
Filter the logs for draining progress messages. By default, the
OPS
logs output to acockroach.log
file:grep 'drain' node1/logs/cockroach.log
I220202 20:51:21.654349 2867 1@server/drain.go:210 ⋮ [n1,server drain process] 299 drain remaining: 15 I220202 20:51:21.654425 2867 1@server/drain.go:212 ⋮ [n1,server drain process] 300 drain details: descriptor leases: 7, liveness record: 1, range lease iterations: 7 I220202 20:51:23.052931 2867 1@server/drain.go:210 ⋮ [n1,server drain process] 309 drain remaining: 1 I220202 20:51:23.053217 2867 1@server/drain.go:212 ⋮ [n1,server drain process] 310 drain details: range lease iterations: 1 W220202 20:51:23.772264 681 sql/stmtdiagnostics/statement_diagnostics.go:162 ⋮ [n1] 313 error polling for statement diagnostics requests: ‹stmt-diag-poll›: cannot acquire lease when draining E220202 20:51:23.800288 685 jobs/registry.go:715 ⋮ [n1] 314 error expiring job sessions: ‹expire-sessions›: cannot acquire lease when draining E220202 20:51:23.819957 685 jobs/registry.go:723 ⋮ [n1] 315 failed to serve pause and cancel requests: could not query jobs table: ‹cancel/pause-requested›: cannot acquire lease when draining I220202 20:51:24.672435 2867 1@server/drain.go:210 ⋮ [n1,server drain process] 320 drain remaining: 0 I220202 20:51:24.984089 1 1@cli/start.go:868 ⋮ [n1] 332 server drained and shutdown completed
The
server drained and shutdown completed
message indicates that thecockroach
process has stopped.Start the node to have it rejoin the cluster.
Re-run the
cockroach start
command that you used to start the node initially. For example:cockroach start \ --certs-dir=certs \ --store=node1 \ --listen-addr=localhost:26257 \ --http-addr=localhost:8080 \ --join=localhost:26257,localhost:26258,localhost:26259 \
CockroachDB node starting at 2022-09-01 06:25:24.922474 +0000 UTC (took 5.1s) build: CCL v22.2.0-alpha.1 @ 2022/08/30 23:02:58 (go1.19.1) webui: https://localhost:8080 sql: postgresql://root@localhost:26257/defaultdb?sslcert=certs%2Fclient.root.crt&sslkey=certs%2Fclient.root.key&sslmode=verify-full&sslrootcert=certs%2Fca.crt sql (JDBC): jdbc:postgresql://localhost:26257/defaultdb?sslcert=certs%2Fclient.root.crt&sslkey=certs%2Fclient.root.key&sslmode=verify-full&sslrootcert=certs%2Fca.crt&user=root RPC client flags: cockroach <client cmd> --host=localhost:26257 --certs-dir=certs logs: /Users/maxroach/node1/logs temp dir: /Users/maxroach/node1/cockroach-temp2906330099 external I/O path: /Users/maxroach/node1/extern store[0]: path=/Users/maxroach/node1 storage engine: pebble clusterID: b2b33385-bc77-4670-a7c8-79d79967bdd0 status: restarted pre-existing node nodeID: 1
Drain a node manually
You can use cockroach node drain
to drain a node separately from decommissioning the node or terminating the node process.
Run the
cockroach node drain
command, specifying the ID of the node to drain (and optionally a custom drain timeout to allow draining more time to complete):cockroach node drain 1 --host={address of any live node} --drain-wait=15m --certs-dir=certs
You will see the draining status print to
stderr
:node is draining... remaining: 50 node is draining... remaining: 0 (complete) ok
Filter the logs for shutdown progress messages. By default, the
OPS
logs output to acockroach.log
file:grep 'drain' node1/logs/cockroach.log
I220204 00:08:57.382090 1596 1@server/drain.go:110 ⋮ [n1] 77 drain request received with doDrain = true, shutdown = false E220204 00:08:59.732020 590 jobs/registry.go:749 ⋮ [n1] 78 error processing claimed jobs: could not query for claimed jobs: ‹select-running/get-claimed-jobs›: cannot acquire lease when draining I220204 00:09:00.711459 1596 kv/kvserver/store.go:1571 ⋮ [drain] 79 waiting for 1 replicas to transfer their lease away I220204 00:09:01.103881 1596 1@server/drain.go:210 ⋮ [n1] 80 drain remaining: 50 I220204 00:09:01.103999 1596 1@server/drain.go:212 ⋮ [n1] 81 drain details: liveness record: 2, range lease iterations: 42, descriptor leases: 6 I220204 00:09:01.104128 1596 1@server/drain.go:134 ⋮ [n1] 82 drain request completed without server shutdown I220204 00:09:01.307629 2150 1@server/drain.go:110 ⋮ [n1] 83 drain request received with doDrain = true, shutdown = false I220204 00:09:02.459197 2150 1@server/drain.go:210 ⋮ [n1] 84 drain remaining: 0 I220204 00:09:02.459272 2150 1@server/drain.go:134 ⋮ [n1] 85 drain request completed without server shutdown
The
drain request completed without server shutdown
message indicates that the node was drained.
