Apache Kudu Administration

Starting and Stopping Kudu Processes

These instructions are relevant only when Kudu is installed using operating system packages (e.g. rpm or deb).

Kudu Web Interfaces

Kudu tablet servers and masters expose useful operational information on a built-in web interface,

Kudu Master Web Interface

Kudu master processes serve their web interface on port 8051. The interface exposes several pages with information about the cluster state:

  • A list of tablet servers, their host names, and the time of their last heartbeat.

  • A list of tables, including schema and tablet location information for each.

  • SQL code which you can paste into Impala Shell to add an existing table to Impala’s list of known data sources.

Kudu Tablet Server Web Interface

Each tablet server serves a web interface on port 8050. The interface exposes information about each tablet hosted on the server, its current state, and debugging information about maintenance background operations.

Common Web Interface Pages

Both Kudu masters and tablet servers expose a common set of information via their web interfaces:

  • HTTP access to server logs.

  • an /rpcz endpoint which lists currently running RPCs via JSON.

  • pages giving an overview and detailed information on the memory usage of different components of the process.

  • information on the current set of configuration flags.

  • information on the currently running threads and their resource consumption.

  • a JSON endpoint exposing metrics about the server.

  • information on the deployed version number of the daemon.

These interfaces are linked from the landing page of each daemon’s web UI.

Kudu Metrics

Kudu daemons expose a large number of metrics. Some metrics are associated with an entire server process, whereas others are associated with a particular tablet replica.

Listing available metrics

The full set of available metrics for a Kudu server can be dumped via a special command line flag:

$ kudu-tserver --dump_metrics_json
$ kudu-master --dump_metrics_json

This will output a large JSON document. Each metric indicates its name, label, description, units, and type. Because the output is JSON-formatted, this information can easily be parsed and fed into other tooling which collects metrics from Kudu servers.

Collecting metrics via HTTP

Metrics can be collected from a server process via its HTTP interface by visiting /metrics. The output of this page is JSON for easy parsing by monitoring services. This endpoint accepts several GET parameters in its query string:

  • /metrics?metrics=<substring1>,<substring2>,…​ - limits the returned metrics to those which contain at least one of the provided substrings. The substrings also match entity names, so this may be used to collect metrics for a specific tablet.

  • /metrics?include_schema=1 - includes metrics schema information such as unit, description, and label in the JSON output. This information is typically elided to save space.

  • /metrics?compact=1 - eliminates unnecessary whitespace from the resulting JSON, which can decrease bandwidth when fetching this page from a remote host.

  • /metrics?include_raw_histograms=1 - include the raw buckets and values for histogram metrics, enabling accurate aggregation of percentile metrics over time and across hosts.

For example:

$ curl -s 'http://example-ts:8050/metrics?include_schema=1&metrics=connections_accepted'
[
    {
        "type": "server",
        "id": "kudu.tabletserver",
        "attributes": {},
        "metrics": [
            {
                "name": "rpc_connections_accepted",
                "label": "RPC Connections Accepted",
                "type": "counter",
                "unit": "connections",
                "description": "Number of incoming TCP connections made to the RPC server",
                "value": 92
            }
        ]
    }
]
$ curl -s 'http://example-ts:8050/metrics?metrics=log_append_latency'
[
    {
        "type": "tablet",
        "id": "c0ebf9fef1b847e2a83c7bd35c2056b1",
        "attributes": {
            "table_name": "lineitem",
            "partition": "hash buckets: (55), range: [(<start>), (<end>))",
            "table_id": ""
        },
        "metrics": [
            {
                "name": "log_append_latency",
                "total_count": 7498,
                "min": 4,
                "mean": 69.3649,
                "percentile_75": 29,
                "percentile_95": 38,
                "percentile_99": 45,
                "percentile_99_9": 95,
                "percentile_99_99": 167,
                "max": 367244,
                "total_sum": 520098
            }
        ]
    }
]
All histograms and counters are measured since the server start time, and are not reset upon collection.

Diagnostics Logging

Kudu may be configured to dump various diagnostics information to a local log file. The diagnostics log will be written to the same directory as the other Kudu log files, with a similar naming format, substituting diagnostics instead of a log level like INFO. After any diagnostics log file reaches 64MB uncompressed, the log will be rolled and the previous file will be gzip-compressed.

Each line in the diagnostics log consists of the following components:

  • A human-readable timestamp formatted in the same fashion as the other Kudu log files.

  • The type of record. For example, a metrics record consists of the word metrics.

  • A machine-readable timestamp, in microseconds since the Unix epoch.

  • The record itself.

Currently, the only type of diagnostics record is a periodic dump of the server metrics. Each record is encoded in compact JSON format, and the server attempts to elide any metrics which have not changed since the previous record. In addition, counters which have never been incremented are elided. Otherwise, the format of the JSON record is identical to the format exposed by the HTTP endpoint above.

The frequency with which metrics are dumped to the diagnostics log is configured using the --metrics_log_interval_ms flag. By default, Kudu logs metrics every 60 seconds.

Rack Awareness

As of version 1.9, Kudu supports a rack awareness feature. Kudu’s ordinary re-replication methods ensure the availability of the cluster in the event of a single node failure. However, clusters can be vulnerable to correlated failures of multiple nodes. For example, all of the physical hosts on the same rack in a datacenter may become unavailable simultaneously if the top-of-rack switch fails. Kudu’s rack awareness feature provides protection from some kinds of correlated failures, like the failure of a single rack in a datacenter.

The first element of Kudu’s rack awareness feature is location assignment. When a tablet server or client registers with a master, the master assigns it a location. A location is a /-separated string that begins with a / and where each /-separated component consists of characters from the set [a-zA-Z0-9_-.]. For example, /dc-0/rack-09 is a valid location, while rack-04 and /rack=1 are not valid locations. Thus location strings resemble absolute UNIX file paths where characters in directory and file names are restricted to the set [a-zA-Z0-9_-.]. Presently, Kudu does not use the hierarchical structure of locations, but it may in the future. Location assignment is done by a user-provided command, whose path should be specified using the --location_mapping_cmd master flag. The command should take a single argument, the IP address or hostname of a tablet server or client, and return the location for the tablet server or client. Make sure that all Kudu masters are using the same location mapping command.

The second element of Kudu’s rack awareness feature is the placement policy, which is

Do not place a majority of replicas of a tablet on tablet servers in the same location.

The leader master, when placing newly created replicas on tablet servers and when re-replicating existing tablets, will attempt to place the replicas in a way that complies with the placement policy. For example, in a cluster with five tablet servers A, B, C, D, and E, with respective locations /L0, /L0, /L1, /L1, /L2, to comply with the placement policy a new 3x replicated tablet could have its replicas placed on A, C, and E, but not on A, B, and C, because then the tablet would have 2/3 replicas in location /L0. As another example, if a tablet has replicas on tablet servers A, C, and E, and then C fails, the replacement replica must be placed on D in order to comply with the placement policy.

In the case where it is impossible to place replicas in a way that complies with the placement policy, Kudu will violate the policy and place a replica anyway. For example, using the setup described in the previous paragraph, if a tablet has replicas on tablet servers A, C, and E, and then E fails, Kudu will re-replicate the tablet onto one of B or D, violating the placement policy, rather than leaving the tablet under-replicated indefinitely. The kudu cluster rebalance tool can reestablish the placement policy if it is possible to do so. The kudu cluster rebalance tool can also be used to establish the placement policy on a cluster if the cluster has just been configured to use the rack awareness feature and existing replicas need to be moved to comply with the placement policy. See running the tablet rebalancing tool on a rack-aware cluster for more information.

