- Introduction
- Glossary
- Administration
- Configuration
- Special Parameter Types
- Global Settings
- threads
- thread_stack_size
- auth_connect_timeout
- auth_read_timeout
- auth_write_timeout
- query_retries
- query_retry_timeout
- passive
- ms_timestamp
- skip_permission_checks
- syslog
- maxlog
- log_to_shm
- log_warning
- log_notice
- log_info
- log_debug
- log_messages
- log_trace
- log_augmentation
- log_throttling
- logdir
- datadir
- libdir
- cachedir
- piddir
- execdir
- connector_plugindir
- persistdir
- module_configdir
- language
- query_classifier
- query_classifier_args
- query_classifier_cache_size
- substitute_variables
- sql_mode
- local_address
- users_refresh_time
- retain_last_statements
- dump_last_statements
- writeq_high_water
- writeq_low_water
- REST API Configuration
- Service
- Server
- Listener
- TLS/SSL encryption
- Routing Modules
- Diagnostic modules
- Monitor Modules
- Filter Modules
- Encrypting Passwords
- Creating Encrypted Passwords
- Runtime Configuration Changes
- Reloading Configuration
- Authentication
- Error Reporting
This document describes how to configure MariaDB MaxScale and presents some possible usage scenarios. MariaDB MaxScale is designed with flexibility in mind, and consists of an event processing core with various support functions and plugin modules that tailor the behavior of the program.
Word | Description |
---|---|
service | A service represents a set of databases with a specific access mechanism that is offered to clients of MariaDB MaxScale. The access mechanism defines the algorithm that MariaDB MaxScale will use to direct particular requests to the individual databases. |
server | A server represents an individual database server to which a client can be connected via MariaDB MaxScale. |
router | A router is a module within MariaDB MaxScale that will route client requests to the various database servers which MariaDB MaxScale provides a service interface to. |
connection routing | Connection routing is a method of handling requests in which MariaDB MaxScale will accept connections from a client and route data on that connection to a single database using a single connection. Connection based routing will not examine individual requests on a connection and it will not move that connection once it is established. |
statement routing | Statement routing is a method of handling requests in which each request within a connection will be handled individually. Requests may be sent to one or more servers and connections may be dynamically added or removed from the session. |
protocol | A protocol is a module of software that is used to communicate with another software entity within the system. MariaDB MaxScale supports the dynamic loading of protocol modules to allow for increased flexibility. |
module | A module is a separate code entity that may be loaded dynamically into MariaDB MaxScale to increase the available functionality. Modules are implemented as run-time loadable shared objects. |
monitor | A monitor is a module that can be executed within MariaDB MaxScale to monitor the state of a set of database. The use of an internal monitor is optional, monitoring may be performed externally to MariaDB MaxScale. |
listener | A listener is the network endpoint that is used to listen for connections to MariaDB MaxScale from the client applications. A listener is associated to a single service, however, a service may have many listeners. |
connection failover | When a connection currently being used between MariaDB MaxScale and the database server fails a replacement will be automatically created to another server by MariaDB MaxScale without client intervention |
backend database | A term used to refer to a database that sits behind MariaDB MaxScale and is accessed by applications via MariaDB MaxScale. |
filter | A module that can be placed between the client and the MariaDB MaxScale router module. All client data passes through the filter module and may be examined or modified by the filter modules. Filters may be chained together to form processing pipelines. |
REST API | HTTP administrative interface |
The administation of MaxScale can be divided in two parts:
- Writing the MaxScale configuration file, which is described in the following section.
- Performing runtime modifications using MaxCtrl or MaxAdmin.
For detailed information about MaxAdmin and MaxCtrl please refer to the specific documentation referred to above. In the following it will only be explained how MaxAdmin and MaxCtrl relate to each other, as far as user credentials go.
MaxAdmin can connect to MaxScale either using Unix (domain) sockets or
TCP/IP sockets. In the former case, the user is identified using her
Linux credentials and by default root
can access.
MaxCtrl can only connect using TCP/IP sockets. When connecting with
MaxCtrl or with MaxAdmin using TCP/IP sockets, the user and password
must be provided and are checked against a separate user credentials
database. By default, that database contains the user admin
whose
password is mariadb
.
Note that the database is shared between MaxAdmin and MaxCtrl, that is, if a user is deleted via MaxAdmin, then it will also no longer be possible to use that user with MaxCtrl. Similarly, a user created using MaxAdmin or MaxCtrl can be used with either MaxAdmin or MaxCtrl.
Note that if MaxAdmin (when used over a TCP/IP socket) or MaxCtrl are
invoked without explicitly providing a user and password then they will
by default use admin
and mariadb
. That means that when the default
user is removed, the credentials must always be provded.
The MariaDB MaxScale configuration is read from a file that MariaDB MaxScale will look for in the following places:
- By default, the file
maxscale.cnf
in the directory/etc
- The location given with the
--configdir=<path>
command line argument.
MariaDB MaxScale will further look for a directory with the same name as the
configuration file, followed by .d
(for instance /etc/maxscale.cnf.d
) and
recursively read all files, having a .cnf
suffix, it finds in the directory
hierarchy. All other files will be ignored.
There are no restrictions on how different configuration sections are arranged, but the strong suggestion is to place global settings into the configuration file MariaDB MaxScale is invoked with, and then, if deemed necessary, create separate configuration files for servers, filters, etc.
The configuration file itself is based on the .ini file format and consists of various sections that are used to build the configuration; these sections define services, servers, listeners, monitors and global settings. Parameters, which expect a comma-separated list of values can be defined on multiple lines. The following is an example of a multi-line definition.
[MyService]
type=service
router=readconnroute
servers=server1,
server2,
server3
The values of the parameter that are not on the first line need to have at least one whitespace character before them in order for them to be recognized as a part of the multi-line parameter.
Comments are defined by prefixing a row with a hash (#
). Trailing comments are
not supported.
# This is a comment before a parameter
some_parameter=123
Where specifically noted, a number denoting a size can be suffixed by a subset
of the IEC binary prefixes or the SI prefixes. In the former case the number
will be interpreted as a certain multiple of 1024 and in the latter case as a
certain multiple of 1000. The supported IEC binary suffixes are Ki
, Mi
, Gi
and Ti
and the supported SI suffixes are k
, M
, G
and T
. In both cases,
the matching is case insensitive.
For instance, the following entries
max_size=1099511628000
max_size=1073741824Ki
max_size=1048576Mi
max_size=1024Gi
max_size=1Ti
are equivalent, as are the following
max_size=1000000000000
max_size=1000000000k
max_size=1000000M
max_size=1000G
max_size=1T
When a regular expression (regex) parameter is accepted, the pattern string
should be enclosed in slashes e.g. match=/^select/
defines the pattern
^select
. The slashes allow whitespace to be read from the ends of the regex
string contrary to a normal string parameter and are removed before compiling
the pattern. For backwards compatibility, the slashes are not yet mandatory.
Omitting them is, however, deprecated and will be rejected in the next release
of MaxScale. Currently, QLAFilter accepts parameters in regular expression
form.
The global settings, in a section named [MaxScale]
, allow various parameters
that affect MariaDB MaxScale as a whole to be tuned. This section must be
defined in the root configuration file which by default is /etc/maxscale.cnf
.