Remove nodes
- Prerequisites
- Step 1. Get the IDs of the nodes to decommission
- Step 2. Drain the nodes manually
- Step 3. Decommission the nodes
- Step 4. Confirm the nodes are decommissioned
- Step 5. Terminate the process on decommissioned nodes
Prerequisites
In addition to the graceful node shutdown requirements, observe the following guidelines:
- Before decommissioning nodes, verify that there are no under-replicated or unavailable ranges on the cluster.
- Do not terminate the node process, delete the storage volume, or remove the VM before a
decommissioning
node has changed its membership status todecommissioned
. Prematurely terminating the process will prevent the node from rebalancing all of its range replicas onto other nodes gracefully, cause transient query errors in client applications, and leave the remaining ranges under-replicated and vulnerable to loss of quorum if another node goes down. - When removing nodes, decommission all nodes at once. Do not decommission the nodes one-by-one. This will incur unnecessary data movement costs due to replicas being passed between decommissioning nodes. All nodes must be fully
decommissioned
before terminating the node process and removing the data storage. - If you have a decommissioning node that appears to be hung, you can recommission the node.
Step 1. Get the IDs of the nodes to decommission
Open the Cluster Overview page of the DB Console and note the node IDs of the nodes you want to decommission.
This example assumes you will decommission node IDs 4
and 5
of a 5-node cluster.
Step 2. Drain the nodes manually
Run the cockroach node drain
command for each node to be removed, specifying the ID of the node to drain:
cockroach node drain 4 --host={address of any live node} --certs-dir=certs
cockroach node drain 5 --host={address of any live node} --certs-dir=certs
You will see the draining status of each node print to stderr
:
node is draining... remaining: 50
node is draining... remaining: 0 (complete)
ok
Manually draining before decommissioning nodes is optional, but prevents possible disruptions in query performance.
Step 3. Decommission the nodes
Run the cockroach node decommission
command with the IDs of the nodes to decommission:
$ cockroach node decommission 4 5 --certs-dir=certs --host={address of any live node}
You'll then see the decommissioning status print to stderr
as it changes:
id | is_live | replicas | is_decommissioning | membership | is_draining
-----+---------+----------+--------------------+-----------------+--------------
4 | true | 39 | true | decommissioning | true
5 | true | 34 | true | decommissioning | true
(2 rows)
The is_draining
field is true
because the nodes were previously drained.
Once the nodes have been fully decommissioned, you'll see zero replicas
and a confirmation:
id | is_live | replicas | is_decommissioning | membership | is_draining
-----+---------+----------+--------------------+-----------------+--------------
4 | true | 0 | true | decommissioning | true
5 | true | 0 | true | decommissioning | true
(2 rows)
No more data reported on target nodes. Please verify cluster health before removing the nodes.
The is_decommissioning
field remains true
after all replicas have been removed from each node.
Do not terminate the node process, delete the storage volume, or remove the VM before a decommissioning
node has changed its membership status to decommissioned
. Prematurely terminating the process will prevent the node from rebalancing all of its range replicas onto other nodes gracefully, cause transient query errors in client applications, and leave the remaining ranges under-replicated and vulnerable to loss of quorum if another node goes down.