The third and final element of Kudu’s rack awareness feature is the use of client locations to find "nearby" servers. As mentioned, the masters also assign a location to clients when they connect to the cluster. The client (whether Java, C++, or Python) uses its own location and the locations of tablet servers in the cluster to prefer "nearby" replicas when scanning in CLOSEST_REPLICA mode. Clients choose replicas to scan in the following order:

  1. Scan a replica on a tablet server on the same host, if there is one.

  2. Scan a replica on a tablet server in the same location, if there is one.

  3. Scan some replica.

For example, using the cluster setup described above, if a client on the same host as tablet server A scans a tablet with replicas on tablet servers A, C, and E in CLOSEST_REPLICA mode, it will choose to scan from the replica on A, since the client and the replica on A are on the same host. If the client scans a tablet with replicas on tablet servers B, C, and E, it will choose to scan from the replica on B, since it is in the same location as the client, /L0. If there are multiple replicas meeting a criterion, one is chosen arbitrarily.

Backup and Restore

Logical backup and restore

As of Kudu 1.10.0, Kudu supports both full and incremental table backups via a job implemented using Apache Spark. Additionally it supports restoring tables from full and incremental backups via a restore job implemented using Apache Spark.

Given the Kudu backup and restore jobs use Apache Spark, ensure Apache Spark is installed in your environment following the Spark documentation. Additionally review the Apache Spark documentation for Submitting Applications.

Backing up tables

To backup one or more Kudu tables the KuduBackup Spark job can be used. The first time the job is run for a table, a full backup will be run. Additional runs will perform incremental backups which will only contain the rows that have changed since the initial full backup. A new set of full backups can be forced at anytime by passing the --forceFull flag to the backup job.

The common flags that will be used when taking a backup are:

  • --rootPath: The root path to output backup data. Accepts any Spark-compatible path.

  • --kuduMasterAddresses: Comma-separated addresses of Kudu masters. Default: localhost

  • <table>…​: A list of tables to be backed up.

Note: You can see the full list of Job options at anytime by passing the --help flag.

Below is a full example of a KuduBackup job execution which will backup the tables foo and bar to the HDFS directory kudu-backups:

spark-submit --class org.apache.kudu.backup.KuduBackup kudu-backup2_2.11-1.10.0.jar \
  --kuduMasterAddresses master1-host,master-2-host,master-3-host \
  --rootPath hdfs:///kudu-backups \
  foo bar

Restoring tables from Backups

To restore one or more Kudu tables, the KuduRestore Spark job can be used. For each backed up table, the KuduRestore job will restore the full backup and each associated incremental backup until the full table state is restored. Restoring the full series of full and incremental backups is possible because the backups are linked via the from_ms and to_ms fields in the backup metadata. By default the restore job will create tables with the same name as the table that was backed up. If you want to side-load the tables without affecting the existing tables, you can pass --tableSuffix to append a suffix to each restored table.

The common flags that will be used when restoring are:

  • --rootPath: The root path to the backup data. Accepts any Spark-compatible path.

  • --kuduMasterAddresses: Comma-separated addresses of Kudu masters. Default: localhost

  • --tableSuffix: If set, the suffix to add to the restored table names. Only used when createTables is true.

  • --timestampMs: A UNIX timestamp in milliseconds that defines the latest time to use when selecting restore candidates. Default: System.currentTimeMillis()

  • <table>…​: A list of tables to be backed up.

Note: You can see the full list of job options at anytime by passing the --help flag.

Below is a full example of a KuduRestore job execution which will restore the tables foo and bar from the HDFS directory kudu-backups:

spark-submit --class org.apache.kudu.backup.KuduRestore kudu-backup2_2.11-1.10.0.jar \
  --kuduMasterAddresses master1-host,master-2-host,master-3-host \
  --rootPath hdfs:///kudu-backups \
  foo bar

Backup tools

An additional backup-tools jar is available to provide some backup exploration and garbage collection capabilities. This jar does not use Spark directly, but instead only requires the Hadoop classpath to run.

Commands:

  • list: Lists the backups in the rootPath.

  • clean: Cleans up old backup data in the rootPath.

Note: You can see the full list of command options at anytime by passing the --help flag.

Below is an example execution which will print the command options:

java -cp $(hadoop classpath):kudu-backup-tools-1.10.0.jar org.apache.kudu.backup.KuduBackupCLI --help

Backup Directory Structure

The backup directory structure in the rootPath is considered an internal detail and could change in future versions of Kudu. Additionally the format and content of the data and metadata files is meant for the backup and restore process only and could change in future versions of Kudu. That said, understanding the structure of the backup rootPath and how it is used can be useful when working with Kudu backups.

The backup directory structure in the rootPath is as follows:

/<rootPath>/<tableId>-<tableName>/<backup-id>/
   .kudu-metadata.json
   part-*.<format>
  • rootPath: Can be used to distinguish separate backup groups, jobs, or concerns.

  • tableId: The unique internal ID of the table being backed up.

  • tableName: The name of the table being backed up.

    • Note: Table names are URL encoded to prevent pathing issues.

  • backup-id: A way to uniquely identify/group the data for a single backup run.

  • .kudu-metadata.json: Contains all of the metadata to support recreating the table, linking backups by time, and handling data format changes.

    • Written last so that failed backups will not have a metadata file and will not be considered at restore time or backup linking time.

  • part-*.<format>: The data files containing the tables data.

    • Currently 1 part file per Kudu partition.

    • Incremental backups contain an additional “RowAction” byte column at the end.

    • Currently the only supported format/suffix is parquet

Troubleshooting

Generating a table list

To generate a list of tables to backup using the kudu table list tool along with grep can be useful. Below is an example that will generate a list of all tables that start with my_db.:

kudu table list <master_addresses> | grep "^my_db\.*" | tr '\n' ' '

Note: This list could be saved as a part of you backup process to be used at restore time as well.

Spark Tuning

In general the Spark jobs were designed to run with minimal tuning and configuration. You can adjust the number of executors and resources to increase parallelism and performance using Spark’s configuration options.

If your tables are super wide and your default memory allocation is fairly low, you may see jobs fail. To resolve this increase the Spark executor memory. A conservative rule of thumb is 1 GiB per 50 columns.

If your Spark resources drastically outscale the Kudu cluster you may want to limit the number of concurrent tasks allowed to run on restore.

Physical backups of an entire node

Kudu does not yet provide built-in physical backup and restore functionality. However, it is possible to create a physical backup of a Kudu node (either tablet server or master) and restore it later.

The node to be backed up must be offline during the procedure, or else the backed up (or restored) data will be inconsistent.
Certain aspects of the Kudu node (such as its hostname) are embedded in the on-disk data. As such, it’s not yet possible to restore a physical backup of a node onto another machine.
  1. Stop all Kudu processes in the cluster. This prevents the tablets on the backed up node from being rereplicated elsewhere unnecessarily.

  2. If creating a backup, make a copy of the WAL, metadata, and data directories on each node to be backed up. It is important that this copy preserve all file attributes as well as sparseness.

  3. If restoring from a backup, delete the existing WAL, metadata, and data directories, then restore the backup via move or copy. As with creating a backup, it is important that the restore preserve all file attributes and sparseness.