This parameter controls the number of worker threads that are handling the events coming from the kernel. The default is 1 thread. It is recommended that you start with one thread and increase the number if you require greater performance. Increasing the amount of worker threads beyond the number of processor cores does not improve the performance, rather is likely to degrade it, and can consume resources needlessly.
You can enable automatic configuration of this value by setting the value to
auto
. This way MariaDB MaxScale will detect the number of available processors
and set the amount of threads to be equal to that number. This should only be
used for systems dedicated for running MariaDB MaxScale.
# Valid options are:
# threads=[<number of threads> | auto ]
[MaxScale]
threads=1
Additional threads will be created to execute other internal services within MariaDB MaxScale. This setting is used to configure the number of threads that will be used to manage the user connections.
Ignored and deprecated in 2.3.
If you need to explicitly set the stack size, do so using ulimit -s
before
starting MaxScale.
The connection timeout in seconds for the MySQL connections to the backend server when user authentication data is fetched. Increasing the value of this parameter will cause MariaDB MaxScale to wait longer for a response from the backend server before aborting the authentication process. The default is 3 seconds.
auth_connect_timeout=10
The read timeout in seconds for the MySQL connection to the backend database when user authentication data is fetched. Increasing the value of this parameter will cause MariaDB MaxScale to wait longer for a response from the backend server when user data is being actively fetched. If the authentication is failing and you either have a large number of database users and grants or the connection to the backend servers is slow, it is a good idea to increase this value. The default is 1 second.
auth_read_timeout=10
The write timeout in seconds for the MySQL connection to the backend database when user authentication data is fetched. Currently MariaDB MaxScale does not write or modify the data in the backend server. The default is 2 seconds.
auth_write_timeout=10
The number of times an interrupted internal query will be retried. The default is to retry the query once. This feature was added in MaxScale 2.1.10 and was disabled by default until MaxScale 2.3.0.
An interrupted query is any query that is interrupted by a network
error. Connection timeouts are included in network errors and thus is it
advisable to make sure that the value of query_retry_timeout
is set to an
adequate value. Internal queries are only used to retrieve authentication data
and monitor the servers.
The total timeout in seconds for any retried queries. The default value is 5 seconds.
An interrupted query is retried for either the configured amount of attempts or until the configured timeout is reached.
Controls whether MaxScale is a passive node in a cluster of multiple MaxScale instances. The default value is false.
This parameter is intended to be used with multiple MaxScale instances that use failover functionality to manipulate the cluster in some form. Passive nodes only observe the clusters being monitored and take no direct actions.
The following functionality is disabled when passive mode is enabled:
- Automatic failover in the
mariadbmon
module - Automatic rejoin in the
mariadbmon
module - Launching of monitor scripts
NOTE: Even if MaxScale is in passive mode, it will still accept clients and route any traffic sent to it. The only operations affected by the passive mode are the ones listed above.
Enable or disable the high precision timestamps in logfiles. Enabling this adds millisecond precision to all logfile timestamps.
# Valid options are:
# ms_timestamp=<0|1>
ms_timestamp=1
Skip service and monitor user permission checks. This is useful when you know the permissions are OK and you want to speed up the startup process. This parameter takes a boolean value and is disabled by default.
It is recommended to not disable the permission checks so that any missing privileges are detected when maxscale is starting up. If you are experiencing a slow startup of MaxScale due to large amounts of connection timeouts when permissions are checked, disabling the permission checks could speed up the startup process.
skip_permission_checks=true
Enable or disable the logging of messages to syslog.
By default logging to syslog is enabled.
# Valid options are:
# syslog=<0|1>
syslog=1
To enable logging to syslog use the value 1 and to disable use the value 0.
Enable to disable to logging of messages to MariaDB MaxScale's log file.
By default logging to maxlog is enabled.
# Valid options are:
# syslog=<0|1>
maxlog=1
To enable logging to the MariaDB MaxScale log file use the value 1 and to disable use the value 0.
Note: This parameter is deprecated and it is ignored by MaxScale versions
2.3.0 and newer. If you want to store the log in shared memory, define the
directory with logdir
in /dev/shm
.
In older MaxScale versions, the actual log file was created in /dev/shm
and a
symbolic link to that file was stored in place of the normal MaxScale log.
Enable or disable the logging of messages whose syslog priority is warning. Messages of this priority are enabled by default.
# Valid options are:
# log_warning=<0|1>
log_warning=0
To disable these messages use the value 0 and to enable them use the value 1.
Enable or disable the logging of messages whose syslog priority is notice. Messages of this priority provide information about the functioning of MariaDB MaxScale and are enabled by default.
# Valid options are:
# log_notice=<0|1>
log_notice=0
To disable these messages use the value 0 and to enable them use the value 1.
Enable or disable the logging of messages whose syslog priority is info. These messages provide detailed information about the internal workings of MariaDB MaxScale and should not, due to their frequency, be enabled, unless there is a specific reason for that. For instance, from these messages it will be evident, e.g., why a particular query was routed to the master instead of to a slave. These informational messages are disabled by default.
# Valid options are:
# log_info=<0|1>
log_info=1
To disable these messages use the value 0 and to enable them use the value 1.
Enable or disable the logging of messages whose syslog priority is debug. This kind of messages are intended for development purposes and are disabled by default. Note that if MariaDB MaxScale has been built in release mode, then debug messages are excluded from the build and this setting will not have any effect.
# Valid options are:
# log_debug=<0|1>
log_debug=1
To disable these messages use the value 0 and to enable them use the value 1.
Deprecated Use log_notice instead.
Deprecated Use log_info instead.
Enable or disable the augmentation of messages. If this is enabled, then each logged message is appended with the name of the function where the message was logged. This is primarily for development purposes and hence is disabled by default.
# Valid options are:
# log_augmentation=<0|1>
log_augmentation=1
To disable the augmentation use the value 0 and to enable it use the value 1.
It is possible that a particular error (or warning) is logged over and over again, if the cause for the error persistently remains. To prevent the log from flooding, it is possible to specify how many times a particular error may be logged within a time period, before the logging of that error is suppressed for a while.
# A valid value looks like
# log_throttling = X, Y, Z
#
# where each value is a positive integer and X means the number of times a
# specific error may be logged within a time period of Y milliseconds, before
# the logging of that error is suppressed for Z milliseconds.
log_throttling=8, 2000, 15000
In the example above, the logging of a particular error will be suppressed for 15 seconds if the error has been logged 8 times in 2 seconds.
The default is 10, 1000, 10000
, which means that if the same error is logged
10 times in one second, the logging of that error is suppressed for the
following 10 seconds.
To disable log throttling, add an entry with an empty value
log_throttling=
or one where any of the integers is 0.
log_throttling=0, 0, 0
Note that notice, info and debug messages are never throttled.
Set the directory where the logfiles are stored. The folder needs to be both readable and writable by the user running MariaDB MaxScale.
logdir=/tmp/
Set the directory where the data files used by MariaDB MaxScale are stored. Modules can write to this directory and for example the binlogrouter uses this folder as the default location for storing binary logs.