Step 4. Confirm the nodes are decommissioned
Check the status of the decommissioned nodes:
$ cockroach node status --decommission --certs-dir=certs --host={address of any live node}
id | address | sql_address | build | started_at | updated_at | locality | is_available | is_live | gossiped_replicas | is_decommissioning | membership | is_draining
-----+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+----------------------------+----------------------------+----------+--------------+---------+-------------------+--------------------+----------------+--------------
1 | localhost:26257 | localhost:26257 | v22.2.0-alpha.1 | 2022-09-01 02:11:55.07734 | 2022-09-01 02:17:28.202777 | | true | true | 73 | false | active | false
2 | localhost:26258 | localhost:26258 | v22.2.0-alpha.1 | 2022-09-01 02:11:56.203535 | 2022-09-01 02:17:29.465841 | | true | true | 73 | false | active | false
3 | localhost:26259 | localhost:26259 | v22.2.0-alpha.1 | 2022-09-01 02:11:56.406667 | 2022-09-01 02:17:29.588486 | | true | true | 73 | false | active | false
4 | localhost:26260 | localhost:26260 | v22.2.0-alpha.1 | 2022-09-01 02:11:56.914003 | 2022-09-01 02:16:39.032709 | | false | false | 0 | true | decommissioned | true
5 | localhost:26261 | localhost:26261 | v22.2.0-alpha.1 | 2022-09-01 02:11:57.613508 | 2022-09-01 02:16:39.615783 | | false | false | 0 | true | decommissioned | true
(5 rows)
- Membership on the decommissioned nodes should have changed from
decommissioning
todecommissioned
. 0
replicas should remain on these nodes.
Once the nodes complete decommissioning, they will appear in the list of Recently Decommissioned Nodes in the DB Console.
Step 5. Terminate the process on decommissioned nodes
We do not recommend sending SIGKILL
to perform a "hard" shutdown, which bypasses CockroachDB's node shutdown logic and forcibly terminates the process. This can corrupt log files and, in certain edge cases, can result in temporary data unavailability, latency spikes, uncertainty errors, ambiguous commit errors, or query timeouts. When decommissioning, a hard shutdown will leave ranges under-replicated and vulnerable to another node failure, causing quorum loss in the window before up-replication completes.
On production deployments, use the process manager to send
SIGTERM
to the process.- For example, with
systemd
, runsystemctl stop {systemd config filename}
.
- For example, with
When using CockroachDB for local testing:
- When running a server on the foreground, use
ctrl-c
in the terminal to sendSIGINT
to the process. - When running with the
--background
flag, usepkill
,kill
, or look up the process ID withps -ef | grep cockroach | grep -v grep
and then runkill -TERM {process ID}
.
- When running a server on the foreground, use
The following messages will be printed:
initiating graceful shutdown of server
server drained and shutdown completed
Remove a dead node
If a node is offline for the duration set by server.time_until_store_dead
(5 minutes by default), the cluster considers the node "dead" and starts to rebalance its range replicas onto other nodes.
However, if the dead node is restarted, the cluster will rebalance replicas and leases onto the node. To prevent the cluster from rebalancing data to a dead node that comes back online, do the following:
Step 1. Confirm the node is dead
Check the status of your nodes:
$ cockroach node status --decommission --certs-dir=certs --host={address of any live node}
id | address | sql_address | build | started_at | updated_at | locality | is_available | is_live | gossiped_replicas | is_decommissioning | membership | is_draining
-----+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+----------------------------+----------------------------+----------+--------------+---------+-------------------+--------------------+----------------+--------------
1 | localhost:26257 | localhost:26257 | v22.2.0-alpha.1 | 2022-09-01 02:45:45.970862 | 2022-09-01 05:32:43.233458 | | false | false | 0 | false | active | true
2 | localhost:26258 | localhost:26258 | v22.2.0-alpha.1 | 2022-09-01 02:46:40.32999 | 2022-09-01 05:42:28.577662 | | true | true | 73 | false | active | false
3 | localhost:26259 | localhost:26259 | v22.2.0-alpha.1 | 2022-09-01 02:46:47.20388 | 2022-09-01 05:42:27.467766 | | true | true | 73 | false | active | false
4 | localhost:26260 | localhost:26260 | v22.2.0-alpha.1 | 2022-09-01 02:11:56.914003 | 2022-09-01 02:16:39.032709 | | true | true | 73 | false | active | false
(4 rows)
The is_live
field of the dead node will be false
.
Alternatively, open the Cluster Overview page of the DB Console and check that the node status of the node is DEAD
.