  4. Start all Kudu processes in the cluster.

Common Kudu workflows

Migrating to Multiple Kudu Masters

For high availability and to avoid a single point of failure, Kudu clusters should be created with multiple masters. Many Kudu clusters were created with just a single master, either for simplicity or because Kudu multi-master support was still experimental at the time. This workflow demonstrates how to migrate to a multi-master configuration. It can also be used to migrate from two masters to three, with straightforward modifications. Note that the number of masters must be odd.

The workflow is unsafe for adding new masters to an existing configuration that already has three or more masters. Do not use it for that purpose.
An even number of masters doesn’t provide any benefit over having one fewer masters. This guide should always be used for migrating to three masters.
All of the command line steps below should be executed as the Kudu UNIX user. The example commands assume the Kudu Unix user is kudu, which is typical.
The workflow presupposes at least basic familiarity with Kudu configuration management. If using vendor-specific tools the workflow also presupposes familiarity with it and the vendor’s instructions should be used instead as details may differ.

Prepare for the migration

  1. Establish a maintenance window (one hour should be sufficient). During this time the Kudu cluster will be unavailable.

  2. Decide how many masters to use. The number of masters should be odd. Three or five node master configurations are recommended; they can tolerate one or two failures respectively.

  3. Perform the following preparatory steps for the existing master:

    • Identify and record the directories where the master’s write-ahead log (WAL) and data live. If using Kudu system packages, their default locations are /var/lib/kudu/master, but they may be customized via the fs_wal_dir and fs_data_dirs configuration parameters. The commands below assume that fs_wal_dir is /data/kudu/master/wal and fs_data_dirs is /data/kudu/master/data. Your configuration may differ. For more information on configuring these directories, see the Kudu Configuration docs.

    • Identify and record the port the master is using for RPCs. The default port value is 7051, but it may have been customized using the rpc_bind_addresses configuration parameter.

    • Identify the master’s UUID. It can be fetched using the following command:

      $ sudo -u kudu kudu fs dump uuid --fs_wal_dir=<master_wal_dir> [--fs_data_dirs=<master_data_dir>] 2>/dev/null
      master_data_dir

      existing master’s previously recorded data directory

      Example
      $ sudo -u kudu kudu fs dump uuid --fs_wal_dir=/data/kudu/master/wal --fs_data_dirs=/data/kudu/master/data 2>/dev/null
      4aab798a69e94fab8d77069edff28ce0
    • Optional: configure a DNS alias for the master. The alias could be a DNS cname (if the machine already has an A record in DNS), an A record (if the machine is only known by its IP address), or an alias in /etc/hosts. The alias should be an abstract representation of the master (e.g. master-1).

      Without DNS aliases it is not possible to recover from permanent master failures without bringing the cluster down for maintenance, and as such, it is highly recommended.
  4. If you have Kudu tables that are accessed from Impala, you must update the master addresses in the Apache Hive Metastore (HMS) database.

    • If you set up the DNS aliases, run the following statement in impala-shell, replacing master-1, master-2, and master-3 with your actual aliases.

      ALTER TABLE table_name
      SET TBLPROPERTIES
      ('kudu.master_addresses' = 'master-1,master-2,master-3');
    • If you do not have DNS aliases set up, see Step #11 in the Performing the migration section for updating HMS.

  5. Perform the following preparatory steps for each new master:

    • Choose an unused machine in the cluster. The master generates very little load so it can be colocated with other data services or load-generating processes, though not with another Kudu master from the same configuration.

    • Ensure Kudu is installed on the machine, either via system packages (in which case the kudu and kudu-master packages should be installed), or via some other means.

    • Choose and record the directory where the master’s data will live.

    • Choose and record the port the master should use for RPCs.

    • Optional: configure a DNS alias for the master (e.g. master-2, master-3, etc).

Perform the migration

  1. Stop all the Kudu processes in the entire cluster.

  2. Format the data directory on each new master machine, and record the generated UUID. Use the following command sequence:

    $ sudo -u kudu kudu fs format --fs_wal_dir=<master_wal_dir> [--fs_data_dirs=<master_data_dir>]
    $ sudo -u kudu kudu fs dump uuid --fs_wal_dir=<master_wal_dir> [--fs_data_dirs=<master_data_dir>] 2>/dev/null
    master_data_dir

    new master’s previously recorded data directory

    Example
    $ sudo -u kudu kudu fs format --fs_wal_dir=/data/kudu/master/wal --fs_data_dirs=/data/kudu/master/data
    $ sudo -u kudu kudu fs dump uuid --fs_wal_dir=/data/kudu/master/wal --fs_data_dirs=/data/kudu/master/data 2>/dev/null
    f5624e05f40649b79a757629a69d061e
  3. If using CM, add the new Kudu master roles now, but do not start them.

    • If using DNS aliases, override the empty value of the Master Address parameter for each role (including the existing master role) with that master’s alias.

    • Add the port number (separated by a colon) if using a non-default RPC port value.

  4. Rewrite the master’s Raft configuration with the following command, executed on the existing master machine:

    $ sudo -u kudu kudu local_replica cmeta rewrite_raft_config --fs_wal_dir=<master_wal_dir> [--fs_data_dirs=<master_data_dir>] <tablet_id> <all_masters>
    master_data_dir

    existing master’s previously recorded data directory

    tablet_id

    must be the string 00000000000000000000000000000000

    all_masters

    space-separated list of masters, both new and existing. Each entry in the list must be a string of the form <uuid>:<hostname>:<port>

    uuid

    master’s previously recorded UUID

    hostname

    master’s previously recorded hostname or alias

    port

    master’s previously recorded RPC port number

    Example
    $ sudo -u kudu kudu local_replica cmeta rewrite_raft_config --fs_wal_dir=/data/kudu/master/wal --fs_data_dirs=/data/kudu/master/data 00000000000000000000000000000000 4aab798a69e94fab8d77069edff28ce0:master-1:7051 f5624e05f40649b79a757629a69d061e:master-2:7051 988d8ac6530f426cbe180be5ba52033d:master-3:7051
  5. Modify the value of the master_addresses configuration parameter for both existing master and new masters. The new value must be a comma-separated list of all of the masters. Each entry is a string of the form <hostname>:<port>

    hostname

    master’s previously recorded hostname or alias

    port

    master’s previously recorded RPC port number

  6. Start the existing master.

  7. Copy the master data to each new master with the following command, executed on each new master machine.

    If your Kudu cluster is secure, in addition to running as the Kudu UNIX user, you must authenticate as the Kudu service user prior to running this command.
    $ sudo -u kudu kudu local_replica copy_from_remote --fs_wal_dir=<master_wal_dir> [--fs_data_dirs=<master_data_dir>] <tablet_id> <existing_master>
    master_data_dir

    new master’s previously recorded data directory

    tablet_id

    must be the string 00000000000000000000000000000000

    existing_master

    RPC address of the existing master and must be a string of the form <hostname>:<port>

    hostname

    existing master’s previously recorded hostname or alias

    port

    existing master’s previously recorded RPC port number

    Example
    $ sudo -u kudu kudu local_replica copy_from_remote --fs_wal_dir=/data/kudu/master/wal --fs_data_dirs=/data/kudu/master/data 00000000000000000000000000000000 master-1:7051
  8. Start all of the new masters.

    Skip the next step if using CM.
  9. Modify the value of the tserver_master_addrs configuration parameter for each tablet server. The new value must be a comma-separated list of masters where each entry is a string of the form <hostname>:<port>

    hostname

    master’s previously recorded hostname or alias

    port

    master’s previously recorded RPC port number

  10. Start all of the tablet servers.

  11. If you have Kudu tables that are accessed from Impala and you didn’t set up DNS aliases, update the HMS database manually in the underlying database that provides the storage for HMS.