This is also the directory where the password encryption key is read from that
is generated by maxkeys
.
datadir=/home/user/maxscale_data/
Set the directory where MariaDB MaxScale looks for modules. The library directory is the only directory that MariaDB MaxScale uses when it searches for modules. If you have custom modules for MariaDB MaxScale, make sure you have them in this folder.
libdir=/home/user/lib64/
Configure the directory MariaDB MaxScale uses to store cached data. An example of cached data is the authentication data fetched from the backend servers. MariaDB MaxScale stores this in case a connection to the backend server is not possible.
cachedir=/tmp/maxscale_cache/
Configure the directory for the PID file for MariaDB MaxScale. This file contains the Process ID for the running MariaDB MaxScale process.
piddir=/tmp/maxscale_cache/
Configure the directory where the executable files reside. All internal processes which are launched will use this directory to look for executable files.
execdir=/usr/local/bin/
Location of the MariaDB Connector-C plugin directory. The MariaDB Connector-C used in MaxScale can use this directory to load authentication plugins. The versions of the plugins must be binary compatible with the connector version that MaxScale was built with.
connector_plugindir=/usr/lib/plugin/
Configure the directory where persisted configurations are stored. When a new server is created via MaxAdmin, it will be stored in this directory. Do not use or modify the contents of this directory, use /etc/maxscale.cnf.d/ instead.
persistdir=/var/lib/maxscale/maxscale.cnf.d/
Configure the directory where module configurations are stored. Path arguments are resolved relative to this directory. This directory should be used to store module specific configurations e.g. dbfwfilter rule files.
Any configuration parameter that is not an absolute path will be interpreted as a relative path. The relative paths use the module configuration directory as the working directory.
For example, the configuration parameter file=my_file.txt
would be interpreted
as /etc/maxscale.cnf.d/my_file.txt
whereas file=/home/user/my_file.txt
would
be interpreted as /home/user/my_file.txt
.
module_configdir=/var/lib/maxscale/
Set the folder where the errmsg.sys file is located in. MariaDB MaxScale will look for the errmsg.sys file installed with MariaDB MaxScale from this folder.
language=/home/user/lang/
The module used by MariaDB MaxScale for query classification. The information provided by this module is used by MariaDB MaxScale when deciding where a particular statement should be sent. The default query classifier is qc_sqlite.
Specifies the maximum size of the query classifier cache. The default limit is 40% of total system memory.
When the query classifier cache has been enabled, MaxScale will, after a statement has been parsed, store the classification result using the canonicalized version of the statement as the key.
If the classification result for a statement is needed, MaxScale will first canonicalize the statement and check whether the result can be found in the cache. If it can, the statement will not be parsed at all but the cached result is used.
The configuration parameter takes one integer that specifies the maximum size of the cache. The size of the cache can be specifed as explained here.
# 1MB query classifier cache
query_classifier_cache_size=1MB
Note that MaxScale uses a separate cache for each worker thread. To obtain the
amount of memory available for each thread, divide the cache size with the value
of threads
. If statements are evicted from the cache (visible in the
diagnostic output), consider increasing the cache size.
Arguments for the query classifier. What arguments are accepted depends on the particular query classifier being used. The default query classifier - qc_sqlite - supports the following arguments:
An integer argument taking the following values:
- 0: Nothing is logged. This is the default.
- 1: Statements that cannot be parsed completely are logged. They may have been partially parsed, or classified based on keyword matching.
- 2: Statements that cannot even be partially parsed are logged. They may have been classified based on keyword matching.
- 3: Statements that cannot even be classified by keyword matching are logged.
query_classifier=qc_sqlite
query_classifier_args=log_unrecognized_statements=1
This will log all statements that cannot be parsed completely. This may be useful if you suspect that MariaDB MaxScale routes statements to the wrong server (e.g. to a slave instead of to a master).
Enable or disable the substitution of environment variables in the MaxScale configuration file. If the substitution of variables is enabled and a configuration line like
some_parameter=$SOME_VALUE
is encountered, then $SOME_VALUE
will be replaced with the actual value
of the environment variable SOME_VALUE
. Note:
- Variable substitution will be made only if '$' is the first character of the value.
- Everything following '$' is interpreted as the name of the environment variable.
- Referring to a non-existing environment variable is a fatal error.
By default, the value of substitute_variables
is false
.
substitute_variables=true
The setting of substitute_variables
will have an effect on all parameters
in the all other sections, irrespective of where the [maxscale]
section
is placed in the configuration file. However, in the [maxscale]
section,
to ensure that substitution will take place, place the
substitute_variables=true
line first.
Specifies whether the query classifier parser should initially expect MariaDB or PL/SQL kind of SQL.
The allowed values are:
default
: The parser expects regular MariaDB SQL.
oracle
: The parser expects PL/SQL.
sql_mode=oracle
The default value is default
.
NOTE If sql_mode
is set to oracle
, then MaxScale will also assume
that autocommit
initially is off.
At runtime, MariaDB MaxScale will recognize statements like
set sql_mode=oracle;
and
set sql_mode=default;
and change mode accordingly.
NOTE If set sql_mode=oracle;
is encountered, then MaxScale will also
behave as if autocommit
had been turned off and conversely, if
set sql_mode=default;
is encountered, then MaxScale will also behave
as if autocommit
had been turned on.
Note that MariaDB MaxScale is not explicitly aware of the sql mode of
the server, so the value of sql_mode
should reflect the sql mode used
when the server is started.
What specific local address/interface to use when connecting to servers.
This can be used for ensuring that MaxScale uses a particular interface when connecting to servers, in case the computer MaxScale is running on has multiple interfaces.
local_address=192.168.1.254
How often, in seconds, MaxScale at most may refresh the users from the backend server.
MaxScale will at startup load the users from the backend server, but if
the authentication of a user fails, MaxScale assumes it is because a new
user has been created and will thus refresh the users. By default, MaxScale
will do that at most once per 30 seconds and with this configuration option
that can be changed. The minimum allowed value is 10 seconds. A negative
value disables the refreshing entirelly. Note that using maxadmin
it is
possible to explicitly cause the users of a service to be reloaded.
users_refresh_time=120
How many statements MaxScale should store for each session. This is for debugging purposes, as in case of problems it is often of value to be able to find out exactly what statements were sent before a particular problem turned up.
Note: See also dump_last_statements
using which the actual dumping
of the statements is enabled. Unless both of the parameters are defined,
the statement dumping mechanism doesn't work.
retain_last_statements=20
Default is 0
.
With this configuration item it is specified in what circumstances MaxScale
should dump the last statements that a client sent. The allowed values are
never
, on_error
and on_close
. With never
the statements are never
logged, with on_error
they are logged if the client closes the connection
improperly, and with on_close
they are always logged when a client session
is closed.
dump_last_statements=on_error
Default is never
.
Note that you need to specify with retain_last_statements
how many statements
MaxScale should retain for each session. Unless it has been set to another value
than 0
, this configuration setting will not have an effect.
High water mark for network write buffer. Controls when network traffic throtting is started. The parameter accepts size type values.
More specifically, if the client side write queue is above this value, it will block traffic coming from backend servers. If the backend side write queue is above this value, it will block traffic from client. the minimum allowed size is 4096 bytes.