Step 2. Decommission the dead node
Run the cockroach node decommission
command against the address of any live node, specifying the ID of the dead node:
$ cockroach node decommission 1 --certs-dir=certs --host={address of any live node}
id | is_live | replicas | is_decommissioning | membership | is_draining
-----+---------+----------+--------------------+-----------------+--------------
1 | false | 0 | true | decommissioning | true
(1 row)
No more data reported on target nodes. Please verify cluster health before removing the nodes.
Step 3. Confirm the node is decommissioned
Check the status of the decommissioned node:
$ cockroach node status --decommission --certs-dir=certs --host={address of any live node}
id | address | sql_address | build | started_at | updated_at | locality | is_available | is_live | gossiped_replicas | is_decommissioning | membership | is_draining
-----+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+----------------------------+----------------------------+----------+--------------+---------+-------------------+--------------------+----------------+--------------
1 | localhost:26257 | localhost:26257 | v22.2.0-alpha.1 | 2022-09-01 02:45:45.970862 | 2022-09-01 06:07:40.697734 | | false | false | 0 | true | decommissioned | true
2 | localhost:26258 | localhost:26258 | v22.2.0-alpha.1 | 2022-09-01 02:46:40.32999 | 2022-09-01 05:42:28.577662 | | true | true | 73 | false | active | false
3 | localhost:26259 | localhost:26259 | v22.2.0-alpha.1 | 2022-09-01 02:46:47.20388 | 2022-09-01 05:42:27.467766 | | true | true | 73 | false | active | false
4 | localhost:26260 | localhost:26260 | v22.2.0-alpha.1 | 2022-09-01 02:11:56.914003 | 2022-09-01 02:16:39.032709 | | true | true | 73 | false | active | false
(4 rows)
- Membership on the decommissioned node should have changed from
active
todecommissioned
.
Once the node completes decommissioning, it will appear in the list of Recently Decommissioned Nodes in the DB Console.
Recommission nodes
If you accidentally started decommissioning a node, or have a node with a hung decommissioning process, you can recommission the node. This cancels replica removal from the decommissioning node.
Recommissioning can only cancel an active decommissioning process. If a node has completed decommissioning, you must start a new node. A fully decommissioned node is permanently decommissioned, and cannot be recommissioned.
Step 1. Cancel the decommissioning process
Press ctrl-c
in each terminal with an ongoing decommissioning process that you want to cancel.
Step 2. Recommission the decommissioning nodes
Run the cockroach node recommission
command with the ID of the node to recommission:
$ cockroach node recommission 1 --certs-dir=certs --host={address of any live node}
The value of is_decommissioning
will change back to false
:
id | is_live | replicas | is_decommissioning | membership | is_draining
-----+---------+----------+--------------------+------------+--------------
1 | false | 73 | false | active | true
(1 row)
If the decommissioning node has already reached the draining stage, you may need to restart the node after it is recommissioned.
On the Cluster Overview page of the DB Console, the node status of the node should be LIVE
. After a few minutes, you should see replicas rebalanced to the nodes.
Decommissioning and draining on Kubernetes
Most of the guidance in this page is most relevant to manual deployments that don't use Kubernetes. If you use Kubernetes to deploy CockroachDB, draining and decommissioning work the same way for the cockroach
process, but Kubernetes handles them on your behalf. In a deployment without Kubernetes, an administrator initiates decommissioning or draining directly. In a Kubernetes deployment, an administrator modifies the desired configuration of the Kubernetes cluster and Kubernetes makes the required changes to the cluster, including decommissioning or draining nodes as required.
Whether you deployed a cluster using the CockroachDB Operator, Helm, or a manual StatefulSet, the resulting deployment is a StatefulSet. Due to the nature of StatefulSets, it's safe to decommission only the Cockroach node with the highest StatefulSet ordinal in preparation for scaling down the StatefulSet. If you think you need to decommission any other node, consider the following recommendations and contact Support for assistance.
- If you deployed a cluster using the CockroachDB Kubernetes Operator, the best way to scale down a cluster is to update the specification for the Kubernetes deployment to reduce the value of
nodes:
and apply the change using a rolling update. Kubernetes will notice that there are now too many nodes and will reduce them and clean up their storage automatically. - If you deployed the cluster using Helm or a manual StatefulSet, the best way to scale down a cluster is to interactively decommission and drain the highest-order node. After that node is decommissioned, drained, and terminated, you can repeat the process to further reduce the cluster's size.
