Notice

This document is for a development version of Ceph.

Stretch Clusters

A stretch cluster is a cluster that has servers in geographically separated data centers, distributed over a WAN. Stretch clusters have LAN-like high-speed and low-latency connections, but limited links. Stretch clusters have a higher likelihood of (possibly asymmetric) network splits, and a higher likelihood of temporary or complete loss of an entire data center (which can represent one-third to one-half of the total cluster).

Ceph is designed with the expectation that all parts of its network and cluster will be reliable and that failures will be distributed randomly across the CRUSH map. Even if a switch goes down and causes the loss of many OSDs, Ceph is designed so that the remaining OSDs and monitors will route around such a loss.

Sometimes this cannot be relied upon. If you have a “stretched-cluster” deployment in which much of your cluster is behind a single network component, you might need to use stretch mode to ensure data integrity.

We will here consider two standard configurations: a configuration with two data centers (or, in clouds, two availability zones), and a configuration with three data centers (or, in clouds, three availability zones).

In the two-site configuration, Ceph expects each of the sites to hold a copy of the data, and Ceph also expects there to be a third site that has a tiebreaker monitor. This tiebreaker monitor picks a winner if the network connection fails and both data centers remain alive.

The tiebreaker monitor can be a VM. It can also have high latency relative to the two main sites.

The standard Ceph configuration is able to survive MANY network failures or data-center failures without ever compromising data availability. If enough Ceph servers are brought back following a failure, the cluster will recover. If you lose a data center but are still able to form a quorum of monitors and still have all the data available, Ceph will maintain availability. (This assumes that the cluster has enough copies to satisfy the pools’ min_size configuration option, or (failing that) that the cluster has CRUSH rules in place that will cause the cluster to re-replicate the data until the min_size configuration option has been met.)

Stretch Cluster Issues

Ceph does not permit the compromise of data integrity and data consistency under any circumstances. When service is restored after a network failure or a loss of Ceph nodes, Ceph will restore itself to a state of normal functioning without operator intervention.

Ceph does not permit the compromise of data integrity or data consistency, but there are situations in which data availability is compromised. These situations can occur even though there are enough clusters available to satisfy Ceph’s consistency and sizing constraints. In some situations, you might discover that your cluster does not satisfy those constraints.

The first category of these failures that we will discuss involves inconsistent networks -- if there is a netsplit (a disconnection between two servers that splits the network into two pieces), Ceph might be unable to mark OSDs down and remove them from the acting PG sets. This failure to mark ODSs down will occur, despite the fact that the primary PG is unable to replicate data (a situation that, under normal non-netsplit circumstances, would result in the marking of affected OSDs as down and their removal from the PG). If this happens, Ceph will be unable to satisfy its durability guarantees and consequently IO will not be permitted.

The second category of failures that we will discuss involves the situation in which the constraints are not sufficient to guarantee the replication of data across data centers, though it might seem that the data is correctly replicated across data centers. For example, in a scenario in which there are two data centers named Data Center A and Data Center B, and the CRUSH rule targets three replicas and places a replica in each data center with a min_size of 2, the PG might go active with two replicas in Data Center A and zero replicas in Data Center B. In a situation of this kind, the loss of Data Center A means that the data is lost and Ceph will not be able to operate on it. This situation is surprisingly difficult to avoid using only standard CRUSH rules.

Individual Stretch Pools

Setting individual stretch pool is an option that allows for the configuration of specific pools to be distributed across two or more data centers. This is achieved by executing the ceph osd pool stretch set command on each desired pool, as opposed to applying a cluster-wide configuration with stretch mode. See Unsetting values for a stretch pool

Use stretch mode when you have exactly two data centers and require a uniform configuration across the entire cluster. Conversely, opt for a stretch pool when you need a particular pool to be replicated across more than two data centers, providing a more granular level of control and a larger cluster size.

Limitations

Individual Stretch Pools do not support I/O operations during a netsplit scenario between two or more zones. While the cluster remains accessible for basic Ceph commands, I/O usage remains unavailable until the netsplit is resolved. This is different from stretch mode, where the tiebreaker monitor can isolate one zone of the cluster and continue I/O operations in degraded mode during a netsplit. See Stretch Mode

Ceph is designed to tolerate multiple host failures. However, if more than 25% of the OSDs in the cluster go down, Ceph may stop marking OSDs as out which will prevent rebalancing and some PGs might go inactive. This behavior is controlled by the mon_osd_min_in_ratio parameter. By default, mon_osd_min_in_ratio is set to 0.75, meaning that at least 75% of the OSDs in the cluster must remain active before any additional OSDs can be marked out. This setting prevents too many OSDs from being marked out as this might lead to significant data movement. The data movement can cause high client I/O impact and long recovery times when the OSDs are returned to service. If Ceph stops marking OSDs as out, some PGs may fail to rebalance to surviving OSDs, potentially leading to inactive PGs. See https://tracker.ceph.com/issues/68338 for more information.