Only when both writeq_high_water
and writeq_low_water
are set, traffic
throtting is enabled. By default, traffic throttling is disabled.
Low water mark for network write buffer. Once the traffic throttling is enabled,
it will only be disabled when the write queue is below writeq_low_water
. The
parameter accepts size type values. The minimum allowed size is 512
bytes. writeq_high_water
must always be greater than writeq_low_water
.
The MaxScale REST API is an HTTP interface that provides JSON format data intended to be consumed by monitoring appllications and visualization tools.
The following options must be defined under the [maxscale]
section in the
configuration file.
The network interface where the REST API listens on. The default value is the
IPv4 address 127.0.0.1
which only listens for local connections.
The port where the REST API listens on. The default value is port 8989.
Enable REST API authentication using HTTP Basic Access authentication. This is not a secure method of authentication without HTTPS but it does add a small layer of security. This option is enabled by default.
The admin interface authentication uses the same user as MaxAdmin network
interface. This means that new users can be added with both MaxAdmin and the
REST API. The default credentials for the interface are admin:mariadb
.
The path to the TLS private key in PEM format for the admin interface.
If the admin_ssl_key
, admin_ssl_cert
and admin_ssl_ca_cert
options are all
defined, the admin interface will use encrypted HTTPS instead of plain HTTP.
The path to the TLS public certificate in PEM format. See admin_ssl_key
documentation for more details.
The path to the TLS CA certificate in PEM format. See admin_ssl_key
documentation for more details.
Enable or disable the admin interface. This allows the admin interface to be completely disabled to prevent access to it.
Log authentication failures for the admin interface. This parameter expects a boolean value and is enabled by default.
MaxScale logs warnings and errors for various reasons and often it is self- evident and generally applicable whether some occurence should warrant a warning or an error, or perhaps just an info-level message.
However, there are events whose seriousness is not self-evident. For instance, in some environments an authentication failure may simply indicate that someone has made a typo, while in some other environment that can only happen in case there has been a security breech.
To handle events like these, MaxScale defines events whose logging
facility and level can be controlled by the administrator. Given an event
X
, its facility and level are controlled in the following manner:
event.X.facility=LOG_LOCAL0
event.X.level=LOG_ERR
The above means that if event X occurs, then that is logged using the
facility LOG_LOCAL0
and the level LOG_ERR
.
The valid values of facilityare the facility values reported by
man
syslog, e.g.
LOG_AUTH,
LOG_LOCAL0and
LOG_USER. Likewise, the valid values for
levelare the ones also reported by
man syslog, e.g.
LOG_WARNING,
LOG_ERRand
LOG_CRIT`.
Note that MaxScale does not act upon the level, that is, even if the level
of a particular event is defined to be LOG_EMERG
, MaxScale will not shut
down if that event occurs.
The default facility is LOG_USER
and the default level is LOG_WARNING
.
The available events are:
This event occurs when there is an authentication failure.
event.authentication_failure.facility=LOG_AUTH
event.authentication_failure.level=LOG_CRIT
A service represents the database service that MariaDB MaxScale offers to the clients. In general a service consists of a set of backend database servers and a routing algorithm that determines how MariaDB MaxScale decides to send statements or route connections to those backend servers.
A service may be considered as a virtual database server that MariaDB MaxScale makes available to its clients.
Several different services may be defined using the same set of backend servers. For example a connection based routing service might be used by clients that already performed internal read/write splitting, whilst a different statement based router may be used by clients that are not written with this functionality in place. Both sets of applications could access the same data in the same databases.
A service is identified by a service name, which is the name of the configuration file section and a type parameter of service.
[Test-Service]
type=service
In order for MariaDB MaxScale to forward any requests it must have at least one service defined within the configuration file. The definition of a service alone is not enough to allow MariaDB MaxScale to forward requests however, the service is merely present to link together the other configuration elements.
The router parameter of a service defines the name of the router module that will be used to implement the routing algorithm between the client of MariaDB MaxScale and the backend databases. Additionally routers may also be passed a comma separated list of options that are used to control the behavior of the routing algorithm. The two parameters that control the routing choice are router and router_options. The router options are specific to a particular router and are used to modify the behavior of the router. The read connection router can be passed options of master, slave or synced, an example of configuring a service to use this router and limiting the choice of servers to those in slave state would be as follows.
router=readconnroute
router_options=slave
To change the router to connect on to servers in the master state as well as slave servers, the router options can be modified to include the master state.
router=readconnroute
router_options=master,slave
A more complete description of router options and what is available for a given router is included with the documentation of the router itself.
Option string given to the router module. The value of this parameter should be a comma-separated list of key-value pairs. See router specific documentation for more details.
The filters option allow a set of filters to be defined for a service; requests from the client are passed through these filters before being sent to the router for dispatch to the backend server. The filters parameter takes one or more filter names, as defined within the filter definition section of the configuration file. Multiple filters are separated using the | character.
filters=counter | QLA
The requests pass through the filters from left to right in the order defined in the configuration parameter.
The servers parameter in a service definition provides a comma separated list of the backend servers that comprise the service. The server names are those used in the name section of a block with a type parameter of server (see below).
servers=server1,server2,server3
The user parameter, along with the password parameter are used to define the credentials used to connect to the backend servers to extract the list of database users from the backend database that is used for the client authentication.
user=maxscale
password=Mhu87p2D
Authentication of incoming connections is performed by MariaDB MaxScale itself rather than by the database server to which the client is connected. The client will authenticate itself with MariaDB MaxScale, using the username, hostname and password information that MariaDB MaxScale has extracted from the backend database servers. For a detailed discussion of how this impacts the authentication process please see the "Authentication" section below.
The host matching criteria is restricted to IPv4, IPv6 will be added in a future release.
Existing user configuration in the backend databases must be checked and may be updated before successful MariaDB MaxScale authentication:
In order for MariaDB MaxScale to obtain all the data it must be given a username it can use to connect to the database and retrieve that data. This is the parameter that gives MariaDB MaxScale the username to use for this purpose.
The account used must be able to select from the mysql.user table, the following is an example showing how to create this user.
CREATE USER 'maxscale'@'maxscalehost' IDENTIFIED BY 'maxscale-password';
Additionally, SELECT
privileges on the mysql.user
, mysql.db
and mysql.tables_priv
tables and SHOW DATABASES
privileges are required in order to load databases
name and grants suitable for database name authorization.
GRANT SELECT ON mysql.user TO 'maxscale'@'maxscalehost';
GRANT SELECT ON mysql.db TO 'maxscale'@'maxscalehost';
GRANT SELECT ON mysql.tables_priv TO 'maxscale'@'maxscalehost';
GRANT SELECT ON mysql.roles_mapping TO 'maxscale'@'maxscalehost';
GRANT SHOW DATABASES ON *.* TO 'maxscale'@'maxscalehost';
-- MariaDB from 10.2.2 to 10.2.10 requires extra grants
GRANT SELECT ON mysql.* TO 'maxscale'@'maxscalehost';
Note: MariaDB versions 10.2.10 and older require a SELECT
grant on
mysql.*
in addition to the normal grants. This is to work around MDEV-13453
which was fixed in MariaDB 10.2.11.