    • The following is an example SQL statement you should run in the HMS database:

      UPDATE TABLE_PARAMS
      SET PARAM_VALUE =
        'master-1.example.com,master-2.example.com,master-3.example.com'
      WHERE PARAM_KEY = 'kudu.master_addresses' AND PARAM_VALUE = 'old-master';
    • In impala-shell, run:

      INVALIDATE METADATA;

Verify the migration was successful

To verify that all masters are working properly, perform the following sanity checks:

  • Using a browser, visit each master’s web UI. Look at the /masters page. All of the masters should be listed there with one master in the LEADER role and the others in the FOLLOWER role. The contents of /masters on each master should be the same.

  • Run a Kudu system check (ksck) on the cluster using the kudu command line tool. See Checking Cluster Health with ksck for more details.

Recovering from a dead Kudu Master in a Multi-Master Deployment

Kudu multi-master deployments function normally in the event of a master loss. However, it is important to replace the dead master; otherwise a second failure may lead to a loss of availability, depending on the number of available masters. This workflow describes how to replace the dead master.

Due to KUDU-1620, it is not possible to perform this workflow without also restarting the live masters. As such, the workflow requires a maintenance window, albeit a potentially brief one if the cluster was set up with DNS aliases.

Kudu does not yet support live Raft configuration changes for masters. As such, it is only possible to replace a master if the deployment was created with DNS aliases or if every node in the cluster is first shut down. See the multi-master migration workflow for more details on deploying with DNS aliases.
The workflow presupposes at least basic familiarity with Kudu configuration management. If using vendor-specific tools the workflow also presupposes familiarity with it and the vendor’s instructions should be used instead as details may differ.
All of the command line steps below should be executed as the Kudu UNIX user, typically kudu.

Prepare for the recovery

  1. If the deployment was configured without DNS aliases perform the following steps:

    • Establish a maintenance window (one hour should be sufficient). During this time the Kudu cluster will be unavailable.

    • Shut down all Kudu tablet server processes in the cluster.

  2. Ensure that the dead master is well and truly dead. Take whatever steps needed to prevent it from accidentally restarting; this can be quite dangerous for the cluster post-recovery.

  3. Choose one of the remaining live masters to serve as a basis for recovery. The rest of this workflow will refer to this master as the "reference" master.

  4. Choose an unused machine in the cluster where the new master will live. The master generates very little load so it can be colocated with other data services or load-generating processes, though not with another Kudu master from the same configuration. The rest of this workflow will refer to this master as the "replacement" master.

  5. Perform the following preparatory steps for the replacement master:

    • Ensure Kudu is installed on the machine, either via system packages (in which case the kudu and kudu-master packages should be installed), or via some other means.

    • Choose and record the directory where the master’s data will live.

  6. Perform the following preparatory steps for each live master:

    • Identify and record the directory where the master’s data lives. If using Kudu system packages, the default value is /var/lib/kudu/master, but it may be customized via the fs_wal_dir and fs_data_dirs configuration parameters. Please note if you’ve set fs_data_dirs to some directories other than the value of fs_wal_dir, it should be explicitly included in every command below where fs_wal_dir is also included. For more information on configuring these directories, see the Kudu Configuration docs.

    • Identify and record the master’s UUID. It can be fetched using the following command:

      $ sudo -u kudu kudu fs dump uuid --fs_wal_dir=<master_wal_dir> [--fs_data_dirs=<master_data_dir>] 2>/dev/null
      master_data_dir

      live master’s previously recorded data directory

      Example
      $ sudo -u kudu kudu fs dump uuid --fs_wal_dir=/data/kudu/master/wal --fs_data_dirs=/data/kudu/master/data 2>/dev/null
      80a82c4b8a9f4c819bab744927ad765c
  7. Perform the following preparatory steps for the reference master:

    • Identify and record the directory where the master’s data lives. If using Kudu system packages, the default value is /var/lib/kudu/master, but it may be customized via the fs_wal_dir and fs_data_dirs configuration parameters. Please note if you’ve set fs_data_dirs to some directories other than the value of fs_wal_dir, it should be explicitly included in every command below where fs_wal_dir is also included. For more information on configuring these directories, see the Kudu Configuration docs.

    • Identify and record the UUIDs of every master in the cluster, using the following command:

      $ sudo -u kudu kudu local_replica cmeta print_replica_uuids --fs_wal_dir=<master_wal_dir> [--fs_data_dirs=<master_data_dir>] <tablet_id> 2>/dev/null
      master_data_dir

      reference master’s previously recorded data directory

      tablet_id

      must be the string 00000000000000000000000000000000

      Example
      $ sudo -u kudu kudu local_replica cmeta print_replica_uuids --fs_wal_dir=/data/kudu/master/wal --fs_data_dirs=/data/kudu/master/data 00000000000000000000000000000000 2>/dev/null
      80a82c4b8a9f4c819bab744927ad765c 2a73eeee5d47413981d9a1c637cce170 1c3f3094256347528d02ec107466aef3
  8. Using the two previously-recorded lists of UUIDs (one for all live masters and one for all masters), determine and record (by process of elimination) the UUID of the dead master.

Perform the recovery

  1. Format the data directory on the replacement master machine using the previously recorded UUID of the dead master. Use the following command sequence:

    $ sudo -u kudu kudu fs format --fs_wal_dir=<master_wal_dir> [--fs_data_dirs=<master_data_dir>] --uuid=<uuid>
    master_data_dir

    replacement master’s previously recorded data directory

    uuid

    dead master’s previously recorded UUID

    Example
    $ sudo -u kudu kudu fs format --fs_wal_dir=/data/kudu/master/wal --fs_data_dirs=/data/kudu/master/data --uuid=80a82c4b8a9f4c819bab744927ad765c
  2. Copy the master data to the replacement master with the following command:

    If your Kudu cluster is secure, in addition to running as the Kudu UNIX user, you must authenticate as the Kudu service user prior to running this command.
    $ sudo -u kudu kudu local_replica copy_from_remote --fs_wal_dir=<master_wal_dir> [--fs_data_dirs=<master_data_dir>] <tablet_id> <reference_master>
    master_data_dir

    replacement master’s previously recorded data directory

    tablet_id

    must be the string 00000000000000000000000000000000

    reference_master

    RPC address of the reference master and must be a string of the form <hostname>:<port>

    hostname

    reference master’s previously recorded hostname or alias

    port

    reference master’s previously recorded RPC port number

    Example
    $ sudo -u kudu kudu local_replica copy_from_remote --fs_wal_dir=/data/kudu/master/wal --fs_data_dirs=/data/kudu/master/data 00000000000000000000000000000000 master-2:7051
  3. If using CM, add the replacement Kudu master role now, but do not start it.

    • Override the empty value of the Master Address parameter for the new role with the replacement master’s alias.

    • Add the port number (separated by a colon) if using a non-default RPC port value.

  4. If the cluster was set up with DNS aliases, reconfigure the DNS alias for the dead master to point at the replacement master.

  5. If the cluster was set up without DNS aliases, perform the following steps:

    • Stop the remaining live masters.

    • Rewrite the Raft configurations on these masters to include the replacement master. See Step 4 of Perform the Migration for more details.