Stretch Mode

Stretch mode is designed to handle netsplit scenarios between two data zones as well as the loss of one data zone. It handles the netsplit scenario by choosing the surviving zone that has the better connection to the tiebreaker monitor. It handles the loss of one zone by reducing the min_size of all pools to 1, allowing the cluster to continue operating with the remaining zone. When the lost zone comes back, the cluster will recover the lost data and return to normal operation.

Connectivity Monitor Election Strategy

When using stretch mode, the monitor election strategy must be set to connectivity. This strategy tracks network connectivity between the monitors and is used to determine which zone should be favored when the cluster is in a netsplit scenario.

See Changing Monitor Elections

Stretch Peering Rule

One critical behavior of stretch mode is its ability to prevent a PG from going active if the acting set contains only replicas from a single zone. This safeguard is crucial for mitigating the risk of data loss during site failures because if a PG were allowed to go active with replicas only in a single site, writes could be acknowledged despite a lack of redundancy. In the event of a site failure, all data in the affected PG would be lost.

Entering Stretch Mode

To enable stretch mode, you must set the location of each monitor, matching your CRUSH map. This procedure shows how to do this.

Place mon.a in your first data center:

ceph mon set_location a datacenter=site1

Generate a CRUSH rule that places two copies in each data center. This requires editing the CRUSH map directly:
```
ceph osd getcrushmap > crush.map.bin
crushtool -d crush.map.bin -o crush.map.txt
```
Edit the crush.map.txt file to add a new rule. Here there is only one other rule (id 1), but you might need to use a different rule ID. We have two data-center buckets named site1 and site2:
```
 rule stretch_rule {
        id 1
        type replicated
        step take site1
        step chooseleaf firstn 2 type host
        step emit
        step take site2
        step chooseleaf firstn 2 type host
        step emit
}
```
Warning

If a CRUSH rule is defined for a stretch mode cluster and the rule has multiple “takes” in it, then MAX AVAIL for the pools associated with the CRUSH rule will report that the available size is all of the available space from the datacenter, not the available space for the pools associated with the CRUSH rule.

For example, consider a cluster with two CRUSH rules, stretch_rule and stretch_replicated_rule:
```
rule stretch_rule {
     id 1
     type replicated
     step take DC1
     step chooseleaf firstn 2 type host
     step emit
     step take DC2
     step chooseleaf firstn 2 type host
     step emit
}

rule stretch_replicated_rule {
        id 2
        type replicated
        step take default
        step choose firstn 0 type datacenter
        step chooseleaf firstn 2 type host
        step emit
}
```
In the above example, stretch_rule will report an incorrect value for MAX AVAIL. stretch_replicated_rule will report the correct value. This is because stretch_rule is defined in such a way that PGMap::get_rule_avail considers only the available size of a single data center, and not (as would be correct) the total available size from both datacenters.

Here is a workaround. Instead of defining the stretch rule as defined in the stretch_rule function above, define it as follows:
```
rule stretch_rule {
  id 2
  type replicated
  step take default
  step choose firstn 0 type datacenter
  step chooseleaf firstn 2 type host
  step emit
}
```
See https://tracker.ceph.com/issues/56650 for more detail on this workaround.
The above procedure was developed in May and June of 2024 by Prashant Dhange.

Inject the CRUSH map to make the rule available to the cluster:

crushtool -c crush.map.txt -o crush2.map.bin
ceph osd setcrushmap -i crush2.map.bin

Run the monitors in connectivity mode. See Changing Monitor Elections.
```
ceph mon set election_strategy connectivity
```
Command the cluster to enter stretch mode. In this example, mon.e is the tiebreaker monitor and we are splitting across data centers. The tiebreaker monitor must be assigned a data center that is neither site1 nor site2. This data center should not be defined in your CRUSH map, here we are placing mon.e in a virtual data center called site3:
```
ceph mon set_location e datacenter=site3
ceph mon enable_stretch_mode e stretch_rule datacenter
```

When stretch mode is enabled, PGs will become active only when they peer across data centers (or across whichever CRUSH bucket type was specified), assuming both are alive. Pools will increase in size from the default 3 to 4, and two copies will be expected in each site. OSDs will be allowed to connect to monitors only if they are in the same data center as the monitors. New monitors will not be allowed to join the cluster if they do not specify a location.