See MaxScale Troubleshooting for more information on how to troubleshoot authentication related problems.
The password parameter provides the password information for the above user and may be either a plain text password or it may be an encrypted password. See the section on encrypting passwords for use in the maxscale.cnf file. This user must be capable of connecting to the backend database and executing these SQL statements to load database names and grants from the backends:
SELECT user, host, password,Select_priv FROM mysql.user
.SELECT user, host, db FROM mysql.db
SELECT * FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.SCHEMATA
SELECT GRANTEE,PRIVILEGE_TYPE FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.USER_PRIVILEGES
Note: In older versions of MaxScale this parameter was called passwd
. The
use of passwd
was deprecated in MaxScale 2.3.0.
This parameter controls the ability of the root user to connect to MariaDB MaxScale and hence onwards to the backend servers via MariaDB MaxScale.
The default value is 0
, disabling the ability of the root user to connect to
MariaDB MaxScale.
Example for enabling root user:
enable_root_user=1
Values of on
or true
may also be given to enable the root user and off
or
false
may be given to disable the use of the root user.
enable_root_user=true
This parameter enables matching of "127.0.0.1" (localhost) against "%" wildcard
host for MySQL protocol authentication. The default value is 0
, so in order to
authenticate a connection from the same machine as the one on which MariaDB
MaxScale is running, an explicit user@localhost entry will be required in the
MySQL user table.
This parameter sets a custom version string that is sent in the MySQL Handshake from MariaDB MaxScale to clients.
Example:
version_string=5.5.37-MariaDB-RWsplit
If not set, the default value is 5.5.5-10.0.0 MaxScale <MaxScale version>
where <MaxScale version>
is the version of MaxScale. If the provided string
does not start with the number 5, a 5.5.5- prefix will be added to it. This
means that a version_string value of MaxScale-Service would result in a
5.5.5-MaxScale-Service being sent to the client.
Note: This parameter has been deprecated in MaxScale 2.3.2.
The weightby parameter is used in conjunction with server parameters in order to control the load balancing applied in the router in use by the service. This allows varying weights to be applied to each server to create a non-uniform distribution of the load amongst the servers.
An example of this might be to define a parameter for each server that represents the amount of resource available on the server, we could call this serversize. Every server should then have a serversize parameter set for the server.
serversize=10
The service would then have the parameter weightby=serversize
. If there are 4
servers defined in the service (serverA, serverB, serverC and serverD) with the
serversize set as shown in the table below, the connections would balanced using
the percentages in this table.
Server | serversize | % connections |
---|---|---|
serverA | 10 | 18% |
serverB | 15 | 27% |
serverC | 10 | 18% |
serverD | 20 | 36% |
Note: If the value of the weighting parameter of an individual server is zero or the relative weight rounds down to zero, no queries will be routed to that server as long as a server with a positive weight is available.
Here is an excerpt from an example configuration with the serv_weight
parameter used as the weighting parameter.
[server1]
type=server
address=127.0.0.1
port=3000
protocol=MariaDBBackend
serv_weight=3
[server2]
type=server
address=127.0.0.1
port=3001
protocol=MariaDBBackend
serv_weight=1
[Read-Service]
type=service
router=readconnroute
servers=server1,server2
weightby=serv_weight
With this configuration and a heavy query load, the server server1 will get most of the connections and about a third of the remaining queries are routed to the second server. With server weights, you can assign secondary servers that are only used when the primary server is under heavy load.
Without the weightby parameter, each connection counts as a single connection. With a weighting parameter, a single connection received its weight from the server's own weighting parameter divided by the sum of all weighting parameters in all the configured servers.
If we use the previous configuration as an example, the sum of the serv_weight
parameter is 4. Server1 would receive a weight of 3/4=75%
and server2
would get 1/4=25%
. This means that server1 would get 75% of the connections
and server2 would get 25% of the connections.
This parameter controls whether only a single server or all of the servers are used when loading the users from the backend servers. This takes a boolean value and when enabled, creates a union of all the users and grants on all the servers.
The strip_db_esc parameter strips escape characters from database names of grants when loading the users from the backend server.
This parameter takes a boolean value and when enabled, will strip all backslash (\
)
characters from the database names. The default value for this parameter is true
since MaxScale 2.0.1. In previous version, the default value was false.
Some visual database management tools automatically escape some characters and this might cause conflicts when MariaDB MaxScale tries to authenticate users.
The retry_on_failure parameter controls whether MariaDB MaxScale will try to restart failed services and accepts a boolean value. This functionality is enabled by default to prevent services being permanently disabled if the starting of the service failed due to a network outage. Disabling the restarting of the failed services will cause them to be permanently disabled if the services can't be started when MariaDB MaxScale is started.
Enable or disable the logging of authentication failures and warnings. This parameter takes a boolean value.
MariaDB MaxScale normally suppresses warning messages about failed authentication. Enabling this option will log those messages into the message log with details about who tried to connect to MariaDB MaxScale and from where.
The connection_timeout parameter is used to disconnect sessions to MariaDB MaxScale that have been idle for too long. The session timeouts are disabled by default. To enable them, define the timeout in seconds in the service's configuration section. A value of zero is interpreted as no timeout, the same as if the parameter is not defined.
Warning: If a connection is idle for longer than the configured connection
timeout, it will be forcefully disconnected and a warning will be logged in the
MaxScale log file. If you are performing long-running maintenance operations
(e.g. ALTER TABLE
) either do them with a direct connection to the server or
set connection_timeout
to zero before executing them.
Example:
[Test-Service]
connection_timeout=300
The maximum number of simultaneous connections MaxScale should permit to this service. If the parameter is zero or is omitted, there is no limit. Any attempt to make more connections after the limit is reached will result in a "Too many connections" error being returned.
Example:
[Test-Service]
max_connections=100
Configure the maximum interval between consecutive attempts to bind to an interface. The default value for this parameter is 3600 seconds. This parameter was introduced in MaxScale 2.2.0.
When a listener fails to bind to the interface it is assigned to, it will
attempt to bind to the interface again after 10 seconds. If the attempt fails,
the interval is incremented by 10 seconds and the next attempt will be in 20
seconds. The interval is incremented until the value of max_retry_interval
is
reached at which point the listener attempts to bind to the interface every
max_retry_interval
seconds.
Enable or disable session transaction state tracking by offloading it to the backend servers. Getting current session transaction state from server side will be more accurate for that state inside stored procedures or prepare statments will be handle properly, and that is also faster as no parsing is needed on MaxScale.
This is only supported by MariaDB versions 10.3 or newer. Default is false. The following Server side config is needed too.
session_track_state_change = ON
session_track_transaction_info = CHARACTERISTICS
How many statements MaxScale should store for each session of this service.
This overrides the value of the global setting with the same name. If
retain_last_statements
has been specified in the global section of the
MaxScale configuration file, then if it has not been explicitly specified
for the service, the global value holds, otherwise the service specific
value rules. That is, it is possible to enable the setting globally and
turn it off for a specific service, or just enable it for specific services.