Refer to Cluster Scaling.
- If you deployed a cluster using the CockroachDB Kubernetes Operator, the best way to scale down a cluster is to update the specification for the Kubernetes deployment to reduce the value of
There is generally no need to interactively drain a node that is not being decommissioned, regardless of how you deployed the cluster in Kubernetes. When you upgrade, downgrade, or change the configuration of a CockroachDB deployment on Kubernetes, you apply the changes using a rolling update, which applies the change to one node at a time. On a given node, Kubernetes sends a
SIGTERM
signal to thecockroach
process. When thecockroach
process receives this signal, it starts draining itself. After draining is complete or the termination grace period expires (whichever happens first), Kubernetes terminates thecockroach
process and then removes the node from the Kubernetes cluster. Kubernetes then applies the updated deployment to the cluster node, restarts thecockroach
process, and re-joins the cluster. Refer to Cluster Upgrades.Although the
kubectl drain
command is used for manual maintenance of Kubernetes clusters, it has little direct relevance to the concept of draining a node in a CockroachDB cluster. Thekubectl drain
command gracefully terminates each pod running on a Kubernetes node so that the node can be shut down (in the case of physical hardware) or deleted (in the case of a virtual machine). For details on this command, see the Kubernetes documentation.
Refer to Termination grace period on Kubernetes. For more details about managing CockroachDB on Kubernetes, refer to Cluster upgrades and Cluster scaling.
Termination grace period on Kubernetes
After Kubernetes issues a termination request to the cockroach
process on a cluster node, it waits for a maximum of the deployment's terminationGracePeriodSeconds
before forcibly terminating the process. If terminationGracePeriodSeconds
is too short, the cockroach
process may be terminated before it can shut down cleanly and client applications may be disrupted.
If undefined, Kubernetes sets terminationGracePeriodSeconds
to 30 seconds. This is too short for the cockroach
process to stop gracefully before Kubernetes terminates it forcibly. Do not set terminationGracePeriodSeconds
to 0
, which prevents Kubernetes from detecting and terminating a stuck pod.
For clusters deployed using the CockroachDB Public Operator, terminationGracePeriodSeconds
defaults to 300 seconds (5 minutes).
For clusters deployed using the CockroachDB Helm chart or a manual StatefulSet, the default depends upon the values file or manifest you used when you created the cluster.
Cockroach Labs recommends that you:
- Set
terminationGracePeriodSeconds
to no shorter than 300 seconds (5 minutes). This recommendation has been validated over time for many production workloads. In most cases, a value higher than 300 seconds (5 minutes) is not required. If CockroachDB takes longer than 5 minutes to gracefully stop, this may indicate an underlying configuration problem. Test the value you select against representative workloads before rolling out the change to production clusters. - Set
terminationGracePeriodSeconds
to be at least 5 seconds longer than the configured drain timeout, to allow the node to complete draining before Kubernetes removes the Kubernetes pod for the CockroachDB node. Ensure that the sum of the following
server.shutdown.*
settings for the CockroachDB cluster do not exceed the deployment'sterminationGracePeriodSeconds
, to reduce the likelihood that a node must be terminated forcibly.server.shutdown.drain_wait
server.shutdown.connection_wait
server.shutdown.query_wait
times twoserver.shutdown.lease_transfer_wait
For more information about these settings, refer to Cluster settings. Refer also to the Kubernetes documentation about pod termination.
A client application's connection pool should have a maximum lifetime that is shorter than the Kubernetes deployment's server.shutdown.connection_wait
setting.
Decommissioning and draining on CockroachDB Dedicated
Most of the guidance in this page is most relevant to manual deployments, although decommissioning and draining work the same way behind the scenes in a CockroachDB Dedicated cluster. CockroachDB Dedicated clusters have a server.shutdown.connection_wait
of 1800 seconds (30 minutes) and a termination grace period that is slightly longer. The termination grace period is not configurable, and adjusting server.shutdown.connection_wait
is generally not recommended.
Client applications or application servers that connect to CockroachDB Dedicated clusters should use connection pools that have a maximum lifetime that is shorter than the server.shutdown.connection_wait
setting.