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Spock

Multi-Master Replication with Conflict Resolution & Avoidance

This SPOCK extension provides multi-master replication for PostgreSQL 14+ We leveraged the BDR) Open Source project as a solid foundation to build upon for this enterprise-class extension.

Our current version is 3.3 and includes the following important enhancements beyond Spock 3.2:

  • support for Auto DDL
  • Support for Snowflake Sequences
  • Support for setting a database to ReadOnly
  • Prelim support for pg17devel
  • Prelim support for OSX development environment

Version 3.2 came out in mid 2023 and included the following enhancements:cements beyond Spock 3.1:

  • Support for pg14
  • Support for Snowflake Sequences
  • A couple small bug fixes from pgLogical
  • Native support for Failover Slots for pg14 & pg15 (in pg16+ core already)

Version 3.1 came out in early 2023 and included the following:

  • Support for both pg15 AND pg16
  • Prelim testing for online upgrades between pg15 & pg16
  • Regression testing improvements
  • Improved support for in-region shadow nodes (in different AZ's)
  • Improved and document support for replication and maintaining partitioned tables.

Our beta version was 3.0 and includes the following important enhancements beyond its pg_logical-2.4.2 base:

  • Support for pg15 (support for pg10 thru pg14 dropped)
  • Support for Asynchronous Multi-Master Replication with conflict resolution
  • Conflict-free delta-apply columns
  • Replication of partitioned tables (to help support geo-sharding)
  • Making database clusters location aware (to help support geo-sharding)
  • Better error handling for conflict resolution
  • Better management & monitoring stats and integration
  • A 'pii' table for making it easy for personally identifiable data to be kept in country
  • Better support for minimizing system interuption during switch-over and failover

We use the following terms, borrowed from Jan's well known Slony project, to describe data streams between nodes:

  • Nodes - PostgreSQL database instances
  • Providers and Subscribers - roles taken by Nodes
  • Replication Set - a collection of tables

Use cases supported are:

  • Asynchronous multi-active replication with conflict resolution
  • Upgrades between major versions
  • Full database replication
  • Selective replication of sets of tables using replication sets
  • Selective replication of table rows at either publisher or subscriber side (row_filter)
  • Selective replication of partitioned tables
  • Selective replication of table columns at publisher side
  • Data gather/merge from multiple upstream servers

Architectural details:

  • Spock works on a per-database level, not whole server level like physical streaming replication
  • One Provider may feed multiple Subscribers without incurring additional disk write overhead
  • One Subscriber can merge changes from several origins and detect conflict between changes with automatic and configurable conflict resolution (some, but not all aspects required for multi-master).
  • Cascading replication is implemented in the form of changeset forwarding.

Major New Features

Snowflake Sequences

Snowflake Sequences is a PostgreSQL extension providing an int8 and sequence based unique ID solution to optionally replace the PostgreSQL built-in bigserial data type. This extension allows Snowflake IDs that are unique within one sequence across multiple PostgreSQL instances in a distributed cluster.

Automatic Replication of DDL

DDL statements can now be automatically replicated. This feature can be enabled by setting the following to on: spock.enable_ddl_replication, spock.include_ddl_repset, and spock.allow_ddl_from_functions. It is recommended to set these to on only when the database schema matches exactly on all nodes- either when all databases have no objects, or when all databases have exactly the same objects and all tables are added to replication sets.

By default, these settings are set to off. When these settings are on, it is recommended that DDL statements dangerous for replication be executed in a maintenance window to avoid errors that will impact replication.

spock.enable_ddl_replication will enable replication of ddl statements through the default replication set. Some DDL statements are intentionally not replicated (ie. CREATE DATABASE), and some are replicated but could cause issues in two ways. Some DDL statements could lead to inconsistent data (ie. CREATE TABLE... AS...) since the DDL statement is replicated before the table is added to the replication set. Some DDL statements are replicated, but are potentially an issue in a 3+ node cluster (ie. DROP TABLE).

spock.include_ddl_repset will enable spock to automatically add tables to replication sets at the time they are created on each node. Tables with Primary Keys will be added to the default replication set, and tables without Primary Keys will be added to the default_insert_only replication set. Altering a table to add or remove a Primary Key will make the correct adjustment to which replication set the table is part of. Setting a table to unlogged will remove it from replication. Detaching a partition will not remove it from replication.

spock.allow_ddl_from_functions will enable spock to automatically replicate DDL statements that are called within functions to also be automatically replicated. This can be turned off if these functions are expected to run on every node.When this is set to off statements replicated from functions adhere to the same rule previously described for 'include_ddl_repset.' If a table possesses a defined primary key, it will be added into the 'default' replication set; alternatively, they will be added to the 'default_insert_only' replication set.