  6. Start the replacement master.

  7. Restart the remaining masters in the new multi-master deployment. While the masters are shut down, there will be an availability outage, but it should last only as long as it takes for the masters to come back up.

Congratulations, the dead master has been replaced! To verify that all masters are working properly, consider performing the following sanity checks:

  • Using a browser, visit each master’s web UI. Look at the /masters page. All of the masters should be listed there with one master in the LEADER role and the others in the FOLLOWER role. The contents of /masters on each master should be the same.

  • Run a Kudu system check (ksck) on the cluster using the kudu command line tool. See Checking Cluster Health with ksck for more details.

Removing Kudu Masters from a Multi-Master Deployment

In the event that a multi-master deployment has been overallocated nodes, the following steps should be taken to remove the unwanted masters.

In planning the new multi-master configuration, keep in mind that the number of masters should be odd and that three or five node master configurations are recommended.
Dropping the number of masters below the number of masters currently needed for a Raft majority can incur data loss. To mitigate this, ensure that the leader master is not removed during this process.

Prepare for the removal

  1. Establish a maintenance window (one hour should be sufficient). During this time the Kudu cluster will be unavailable.

  2. Identify the UUID and RPC address current leader of the multi-master deployment by visiting the /masters page of any master’s web UI. This master must not be removed during this process; its removal may result in severe data loss.

  3. Stop all the Kudu processes in the entire cluster.

  4. If using CM, remove the unwanted Kudu master.

Perform the removal

  1. Rewrite the Raft configuration on the remaining masters to include only the remaining masters. See Step 4 of Perform the Migration for more details.

  2. Remove the data directories and WAL directory on the unwanted masters. This is a precaution to ensure that they cannot start up again and interfere with the new multi-master deployment.

  3. Modify the value of the master_addresses configuration parameter for the masters of the new multi-master deployment. If migrating to a single-master deployment, the master_addresses flag should be omitted entirely.

  4. Start all of the masters that were not removed.

  5. Modify the value of the tserver_master_addrs configuration parameter for the tablet servers to remove any unwanted masters.

  6. Start all of the tablet servers.

Verify the migration was successful

To verify that all masters are working properly, perform the following sanity checks:

  • Using a browser, visit each master’s web UI. Look at the /masters page. All of the masters should be listed there with one master in the LEADER role and the others in the FOLLOWER role. The contents of /masters on each master should be the same.

  • Run a Kudu system check (ksck) on the cluster using the kudu command line tool. See Checking Cluster Health with ksck for more details.

Changing the master hostnames

To prevent long maintenance windows when replacing dead masters, DNS aliases should be used. If the cluster was set up without aliases, changing the host names can be done by following the below steps.

Prepare for the hostname change

  1. Establish a maintenance window (one hour should be sufficient). During this time the Kudu cluster will be unavailable.

  2. Note the UUID and RPC address of every master by visiting the /masters page of any master’s web UI.

  3. Stop all the Kudu processes in the entire cluster.

  4. Set up the new hostnames to point to the masters and verify all servers and clients properly resolve them.

Perform the hostname change

  1. Rewrite each master’s Raft configuration with the following command, executed on all master hosts:

$ sudo -u kudu kudu local_replica cmeta rewrite_raft_config --fs_wal_dir=<master_wal_dir> [--fs_data_dirs=<master_data_dir>] 00000000000000000000000000000000 <all_masters>

For example:

$ sudo -u kudu kudu local_replica cmeta rewrite_raft_config --fs_wal_dir=/data/kudu/master/wal --fs_data_dirs=/data/kudu/master/data 00000000000000000000000000000000 4aab798a69e94fab8d77069edff28ce0:new-master-name-1:7051 f5624e05f40649b79a757629a69d061e:new-master-name-2:7051 988d8ac6530f426cbe180be5ba52033d:new-master-name-3:7051
  1. Change the masters' gflagfile so the master_addresses parameter reflects the new hostnames.

  2. Change the tserver_master_addrs parameter in the tablet servers' gflagfiles to the new hostnames.

  3. Start up the masters.

  4. To verify that all masters are working properly, perform the following sanity checks:

    1. Using a browser, visit each master’s web UI. Look at the /masters page. All of the masters should be listed there with one master in the LEADER role and the others in the FOLLOWER role. The contents of /masters on each master should be the same.

    2. Run the below command to verify all masters are up and listening. The UUIDs should be the same and belong to the same master as before the hostname change:

      $ sudo -u kudu kudu master list new-master-name-1:7051,new-master-name-2:7051,new-master-name-3:7051
  5. Start all of the tablet servers.

  6. Run a Kudu system check (ksck) on the cluster using the kudu command line tool. See Checking Cluster Health with ksck for more details. After startup, some tablets may be unavailable as it takes some time to initialize all of them.

  7. If you have Kudu tables that are accessed from Impala, update the HMS database manually in the underlying database that provides the storage for HMS.

    1. The following is an example SQL statement you should run in the HMS database:

      UPDATE TABLE_PARAMS
      SET PARAM_VALUE =
        'new-master-name-1:7051,new-master-name-2:7051,new-master-name-3:7051'
      WHERE PARAM_KEY = 'kudu.master_addresses'
      AND PARAM_VALUE = 'master-1:7051,master-2:7051,master-3:7051';
    2. In impala-shell, run:

      INVALIDATE METADATA;
    3. Verify updating the metadata worked by running a simple SELECT query on a Kudu-backed Impala table.

Best Practices When Adding New Tablet Servers

A common workflow when administering a Kudu cluster is adding additional tablet server instances, in an effort to increase storage capacity, decrease load or utilization on individual hosts, increase compute power, etc.

By default, any newly added tablet servers will not be utilized immediately after their addition to the cluster. Instead, newly added tablet servers will only be utilized when new tablets are created or when existing tablets need to be replicated, which can lead to imbalanced nodes.

To add additional tablet servers to an existing cluster, the following steps can be taken to ensure tablets are uniformly distributed across the cluster:

  1. Ensure that Kudu is installed on the new machines being added to the cluster, and that the new instances have been correctly configured to point to the pre-existing cluster. Then, start up the new tablet server instances.

  2. Verify that the new instances check in with the Kudu Master(s) successfully. A quick method for veryifying they’ve successfully checked in with the existing Master instances is to view the Kudu Master WebUI, specifically the /tablet-servers section, and validate that the newly added instances are registered, and heartbeating.

  3. Once the tablet server(s) are successfully online and healthy, follow the steps to run the rebalancing tool which will spread existing tablets to the newly added tablet server nodes.

  4. After the balancer has completed, or even during its execution, you can check on the health of the cluster using the ksck command-line utility.

Checking Cluster Health with ksck

The kudu CLI includes a tool named ksck that can be used for gathering information about the state of a Kudu cluster, including checking its health. ksck will identify issues such as under-replicated tablets, unreachable tablet servers, or tablets without a leader.

ksck should be run from the command line as the Kudu admin user, and requires the full list of master addresses to be specified:

$ sudo -u kudu kudu cluster ksck master-01.example.com,master-02.example.com,master-03.example.com

To see a full list of the options available with ksck, use the --help flag. If the cluster is healthy, ksck will print information about the cluster, a success message, and return a zero (success) exit status.