The value of this parameter can be changed at runtime using maxctrl
and the
new value will take effect for sessions created thereafter.
maxctrl alter service MyService retain_last_statements 5
Server sections are used to define the backend database servers that can be formed into a service. A server may be a member of one or more services within MariaDB MaxScale. Servers are identified by a server name which is the section name in the configuration file. Servers have a type parameter of server, plus address port and protocol parameters.
[server1]
type=server
address=127.0.0.1
port=3000
protocol=MariaDBBackend
The IP address or hostname of the machine running the database server that is being defined. MariaDB MaxScale will use this address to connect to the backend database server.
The port on which the database listens for incoming connections. MariaDB MaxScale will use this port to connect to the database server.
The name for the protocol module to use to connect MariaDB MaxScale to the database. Currently only one backend protocol is supported, the MariaDBBackend module.
The monitor has a username and password that is used to connect to all servers for monitoring purposes, this may be overridden by supplying a monitoruser statement for each individual server.
monitoruser=mymonitoruser
The monitor has a username and password that is used to connect to all servers
for monitoring purposes, this may be overridden by supplying a monitorpw
for the individual servers.
monitorpw=mymonitorpasswd
The monitorpw
parameter may be either a plain text password or it may be an
encrypted password. See the section on encrypting passwords for use in the
maxscale.cnf file.
An alternative port used to monitor the server. This allows MaxScale to connect
even when max_connections
has been reached on the backend server. If this
parameter is defined and a connection to the normal port fails, the alternative
port is used.
For more information, read the extra_port documentation.
The persistpoolmax
parameter defaults to zero but can be set to an integer
value for a back end server. If it is non zero, then when a DCB connected to a
back end server is discarded by the system, it will be held in a pool for reuse,
remaining connected to the back end server. If the number of DCBs in the pool
has reached the value given by persistpoolmax
then any further DCB that is
discarded will not be retained, but disconnected and discarded.
The persistmaxtime
parameter defaults to zero but can be set to an integer
value indicating a number of seconds. A DCB placed in the persistent pool for a
server will only be reused if the elapsed time since it joined the pool is less
than the given value. Otherwise, the DCB will be discarded and the connection
closed.
For more information about persistent connections, please read the Administration Tutorial.
If proxy_protocol
is set to on
, MaxScale will send a
PROXY protocol
header when connecting client sessions to the server. The header contains the
original client IP address and port, as seen by MaxScale. The server will then
read the header and perform authentication as if the connection originated from
this address instead of MaxScale's IP address. With this feature, the user
accounts on the backend server can be simplified to only contain the actual
client hosts and not the MaxScale host.
PROXY protocol will be supported by MariaDB 10.3, which this feature has been tested with. To use it, enable the PROXY protocol in MaxScale for every compatible server and configure the MariaDB servers themselves to accept the protocol headers from MaxScale's IP address. On the server side, the protocol should be enabled only for trusted IPs, as it allows the sender to spoof the connection origin. If a proxy header is sent to a server not expecting it, the connection will fail. Usually PROXY protocol should be enabled for every server in a cluster, as they typically have similar grants.
Other SQL-servers may support PROXY protocol as well, but the implementation may
be highly restricting. Strict adherence to the protocol requires that the
backend server does not allow mixing of un-proxied and proxied connections from
a given IP. MaxScale requires normal connections to backends for monitoring and
authentication data queries, which would be blocked. To bypass this restriction,
the server monitor needs to be disabled and the service listener needs to be
configured to disregard authentication errors (skip_authentication=true
).
Server states also need to be set manually in MaxAdmin. These steps are not
required for MariaDB 10.3, since its implementation is more flexible and allows
both PROXY-headered and headerless connections from a proxy-enabled IP.
The authenticator module to use. Each protocol module defines a default
authentication module which is used if no authenticator
parameter is found
from the configuration.
Removed feature. Only client authenticator modules have options, in the listener definition. Server authenticator options in the config file are ignored.
This parameter specifies how full a disk may be, before MaxScale should start
logging warnings or take other actions (e.g. perform a switchover). This
functionality will only work with MariaDB server versions 10.1.32, 10.2.14 and
10.3.6 onwards, if the DISKS
information schema plugin has been installed.
A limit is specified as a path followed by a colon and a percentage specifying how full the corresponding disk may be, before action is taken. E.g. an entry like
/data:80
specifies that the disk that has been mounted on /data
may be used until 80%
of the total space has been consumed. Multiple entries can be specified by
separating them by a comma. If the path is specified using *
, then the limit
applies to all disks. However, the value of *
is only applied if there is not
an exact match.
Note that if a particular disk has been mounted on several paths, only one path need to be specified. If several are specified, then the one with the smallest percentage will be applied.
Examples:
disk_space_threshold=*:80
disk_space_threshold=/data:80
disk_space_threshold=/data1:80,/data2:60,*:90
The last line means that the disk mounted at /data1
may be used up to
80%, the disk mounted at /data2
may be used up to 60% and all other disks
mounted at any paths may be used up until 90% of maximum capacity, before
MaxScale starts to warn to take action.
Note that the path to be used, is one of the paths returned by:
> use information_schema;
> select * from disks;
+-----------+----------------------+-----------+----------+-----------+
| Disk | Path | Total | Used | Available |
+-----------+----------------------+-----------+----------+-----------+
| /dev/sda3 | / | 47929956 | 34332348 | 11139820 |
| /dev/sdb1 | /data | 961301832 | 83764 | 912363644 |
...
There is no default value, but this parameter must be explicitly specified if the disk space situation should be monitored.
The listener defines a port and protocol pair that is used to listen for connections to a service. A service may have multiple listeners associated with it, either to support multiple protocols or multiple ports. As with other elements of the configuration the section name is the listener name and it can be selected freely. A type parameter is used to identify the section as a listener definition. Address is optional and it allows the user to limit connections to certain interface only. Socket is also optional and used for Unix socket connections.
The network socket where the listener listens will have a backlog of connections. The size of this backlog is controlled by the net.ipv4.tcp_max_syn_backlog and net.core.somaxconn kernel parameters.
Increasing the size of the backlog by modifying the kernel parameters helps with sudden connection spikes and rejected connections. For more information see listen(2).
[<Listener name>]
type=listener
service=<Service name>]
protocol=[MariaDBClient|HTTPD]
address=[IP|hostname]
port=<Listen port number>
The service to which the listener is associated. This is the name of a service that is defined elsewhere in the configuration file.
The name of the protocol module that is used for the communication between the client and MariaDB MaxScale itself.
The address option sets the address that will be used to bind the listening socket. The address may be specified as an IP address in 'dot notation' or as a hostname. If the address option is not included in the listener definition the listener will bind to all network interfaces.
The port to use to listen for incoming connections to MariaDB MaxScale from the clients. If the port is omitted from the configuration a default port for the protocol will be used.
The socket
option may be included in a listener definition, this configures
the listener to use Unix domain sockets to listen for incoming connections. The
parameter value given is the name of the socket to use.
Note: If you want to use both network ports and UNIX domain sockets with a service, define two separate listeners that connect to the same service.
The authenticator module to use. Each protocol module defines a default
authentication module which is used if no authenticator
parameter is found
from the configuration.
Option string given to the authenticator module. The value of this parameter should be a comma-separated list of key-value pairs. See authenticator specific documentation for more details.