During the auto replication process, various messages are generated to provide information about the execution. Here are the descriptions for each message:

  • "DDL statement replicated." This message is a INFO level message. It is displayed whenever a DDL statement is successfully replicated. To include these messages in the server log files, the configuration must have "log_min_messages=INFO" set.
  • "DDL statement replicated, but could be unsafe." This message serves as a warning. It is generated when certain DDL statements, though successfully replicated, are deemed potentially unsafe. For example, statements like "CREATE TABLE... AS..." will trigger this warning.
  • "This DDL statement will not be replicated." This warning message is generated when auto replication is active, but the specific DDL is either unsupported or intentionally excluded from replication.4- "table 'test' was added to 'default' replication set." This is a LOG message providing information about the replication set used for a given table when 'spock.include_ddl_repset' is set.

Replication of Partitioned Tables

Partitioned tables can now be replicated. By default, when adding a partitioned table to a replication set, it will include all of its present partitions. The later partitions can be added using the partition_add function. The DDL for the partitioned and partitions should be present on the subscriber nodes (same as for normal tables).

Similarly, when removing a partitioned table from a replication set, by default, the partitions of the table will also be removed.

The replication of partitioned tables is a bit different from normal tables. When doing initial synchronization, we query the partitioned table (or parent) to get all the rows for synchronization purposes and don't synchronize the individual partitions. However, after the initial sync of data, the normal operations resume i.e. the partitions start replicating like normal tables.

It's possible to add individual partitions to the replication set in which case they will be replicated like regular tables (to the table of the same name as the partition on the subscriber). This has performance advantages when partitioning definition is the same on both provider and subscriber, as the partitioning logic does not have to be executed.

Note: There is an exception to individual partition replication, which is, the individual partitions won't sync up the existing data. It's equivalent to setting synchronize_data = false.

When partitions are replicated through a partitioned table, the exception is the TRUNCATE command which always replicates with the list of affected tables or partitions.

Additionally, row_filter can also be used with partitioned tables, as well as with individual partitions.

Conflict-Free Delta-Apply Columns (Conflict Avoidance)

Logical Multi-Master replication can get itself into trouble on running sums (such as a YTD balance). Unlike other solutions, we do NOT have a special data type for this. Any numeric data type will do (including numeric, float, double precision, int4, int8, etc).

Suppose that a running bank account sum contains a balance of $1,000. Two transactions "conflict" because they overlap with each from two different multi-master nodes. Transaction A is a $1,000 withdrawal from the account. Transaction B is also a $1,000 withdrawal from the account. The correct balance is $-1,000. Our Delta-Apply algorithm fixes this problem and highly conflicting workloads with this scenario (like a tpc-c like benchmark) now run correctly at lightning speeds.

This feature is powerful AND simple in its implementation as follows:

  • A small diff patch to PostgreSQL core

    • a very small PostgreSQL licensed patch is applied to a core PostgreSQL source tree before building a PG binary.
    • the above diff patch adds functionality to support ALTER TABLE t1 COLUMN c1 SET(log_old_value=true)
    • this patch will be submitted to pg16 core PostgreSQL and discussed at the Ottawa Conference.

  • When an update occurs on a 'log_old_value' column

    • First, the old value for that column is captured to the WAL
    • Second, the new value comes in the transaction to be applied to a subscriber
    • Before the new value overwrites the old value, a delta value is created from the above two steps and it is correctly applied

Note that on a conflicting transaction, the delta column will get correctly calculated and applied. The configured conflict resolution strategy applies to non-delta columns (normally last-update-wins).

As a special safety-valve feature. If the user ever needs to re-set a log_old_value column you can temporarily alter the column to "log_old_value" is false.

Conflicts Overview

In case the node is subscribed to multiple providers, or when local writes happen on a subscriber, conflicts can arise for the incoming changes. These are automatically detected and can be acted on depending on the configuration.

The configuration of the conflicts resolver is done via the spock.conflict_resolution setting.

The resolved conflicts are logged using the log level set using spock.conflict_log_level. This parameter defaults to LOG. If set to lower level than log_min_messages the resolved conflicts won't appear in the server log.

Conflict Configuration options

Some aspects of Spock can be configured using configuration options that can be either set in postgresql.conf or via ALTER SYSTEM SET.

  • spock.conflict_resolution Sets the resolution method for any detected conflicts between local data and incoming changes.

    Possible values:

    • error - the replication will stop on error if conflict is detected and manual action is needed for resolving
    • apply_remote - always apply the change that's conflicting with local data
    • keep_local - keep the local version of the data and ignore the conflicting change that is coming from the remote node
    • last_update_wins - the version of data with newest commit timestamp will be kept (this can be either local or remote version)

    For conflict resolution, the track_commit_timestamp PostgreSQL setting is always enabled.

  • spock.conflict_log_level Sets the log level for reporting detected conflicts when the spock.conflict_resolution is set to anything else than error.