If all OSDs and monitors in one of the data centers become inaccessible at once, the surviving data center enters a “degraded stretch mode”. A warning will be issued, the min_size will be reduced to 1, and the cluster will be allowed to go active with the data in the single remaining site. The pool size does not change, so warnings will be generated that report that the pools are too small -- but a special stretch mode flag will prevent the OSDs from creating extra copies in the remaining data center. This means that the data center will keep only two copies, just as before.

When the missing data center comes back, the cluster will enter a “recovery stretch mode”. This changes the warning and allows peering, but requires OSDs only from the data center that was up throughout the duration of the downtime. When all PGs are in a known state, and are neither degraded nor incomplete, the cluster transitions back to regular stretch mode, ends the warning, restores min_size to its original value (2), requires both sites to peer, and no longer requires the site that was up throughout the duration of the downtime when peering (which makes failover to the other site possible, if needed).

Exiting Stretch Mode

To exit stretch mode, run the following command:

ceph mon disable_stretch_mode [{crush_rule}] --yes-i-really-mean-it

{crush_rule}

The CRUSH rule that the user wants all pools to move back to. If this is not specified, the pools will move back to the default CRUSH rule.

Type:: String
Required:: No.

The command will move the cluster back to normal mode, and the cluster will no longer be in stretch mode. All pools will move its size and min_size back to the default values it started with. At this point the user is responsible for scaling down the cluster to the desired number of OSDs if they choose to operate with less number of OSDs.

Please note that the command will not execute when the cluster is in recovery stretch mode. The command will only execute when the cluster is in degraded stretch mode or healthy stretch mode.

Limitations of Stretch Mode

When using stretch mode, OSDs must be located at exactly two sites.

Two monitors should be run in each data center, plus a tiebreaker in a third (or in the cloud) for a total of five monitors. While in stretch mode, OSDs will connect only to monitors within the data center in which they are located. OSDs DO NOT connect to the tiebreaker monitor.

Erasure-coded pools cannot be used with stretch mode. Attempts to use erasure coded pools with stretch mode will fail. Erasure coded pools cannot be created while in stretch mode.

To use stretch mode, you will need to create a CRUSH rule that provides two replicas in each data center. Ensure that there are four total replicas: two in each data center. If pools exist in the cluster that do not have the default size or min_size, Ceph will not enter stretch mode. An example of such a CRUSH rule is given above.

Because stretch mode runs with min_size set to 1 (or, more directly, min_size 1), we recommend enabling stretch mode only when using OSDs on SSDs. Hybrid HDD+SSD or HDD-only OSDs are not recommended due to the long time it takes for them to recover after connectivity between data centers has been restored. This reduces the potential for data loss.

Warning

CRUSH rules that specify a device class are not supported in stretch mode. For example, the following rule specifying the ssd device class will not work:

rule stretch_replicated_rule {
           id 2
           type replicated class ssd
           step take default
           step choose firstn 0 type datacenter
           step chooseleaf firstn 2 type host
           step emit
}

In the future, stretch mode could support erasure-coded pools, enable deployments across multiple data centers, and accommodate multiple CRUSH device classes.

Other commands

Replacing a failed tiebreaker monitor

Turn on a new monitor and run the following command:

ceph mon set_new_tiebreaker mon.<new_mon_name>

This command protests if the new monitor is in the same location as the existing non-tiebreaker monitors. This command WILL NOT remove the previous tiebreaker monitor. Remove the previous tiebreaker monitor yourself.

Using “--set-crush-location” and not “ceph mon set_location”

If you write your own tooling for deploying Ceph, use the --set-crush-location option when booting monitors instead of running ceph mon set_location. This option accepts only a single bucket=loc pair (for example, ceph-mon --set-crush-location 'datacenter=a'), and that pair must match the bucket type that was specified when running enable_stretch_mode.

Forcing recovery stretch mode

When in stretch degraded mode, the cluster will go into “recovery” mode automatically when the disconnected data center comes back. If that does not happen or you want to enable recovery mode early, run the following command:

ceph osd force_recovery_stretch_mode --yes-i-really-mean-it

Forcing normal stretch mode

When in recovery mode, the cluster should go back into normal stretch mode when the PGs are healthy. If this fails to happen or if you want to force the cross-data-center peering early and are willing to risk data downtime (or have verified separately that all the PGs can peer, even if they aren’t fully recovered), run the following command:

ceph osd force_healthy_stretch_mode --yes-i-really-mean-it

This command can be used to to remove the HEALTH_WARN state, which recovery mode generates.

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