The protocols supported by MariaDB MaxScale are implemented as external modules that are loaded dynamically into the MariaDB MaxScale core. They allow MariaDB MaxScale to communicate in various protocols both on the client side and the backend side. Each of the protocols can be either a client protocol or a backend protocol. Client protocols are used for client-MariaDB MaxScale communication and backend protocols are for MariaDB MaxScale-database communication.
This is the implementation of the MySQL protocol that is used by clients of MariaDB MaxScale to connect to MariaDB MaxScale.
The MariaDBBackend protocol module is the implementation of the protocol that MariaDB MaxScale uses to connect to the backend MariaDB, MySQL and Percona Server databases. This implementation is tailored for the MariaDB MaxScale to MySQL Database traffic and is not a general purpose implementation of the MySQL protocol.
The telnetd protocol module is used for connections to MariaDB MaxScale itself for the purposes of creating interactive user sessions with the MariaDB MaxScale instance itself. Currently this is used in conjunction with a special router implementation, the debugcli.
The protocol used used by the maxadmin client application in order to connect to MariaDB MaxScale and access the command line interface.
This protocol module is currently still under development, it provides a means to create HTTP connections to MariaDB MaxScale for use by web browsers or RESTful API clients.
This section describes configuration parameters for both servers and listeners that control the TLS/SSL encryption method and the various certificate files involved in it.
To enable TLS/SSL for a listener, you must set the ssl
parameter to true
and provide the three files for ssl_cert
, ssl_key
and ssl_ca_cert
.
To enable TLS/SSL for a server, you must set the ssl
parameter to required
and provide at least the ssl_ca_cert
parameter. If the backend database server
has certificate verification enabled, the ssl_cert
and ssl_key
parameters
must also be defined.
After this, MaxScale connections between the server and/or the client will be encrypted. Note that the database must also be configured to use TLS/SSL connections if backend connection encryption is used.
Note: MaxScale does not allow mixed use of TLS/SSL and normal connections on the same port.
If TLS encryption is enabled for a listener, any unencrypted connections to it will be rejected. MaxScale does this to improve security by preventing accidental creation of unencrypted connections.
The separation of secure and insecure connections differs from the MariaDB server which allows both secure and insecure connections on the same port. As MaxScale is the gateway through which all connections go, in order to guarantee a more secure system MaxScale enforces a stricter security policy than what the server does.
This enables SSL connections when set to true. The parameter takes a boolean
value and is disabled by default. The parameter also accepts the special values
required
and disabled
which were the only supported values before MaxScale
2.3.0.
If enabled, the certificate files mentioned above must also be supplied. MaxScale connections to will then be encrypted with TLS/SSL.
A string giving a file path that identifies an existing readable file. The file must be the SSL client private key MaxScale should use. This is a required parameter for listeners but an optional parameter for servers.
A string giving a file path that identifies an existing readable file. The file
must be the SSL client certificate MaxScale should use with the server. The
certificate must match the key defined in ssl_key
. This is a required
parameter for listeners but an optional parameter for servers.
A string giving a file path that identifies an existing readable file. The file must be the Certificate Authority (CA) certificate for the CA that signed the certificate referred to in the previous parameter. It will be used to verify that the certificate is valid. This is a required parameter for both listeners and servers. The CA certificate can consist of a certificate chain.
Note: It is highly recommended to leave this parameter to the default value of MAX. This will guarantee that the strongest available encryption is used. Do not change this unless you know what you are doing.
This parameter controls the level of encryption used. Accepted values are:
- TLSv10
- TLSv11
- TLSv12
- MAX
The default is to use the highest level of encryption available. For OpenSSL 1.0 and newer this is TLSv1.2.
The maximum length of the certificate authority chain that will be accepted. The default value is 9, same as the OpenSSL default. The configured value must be larger than 0.
Peer certificate verification. This functionality is enabled by default.
When this feature is enabled, the certificate sent by the peer is verified
against the configured Certificate Authority. If you are using self-signed
certificates, set ssl_verify_peer_certificate=false
.
[server1]
type=server
address=10.131.24.62
port=3306
protocol=MariaDBBackend
ssl=required
ssl_cert=/usr/local/mariadb/maxscale/ssl/crt.max-client.pem
ssl_key=/usr/local/mariadb/maxscale/ssl/key.max-client.pem
ssl_ca_cert=/usr/local/mariadb/maxscale/ssl/crt.ca.maxscale.pem
This example configuration requires all connections to this server to be encrypted with SSL. The paths to the certificate files and the Certificate Authority file are also provided.
[RW-Split-Listener]
type=listener
service=RW-Split-Router
protocol=MariaDBClient
port=3306
ssl=required
ssl_cert=/usr/local/mariadb/maxscale/ssl/crt.maxscale.pem
ssl_key=/usr/local/mariadb/maxscale/ssl/key.csr.maxscale.pem
ssl_ca_cert=/usr/local/mariadb/maxscale/ssl/crt.ca.maxscale.pem
This example configuration requires all connections to be encrypted with SSL. The paths to the certificate files and the Certificate Authority file are also provided.
The main task of MariaDB MaxScale is to accept database connections from client applications and route the connections or the statements sent over those connections to the various services supported by MariaDB MaxScale.
Currently a number of routing modules are available, these are designed for a range of different needs.
Connection based load balancing:
Read/Write aware statement based router:
Simple sharding on database level:
Binary log server:
These modules are used for diagnostic purposes and can tell about the status of MariaDB MaxScale and the cluster it is monitoring.
Monitor modules are used by MariaDB MaxScale to internally monitor the state of the backend databases in order to set the server flags for each of those servers. The router modules then use these flags to determine if the particular server is a suitable destination for routing connections for particular query classifications. The monitors are run within separate threads of MariaDB MaxScale and do not affect MariaDB MaxScale's routing performance.
The use of monitors is highly recommended but it is also possible to run MariaDB MaxScale without a monitor module. In this case an external monitoring system which sets the status of each server via MaxAdmin is needed.
Filters provide a means to manipulate or process requests as they pass through MariaDB MaxScale between the client side protocol and the query router. A full explanation of each filter's functionality can be found in its documentation.
The Filter Tutorial document shows how you can add a filter to a service and combine multiple filters in one service.
- Query Log All (QLA) Filter
- Regular Expression Filter
- Tee Filter
- Top Filter
- Database Firewall Filter
- Query Redirection Filter
- RabbitMQ Filter
Passwords stored in the maxscale.cnf file may optionally be encrypted for added security.
This is done by creation of an encryption key on installation of MariaDB MaxScale.
Encryption keys may be created manually by executing the maxkeys utility with the argument
of the filename to store the key. The default location MariaDB MaxScale stores
the keys is /var/lib/maxscale
. The passwords are encrypted using 256-bit AES CBC encryption.
# Usage: maxkeys [PATH]
maxkeys /var/lib/maxscale/
Changing the encryption key for MariaDB MaxScale will invalidate any currently encrypted keys stored in the maxscale.cnf file.
Encrypted passwords are created by executing the maxpasswd command with the location of the .secrets file and the password you require to encrypt as an argument.