Master Summary
               UUID               |       Address         | Status
----------------------------------+-----------------------+---------
 a811c07b99394df799e6650e7310f282 | master-01.example.com | HEALTHY
 b579355eeeea446e998606bcb7e87844 | master-02.example.com | HEALTHY
 cfdcc8592711485fad32ec4eea4fbfcd | master-02.example.com | HEALTHY

Tablet Server Summary
               UUID               |        Address         | Status
----------------------------------+------------------------+---------
 a598f75345834133a39c6e51163245db | tserver-01.example.com | HEALTHY
 e05ca6b6573b4e1f9a518157c0c0c637 | tserver-02.example.com | HEALTHY
 e7e53a91fe704296b3a59ad304e7444a | tserver-03.example.com | HEALTHY

Version Summary
 Version |      Servers
---------+-------------------------
  1.7.1  | all 6 server(s) checked

Summary by table
   Name   | RF | Status  | Total Tablets | Healthy | Recovering | Under-replicated | Unavailable
----------+----+---------+---------------+---------+------------+------------------+-------------
 my_table | 3  | HEALTHY | 8             | 8       | 0          | 0                | 0

                | Total Count
----------------+-------------
 Masters        | 3
 Tablet Servers | 3
 Tables         | 1
 Tablets        | 8
 Replicas       | 24
OK

If the cluster is unhealthy, for instance if a tablet server process has stopped, ksck will report the issue(s) and return a non-zero exit status, as shown in the abbreviated snippet of ksck output below:

Tablet Server Summary
               UUID               |        Address         |   Status
----------------------------------+------------------------+-------------
 a598f75345834133a39c6e51163245db | tserver-01.example.com | HEALTHY
 e05ca6b6573b4e1f9a518157c0c0c637 | tserver-02.example.com | HEALTHY
 e7e53a91fe704296b3a59ad304e7444a | tserver-03.example.com | UNAVAILABLE
Error from 127.0.0.1:7150: Network error: could not get status from server: Client connection negotiation failed: client connection to 127.0.0.1:7150: connect: Connection refused (error 61) (UNAVAILABLE)

... (full output elided)

==================
Errors:
==================
Network error: error fetching info from tablet servers: failed to gather info for all tablet servers: 1 of 3 had errors
Corruption: table consistency check error: 1 out of 1 table(s) are not healthy

FAILED
Runtime error: ksck discovered errors

To verify data integrity, the optional --checksum_scan flag can be set, which will ensure the cluster has consistent data by scanning each tablet replica and comparing results. The --tables or --tablets flags can be used to limit the scope of the checksum scan to specific tables or tablets, respectively. For example, checking data integrity on the my_table table can be done with the following command:

$ sudo -u kudu kudu cluster ksck --checksum_scan --tables my_table master-01.example.com,master-02.example.com,master-03.example.com

By default, ksck will attempt to use a snapshot scan of the table, so the checksum scan can be done while writes continue.

Finally, ksck also supports output in JSON format using the --ksck_format flag. JSON output contains the same information as the plain text output, but in a format that can be used by other tools. See kudu cluster ksck --help for more information.

Changing Directory Configurations

For higher read parallelism and larger volumes of storage per server, users may want to configure servers to store data in multiple directories on different devices. Once a server is started, users must go through the following steps to change the directory configuration.

Users can add or remove data directories to an existing master or tablet server via the kudu fs update_dirs tool. Data is striped across data directories, and when a new data directory is added, new data will be striped across the union of the old and new directories.

Unless the --force flag is specified, Kudu will not allow for the removal of a directory across which tablets are configured to spread data. If --force is specified, all tablets configured to use that directory will fail upon starting up and be replicated elsewhere.
If the metadata directory overlaps with a data directory, as was the default prior to Kudu 1.7, or if a non-default metadata directory is configured, the --fs_metadata_dir configuration must be specified when running the kudu fs update_dirs tool.
Only new tablet replicas (i.e. brand new tablets' replicas and replicas that are copied to the server for high availability) will use the new directory. Existing tablet replicas on the server will not be rebalanced across the new directory.
All of the command line steps below should be executed as the Kudu UNIX user, typically kudu.
  1. The tool can only run while the server is offline, so establish a maintenance window to update the server. The tool itself runs quickly, so this offline window should be brief, and as such, only the server to update needs to be offline. However, if the server is offline for too long (see the follower_unavailable_considered_failed_sec flag), the tablet replicas on it may be evicted from their Raft groups. To avoid this, it may be desirable to bring the entire cluster offline while performing the update.

  2. Run the tool with the desired directory configuration flags. For example, if a cluster was set up with --fs_wal_dir=/wals, --fs_metadata_dir=/meta, and --fs_data_dirs=/data/1,/data/2,/data/3, and /data/3 is to be removed (e.g. due to a disk error), run the command:

    $ sudo -u kudu kudu fs update_dirs --force --fs_wal_dir=/wals --fs_metadata_dir=/meta --fs_data_dirs=/data/1,/data/2
  3. Modify the values of the fs_data_dirs flags for the updated sever. If using CM, make sure to only update the configurations of the updated server, rather than of the entire Kudu service.

  4. Once complete, the server process can be started. When Kudu is installed using system packages, service is typically used:

    $ sudo service kudu-tserver start

Recovering from Disk Failure

Kudu nodes can only survive failures of disks on which certain Kudu directories are mounted. For more information about the different Kudu directory types, see the section on Kudu Directory Configurations. Below describes this behavior across different Apache Kudu releases.

Table 1. Kudu Disk Failure Behavior
Node Type Kudu Directory Type Kudu Releases that Crash on Disk Failure

Master

All

All

Tablet Server

Directory containing WALs

All

Tablet Server

Directory containing tablet metadata

All

Tablet Server

Directory containing data blocks only

Pre-1.6.0

When a disk failure occurs that does not lead to a crash, Kudu will stop using the affected directory, shut down tablets with blocks on the affected directories, and automatically re-replicate the affected tablets to other tablet servers. The affected server will remain alive and print messages to the log indicating the disk failure, for example:

E1205 19:06:24.163748 27115 data_dirs.cc:1011] Directory /data/8/kudu/data marked as failed
E1205 19:06:30.324795 27064 log_block_manager.cc:1822] Not using report from /data/8/kudu/data: IO error: Could not open container 0a6283cab82d4e75848f49772d2638fe: /data/8/kudu/data/0a6283cab82d4e75848f49772d2638fe.metadata: Read-only file system (error 30)
E1205 19:06:33.564638 27220 ts_tablet_manager.cc:946] T 4957808439314e0d97795c1394348d80 P 70f7ee61ead54b1885d819f354eb3405: aborting tablet bootstrap: tablet has data in a failed directory

While in this state, the affected node will avoid using the failed disk, leading to lower storage volume and reduced read parallelism. The administrator should schedule a brief window to update the node’s directory configuration to exclude the failed disk.

When the disk is repaired, remounted, and ready to be reused by Kudu, take the following steps:

  1. Make sure that the Kudu portion of the disk is completely empty.

  2. Stop the tablet server.

  3. Run the update_dirs tool. For example, to add /data/3, run the following:

    $ sudo -u kudu kudu fs update_dirs --force --fs_wal_dir=/wals --fs_data_dirs=/data/1,/data/2,/data/3
  4. Start the tablet server.

  5. Run ksck to verify cluster health.

    sudo -u kudu kudu cluster ksck master-01.example.com

Note that existing tablets will not stripe to the restored disk, but any new tablets will stripe to the restored disk.

Recovering from Full Disks

By default, Kudu reserves a small amount of space (1% by capacity) in its directories; Kudu considers a disk full if there is less free space available than the reservation. Kudu nodes can only tolerate running out of space on disks on which certain Kudu directories are mounted. For more information about the different Kudu directory types, see Kudu Directory Configurations. The table below describes this behavior for each type of directory. The behavior is uniform across masters and tablet servers.

Table 2. Kudu Full Disk Behavior
Kudu Directory Type Crash on a Full Disk?

Directory containing WALs

Yes

Directory containing tablet metadata

Yes

Directory containing data blocks only

No (see below)

Prior to Kudu 1.7.0, Kudu stripes tablet data across all directories, and will avoid writing data to full directories. Kudu will crash if all data directories are full.

In 1.7.0 and later, new tablets are assigned a disk group consisting of -fs_target_data_dirs_per_tablet data dirs (default 3). If Kudu is not configured with enough data directories for a full disk group, all data directories are used. When a data directory is full, Kudu will stop writing new data to it and each tablet that uses that data directory will write new data to other data directories within its group. If all data directories for a tablet are full, Kudu will crash. Periodically, Kudu will check if full data directories are still full, and will resume writing to those data directories if space has become available.

If Kudu does crash because its data directories are full, freeing space on the full directories will allow the affected daemon to restart and resume writing. Note that it may be possible for Kudu to free some space by running

$ sudo -u kudu kudu fs check --repair

but this command may also fail if there is too little space left.

It’s also possible to allocate additional data directories to Kudu in order to increase the overall amount of storage available. See the documentation on updating a node’s directory configuration for more information. Note that existing tablets will not use new data directories, so adding a new data directory does not resolve issues with full disks.

Bringing a tablet that has lost a majority of replicas back online

If a tablet has permanently lost a majority of its replicas, it cannot recover automatically and operator intervention is required. If the tablet servers hosting a majority of the replicas are down (i.e. ones reported as "TS unavailable" by ksck), they should be recovered instead if possible.

The steps below may cause recent edits to the tablet to be lost, potentially resulting in permanent data loss. Only attempt the procedure below if it is impossible to bring a majority back online.

Suppose a tablet has lost a majority of its replicas. The first step in diagnosing and fixing the problem is to examine the tablet’s state using ksck:

$ sudo -u kudu kudu cluster ksck --tablets=e822cab6c0584bc0858219d1539a17e6 master-00,master-01,master-02
Connected to the Master
Fetched info from all 5 Tablet Servers
Tablet e822cab6c0584bc0858219d1539a17e6 of table 'my_table' is unavailable: 2 replica(s) not RUNNING
  638a20403e3e4ae3b55d4d07d920e6de (tserver-00:7150): RUNNING
  9a56fa85a38a4edc99c6229cba68aeaa (tserver-01:7150): bad state
    State:       FAILED
    Data state:  TABLET_DATA_READY
    Last status: <failure message>
  c311fef7708a4cf9bb11a3e4cbcaab8c (tserver-02:7150): bad state
    State:       FAILED
    Data state:  TABLET_DATA_READY
    Last status: <failure message>

This output shows that, for tablet e822cab6c0584bc0858219d1539a17e6, the two tablet replicas on tserver-01 and tserver-02 failed. The remaining replica is not the leader, so the leader replica failed as well. This means the chance of data loss is higher since the remaining replica on tserver-00 may have been lagging. In general, to accept the potential data loss and restore the tablet from the remaining replicas, divide the tablet replicas into two groups:

  1. Healthy replicas: Those in RUNNING state as reported by ksck

  2. Unhealthy replicas

For example, in the above ksck output, the replica on tablet server tserver-00 is healthy, while the replicas on tserver-01 and tserver-02 are unhealthy. On each tablet server with a healthy replica, alter the consensus configuration to remove unhealthy replicas. In the typical case of 1 out of 3 surviving replicas, there will be only one healthy replica, so the consensus configuration will be rewritten to include only the healthy replica.

$ sudo -u kudu kudu remote_replica unsafe_change_config tserver-00:7150 <tablet-id> <tserver-00-uuid>

where <tablet-id> is e822cab6c0584bc0858219d1539a17e6 and <tserver-00-uuid> is the uuid of tserver-00, 638a20403e3e4ae3b55d4d07d920e6de.

Once the healthy replicas' consensus configurations have been forced to exclude the unhealthy replicas, the healthy replicas will be able to elect a leader. The tablet will become available for writes, though it will still be under-replicated. Shortly after the tablet becomes available, the leader master will notice that it is under-replicated, and will cause the tablet to re-replicate until the proper replication factor is restored. The unhealthy replicas will be tombstoned by the master, causing their remaining data to be deleted.

Rebuilding a Kudu Filesystem Layout

In the event that critical files are lost, i.e. WALs or tablet-specific metadata, all Kudu directories on the server must be deleted and rebuilt to ensure correctness. Doing so will destroy the copy of the data for each tablet replica hosted on the local server. Kudu will automatically re-replicate tablet replicas removed in this way, provided the replication factor is at least three and all other servers are online and healthy.

These steps use a tablet server as an example, but the steps are the same for Kudu master servers.
If multiple nodes need their FS layouts rebuilt, wait until all replicas previously hosted on each node have finished automatically re-replicating elsewhere before continuing. Failure to do so can result in permanent data loss.
Before proceeding, ensure the contents of the directories are backed up, either as a copy or in the form of other tablet replicas.
  1. The first step to rebuilding a server with a new directory configuration is emptying all of the server’s existing directories. For example, if a tablet server is configured with --fs_wal_dir=/data/0/kudu-tserver-wal, --fs_metadata_dir=/data/0/kudu-tserver-meta, and --fs_data_dirs=/data/1/kudu-tserver,/data/2/kudu-tserver, the following commands will remove the WAL directory’s and data directories' contents:

    # Note: this will delete all of the data from the local tablet server.
    $ rm -rf /data/0/kudu-tserver-wal/* /data/0/kudu-tserver-meta/* /data/1/kudu-tserver/* /data/2/kudu-tserver/*
  2. If using CM, update the configurations for the rebuilt server to include only the desired directories. Make sure to only update the configurations of servers to which changes were applied, rather than of the entire Kudu service.

  3. After directories are deleted, the server process can be started with the new directory configuration. The appropriate sub-directories will be created by Kudu upon starting up.

Minimizing cluster disruption during temporary planned downtime of a single tablet server

If a single tablet server is brought down temporarily in a healthy cluster, all tablets will remain available and clients will function as normal, after potential short delays due to leader elections. However, if the downtime lasts for more than --follower_unavailable_considered_failed_sec (default 300) seconds, the tablet replicas on the down tablet server will be replaced by new replicas on available tablet servers. This will cause stress on the cluster as tablets re-replicate and, if the downtime lasts long enough, significant reduction in the number of replicas on the down tablet server. This may require the rebalancer to fix.

To work around this, increase --follower_unavailable_considered_failed_sec on all tablet servers so the amount of time before re-replication will start is longer than the expected downtime of the tablet server, including the time it takes the tablet server to restart and bootstrap its tablet replicas. To do this, run the following command for each tablet server:

$ sudo -u kudu kudu tserver set_flag <tserver_address> follower_unavailable_considered_failed_sec <num_seconds>

where <num_seconds> is the number of seconds that will encompass the downtime. Once the downtime is finished, reset the flag to its original value.

$ sudo -u kudu kudu tserver set_flag <tserver_address> follower_unavailable_considered_failed_sec <original_value>
Be sure to reset the value of --follower_unavailable_considered_failed_sec to its original value.
On Kudu versions prior to 1.8, the --force flag must be provided in the above commands.