# Usage: maxpasswd PATH PASSWORD
maxpasswd /var/lib/maxscale/ MaxScalePw001
61DD955512C39A4A8BC4BB1E5F116705
The output of the maxpasswd command is a hexadecimal string, this should be inserted into the maxscale.cnf file in place of the ordinary, plain text, password. MariaDB MaxScale will determine this as an encrypted password and automatically decrypt it before sending it the database server.
[Split-Service]
type=service
router=readwritesplit
servers=server1,server2,server3,server4
user=maxscale
password=61DD955512C39A4A8BC4BB1E5F116705
Read the following documents for different methods of altering the MaxScale configuration at runtime.
-
MaxAdmin
-
MaxCtrl
-
REST API documentation
All changes to the configuration are persisted as individual configuration files
in /var/lib/maxscale/maxscale.cnf.d/
. These files are applied after the main
configuration file and all auxiliary configurations have been loaded. This means
that once runtime configurations have been made, they need to be incorporated
into the main configuration files.
The combination of configuration files can be done either manually
(e.g. rsync
) or with the maxscale --export-config=FILE
command line
option. See maxscale --help
for more information about how to use the
--export-config
flag.
For example, to export the current runtime configuration, run the following command.
maxscale --export-config=/tmp/maxscale.cnf.combined
This will create the /tmp/maxscale.cnf.combined
file and write the current
configuration into the it. This allows new MaxScale instances to be easily set
up without requiring copying of all runtime configuration files.
Note: This functionality has been deprecated and should not be used.
The current MariaDB MaxScale configuration may be updated by editing the
configuration file and then forcing MariaDB MaxScale to reread the configuration
file. To force MariaDB MaxScale to reread the configuration file, send a SIGHUP
signal to the MariaDB MaxScale process or execute reload config
in the
maxadmin
client.
The following list of service parameters can be updated at runtime.
- user
- password
- enable_root_user
- max_connections
- connection_timeout
- auth_all_servers
- optimize_wildcard
- strip_db_esc
- localhost_match_wildcard_host
- max_slave_connections
- max_slave_replication_lag
In addition to these parameters, the server specific user credentials, monitoruser and monitorpw, can also be updated at runtime.
Services that are removed via the configuration update mechanism can not be physically removed from MariaDB MaxScale until there are no longer any connections using the service.
When the number of threads is decreased the threads will not actually be terminated until such time as they complete the current operation of that thread.
Monitors can not be completely removed from the running MariaDB MaxScale.
MariaDB uses username, passwords and the client host in order to authenticate a user, so a typical user would be defined as user X at host Y and would be given a password to connect. MariaDB MaxScale uses exactly the same rules as MariaDB when users connect to the MariaDB MaxScale instance, i.e. it will check the address from which the client is connecting and treat this in exactly the same way that MariaDB would. MariaDB MaxScale will pull the authentication data from one of the backend servers and use this to match the incoming connections, the assumption being that all the backend servers for a particular service will share the same set of user credentials.
It is important to understand, however, that when MariaDB MaxScale itself makes connections to the backend servers the backend server will see all connections as originating from the host that runs MariaDB MaxScale and not the original host from which the client connected to MariaDB MaxScale. Therefore the backend servers should be configured to allow connections from the MariaDB MaxScale host for every user that can connect from any host. Since there is only a single password within the database server for a given host, this limits the configuration such that a given user name must have the same password for every host from which they can connect.
To clarify, if a user X is defined as using password pass1 from host a and
pass2 from host b then there must be an entry in the user
table for user
X from the MariaDB MaxScale host, say pass1.
This would result in rows in the user table as follows
Username | Password | Client Host |
---|---|---|
X | pass1 | a |
X | pass2 | b |
X | pass1 | MaxScale |
In this case the user X would be able to connect to MariaDB MaxScale from host a giving the password of pass1. In addition MariaDB MaxScale would be able to create connections for this user to the backend servers using the username X and password pass1, since the MariaDB MaxScale host is also defined to have password pass1. User X would not however be able to connect from host b since they would need to provide the password pass2 in order to connect to MariaDB MaxScale, but then MariaDB MaxScale would not be able to connect to the backends as it would also use the password pass2 for these connections.
Hostname mapping in MariaDB MaxScale works in exactly the same way as for MariaDB, if the wildcard is used for the host then any host other than the localhost (127.0.0.1) will match. It is important to consider that the localhost check will be performed at the MariaDB MaxScale level and at the MariaDB server level.
If MariaDB MaxScale and the databases are on separate hosts there are two important changes in behavior to consider:
-
Clients running on the same machine as the backend database now may access the database using the wildcard entry. The localhost check between the client and MariaDB MaxScale will allow the use of the wildcard, since the client is not running on the MariaDB MaxScale host. Also the wildcard entry can be used on the database host as MariaDB MaxScale is making that connection and it is not running on the same host as the database.
-
Clients running on the same host as MariaDB MaxScale can not access the database via MariaDB MaxScale using the wildcard entry since the connection to MariaDB MaxScale will be from the localhost. These clients are able to access the database directly, as they will use the wildcard entry.
If MariaDB MaxScale is running on the same host as one or more of the database nodes to which it is routing statements then the wildcard host entries can be used to connect to MariaDB MaxScale but not to connect onwards to the database running on the same node.
In all these cases the issue may be solved by adding an explicit entry for the localhost address that has the same password as the wildcard entry. This may be done using a statement as below for each of the databases that are required:
MariaDB [mysql]> GRANT SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, CREATE, DROP ON employee.* 'user1'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'xxx';
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)
At the time of writing the authentication mechanism within MariaDB MaxScale does not support IPV6 address matching in connections rules. This is also in line with the current protocol modules that do not support IPV6.
Wildcard address supported in the current version of MariaDB MaxScale are:
192.168.3.% 192.168.%.% 192.%.%.%
and short notations
192.% 192.%.% 192.168.%
Note that currently wildcards are only supported in conjunction with IP-addresses, not with domain names.
MariaDB MaxScale is designed to be executed as a service, therefore all error
reports, including configuration errors, are written to the MariaDB MaxScale
error log file. By default, MariaDB MaxScale will log to a file in
/var/log/maxscale
, the only exception to this is if the log directory is not
writable, in which case a message is sent to the standard error descriptor.
MariaDB MaxScale binds on TCP ports and UNIX sockets as well.
If there is a local firewall in the server where MariaDB MaxScale is installed, the IP and port must be configured in order to receive connections from outside.
If the firewall is a network facility among all the involved servers, a configuration update is required as well.
Example:
[Galera-Listener]
type=listener
address=192.168.3.33
port=4408
socket=/servers/maxscale/galera.sock
TCP/IP Traffic must be permitted to 192.168.3.33 port 4408
For Unix socket, the socket file path (example: /servers/maxscale/galera.sock
)
must be writable by the Unix user MariaDB MaxScale runs as.
If MaxScale is running as a systemd service, the systemd Watchdog can be enabled. To enable, insert the WatchdogSec option into the Service section of the maxscale systemd configuration file, e.g.
WatchdogSec=30s
It is not recommended to use a watchdog timeout less than 30 seconds. When enabled MaxScale will check that all threads are running and notify systemd with a "keep-alive ping".
Systemd reference: https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/systemd.service.html