Running the tablet rebalancing tool

The kudu CLI contains a rebalancing tool that can be used to rebalance tablet replicas among tablet servers. For each table, the tool attempts to balance the number of replicas per tablet server. It will also, without unbalancing any table, attempt to even out the number of replicas per tablet server across the cluster as a whole. The rebalancing tool should be run as the Kudu admin user, specifying all master addresses:

sudo -u kudu kudu cluster rebalance master-01.example.com,master-02.example.com,master-03.example.com

When run, the rebalancer will report on the initial tablet replica distribution in the cluster, log the replicas it moves, and print a final summary of the distribution when it terminates:

Per-server replica distribution summary:
       Statistic       |   Value
-----------------------+-----------
 Minimum Replica Count | 0
 Maximum Replica Count | 24
 Average Replica Count | 14.400000

Per-table replica distribution summary:
 Replica Skew |  Value
--------------+----------
 Minimum      | 8
 Maximum      | 8
 Average      | 8.000000

I0613 14:18:49.905897 3002065792 rebalancer.cc:779] tablet e7ee9ade95b342a7a94649b7862b345d: 206a51de1486402bbb214b5ce97a633c -> 3b4d9266ac8c45ff9a5d4d7c3e1cb326 move scheduled
I0613 14:18:49.917578 3002065792 rebalancer.cc:779] tablet 5f03944529f44626a0d6ec8b1edc566e: 6e64c4165b864cbab0e67ccd82091d60 -> ba8c22ab030346b4baa289d6d11d0809 move scheduled
I0613 14:18:49.928683 3002065792 rebalancer.cc:779] tablet 9373fee3bfe74cec9054737371a3b15d: fab382adf72c480984c6cc868fdd5f0e -> 3b4d9266ac8c45ff9a5d4d7c3e1cb326 move scheduled

... (full output elided)

I0613 14:19:01.162802 3002065792 rebalancer.cc:842] tablet f4c046f18b174cc2974c65ac0bf52767: 206a51de1486402bbb214b5ce97a633c -> 3b4d9266ac8c45ff9a5d4d7c3e1cb326 move completed: OK

rebalancing is complete: cluster is balanced (moved 28 replicas)
Per-server replica distribution summary:
       Statistic       |   Value
-----------------------+-----------
 Minimum Replica Count | 14
 Maximum Replica Count | 15
 Average Replica Count | 14.400000

Per-table replica distribution summary:
 Replica Skew |  Value
--------------+----------
 Minimum      | 1
 Maximum      | 1
 Average      | 1.000000

If more details are needed in addition to the replica distribution summary, use the --output_replica_distribution_details flag. If added, the flag makes the tool print per-table and per-tablet server replica distribution statistics as well.

Use the --report_only flag to get a report on table- and cluster-wide replica distribution statistics without starting any rebalancing activity.

The rebalancer can also be restricted to run on a subset of the tables by supplying the --tables flag. Note that, when running on a subset of tables, the tool will not attempt to balance the cluster as a whole.

The length of time rebalancing is run for can be controlled with the flag --max_run_time_sec. By default, the rebalancer will run until the cluster is balanced. To control the amount of resources devoted to rebalancing, modify the flag --max_moves_per_server. See kudu cluster rebalance --help for more.

It’s safe to stop the rebalancer tool at any time. When restarted, the rebalancer will continue rebalancing the cluster.

The rebalancer requires all registered tablet servers to be up and running to proceed with the rebalancing process. That’s to avoid possible conflicts and races with the automatic re-replication and keep replica placement optimal for current configuration of the cluster. If a tablet server becomes unavailable during the rebalancing session, the rebalancer will exit. As noted above, it’s safe to restart the rebalancer after resolving the issue with unavailable tablet servers.

The rebalancing tool can rebalance Kudu clusters running older versions as well, with some restrictions. Consult the following table for more information. In the table, "RF" stands for "replication factor".

Table 3. Kudu Rebalancing Tool Compatibility
Version Range Rebalances RF = 1 Tables? Rebalances RF > 1 Tables?

v < 1.4.0

No

No

1.4.0 <= v < 1.7.1

No

Yes

v >= 1.7.1

Yes

Yes

If the rebalancer is running against a cluster where rebalancing replication factor one tables is not supported, it will rebalance all the other tables and the cluster as if those singly-replicated tables did not exist.

Running the tablet rebalancing tool on a rack-aware cluster

As detailed in the rack awareness section, it’s possible to use the kudu cluster rebalance tool to establish the placement policy on a cluster. This might be necessary when the rack awareness feature is first configured or when re-replication violated the placement policy. The rebalancing tool breaks its work into three phases:

  1. The rack-aware rebalancer tries to establish the placement policy. Use the --disable_policy_fixer flag to skip this phase.

  2. The rebalancer tries to balance load by location, moving tablet replicas between locations in an attempt to spread tablet replicas among locations evenly. The load of a location is measured as the total number of replicas in the location divided by the number of tablet servers in the location. Use the --disable_cross_location_rebalancing flag to skip this phase.

  3. The rebalancer tries to balance the tablet replica distribution within each location, as if the location were a cluster on its own. Use the --disable_intra_location_rebalancing flag to skip this phase.

By using the --report_only flag, it’s also possible to check if all tablets in the cluster conform to the placement policy without attempting any replica movement.

Decommissioning or Permanently Removing a Tablet Server From a Cluster

Kudu does not currently have an automated way to remove a tablet server from a cluster permanently. Instead, use the following steps:

  1. Ensure the cluster is in good health using ksck. See Checking Cluster Health with ksck.

  2. If the tablet server contains any replicas of tables with replication factor 1, these replicas must be manually moved off the tablet server prior to shutting it down. The kudu tablet change_config move_replica tool can be used for this.

  3. Shut down the tablet server. After -follower_unavailable_considered_failed_sec, which defaults to 5 minutes, Kudu will begin to re-replicate the tablet server’s replicas to other servers. Wait until the process is finished. Progress can be monitored using ksck.

  4. Once all the copies are complete, ksck will continue to report the tablet server as unavailable. The cluster will otherwise operate fine without the tablet server. To completely remove it from the cluster so ksck shows the cluster as completely healthy, restart the masters. In the case of a single master, this will cause cluster downtime. With multimaster, restart the masters in sequence to avoid cluster downtime.

Do not shut down multiple tablet servers at once. To remove multiple tablet servers from the cluster, follow the above instructions for each tablet server, ensuring that the previous tablet server is removed from the cluster and ksck is healthy before shutting down the next.

Using cluster names in the kudu command line tool

When using the kudu command line tool, it can be difficult to remember the precise list of Kudu master RPC addresses needed to communicate with a cluster, especially when managing multiple clusters. As an alternative, the command line tool can identify clusters by name. To use this functionality:

  1. Create a new directory to store the Kudu configuration file.

  2. Export the path to this directory in the KUDU_CONFIG environment variable.

  3. Create a file called kudurc in the new directory.

  4. Populate kudurc as follows, substituting your own cluster names and RPC addresses:

    clusters_info:
      cluster_name1:
        master_addresses: ip1:port1,ip2:port2,ip3:port3
      cluster_name2:
        master_addresses: ip4:port4
  5. When using the kudu command line tool, replace the list of Kudu master RPC addresses with the cluster name, prepended with the character @.

    Example
    $ sudo -u kudu kudu ksck @cluster_name1
Cluster names may be used as input in any invocation of the kudu command line tool that expects a list of Kudu master RPC addresses.