    Main use for this setting is to suppress logging of conflicts.

    Possible values are same as for log_min_messages PostgreSQL setting.

    The default is LOG.

  • spock.batch_inserts Tells Spock to use batch insert mechanism if possible. Batch mechanism uses PostgreSQL internal batch insert mode which is also used by COPY command.

Requirements

The spock extension must be installed on both provider and subscriber. You must CREATE EXTENSION spock on both. For major version upgrades, the old node can be running a recent version of pgLogical2 before it is upgraded to become a Spock node.

Tables on the provider and subscriber must have the same names and be in the same schema. Future revisions may add mapping features.

Tables on the provider and subscriber must have the same columns, with the same data types in each column. CHECK constraints, NOT NULL constraints, etc., must be the same or weaker (more permissive) on the subscriber than the provider.

Tables must have the same PRIMARY KEYs. It is not recommended to add additional UNIQUE constraints other than the PRIMARY KEY (see below).

Some additional requirements are covered in Limitations and Restrictions.

Usage

This section describes basic usage of the Spock replication extension.
It should be noted the pgEdge, when you install the Spock extension, does this quick setup for you (and more).

Quick setup

First the PostgreSQL server has to be properly configured to support logical decoding:

wal_level = 'logical'
max_worker_processes = 10   # one per database needed on provider node
                            # one per node needed on subscriber node
max_replication_slots = 10  # one per node needed on provider node
max_wal_senders = 10        # one per node needed on provider node
shared_preload_libraries = 'spock'
track_commit_timestamp = on # needed for conflict resolution

pg_hba.conf has to allow logical replication connections from localhost. Logical replication connections are treated by pg_hba.conf as regular connections to the provider database.

Next the spock extension has to be installed on all nodes in the database to be replicated:

CREATE EXTENSION spock;

Now create the provider node:

SELECT spock.node_create(
    node_name := 'provider1',
    dsn := 'host=providerhost port=5432 dbname=db'
);

Add all tables in public schema to the default replication set.

SELECT spock.repset_add_all_tables('default', ARRAY['public']);

Optionally you can also create additional replication sets and add tables to them (see Replication sets).

It's usually better to create replication sets before subscribing so that all tables are synchronized during initial replication setup in a single initial transaction. However, users of bigger databases may instead wish to create them incrementally for better control.

Once the provider node is setup, subscribers can be subscribed to it. First the subscriber node must be created:

SELECT spock.node_create(
    node_name := 'subscriber1',
    dsn := 'host=thishost port=5432 dbname=db'
);

And finally on the subscriber node you can create the subscription which will start synchronization and replication process in the background:

SELECT spock.sub_create(
    subscription_name := 'subscription1',
    provider_dsn := 'host=providerhost port=5432 dbname=db'
);

SELECT spock.sub_wait_for_sync('subscription1');

Creating subscriber nodes with base backups

In addition to the SQL-level node and subscription creation, spock also supports creating a subscriber by cloning the provider with pg_basebackup and starting it up as a spock subscriber. This is done with the spock_create_subscriber tool; see the --help output.

Unlike spock.sub_create's data sync options, this clone ignores replication sets and copies all tables on all databases. However, it's often much faster, especially over high-bandwidth links.

Node management

Nodes can be added and removed dynamically using the SQL interfaces.

spock-node-create

  • spock.node_create(node_name name, dsn text) Creates a node.

    Parameters:

    • node_name - name of the new node, only one node is allowed per database
    • dsn - connection string to the node, for nodes that are supposed to be providers, this should be reachable from outside

spock-node-drop

  • spock.node_drop(node_name name, ifexists bool) Drops the spock node.

    Parameters:

    • node_name - name of an existing node
    • ifexists - if true, error is not thrown when subscription does not exist, default is false

spock-node-add-interface

  • spock.node_add_interface(node_name name, interface_name name, dsn text) Adds additional interface to a node.

    When node is created, the interface for it is also created with the dsn specified in the create_node and with the same name as the node. This interface allows adding alternative interfaces with different connection strings to an existing node.

    Parameters:

    • node_name - name of an existing node
    • interface_name - name of a new interface to be added
    • dsn - connection string to the node used for the new interface

spock-node-drop-interface

  • spock.node_drop_interface(node_name name, interface_name name) Remove existing interface from a node.

    Parameters:

    • node_name - name of and existing node
    • interface_name - name of an existing interface

Subscription management

spock-sub-create

  • spock.sub_create(subscription_name name, provider_dsn text, repsets text[], sync_structure boolean, sync_data boolean, forward_origins text[], apply_delay interval) Creates a subscription from current node to the provider node. Command does not block, just initiates the action.

    Parameters:

    • subscription_name - name of the subscription, must be unique
    • provider_dsn - connection string to a provider
    • repsets - array of replication sets to subscribe to, these must already exist, default is "{default,default_insert_only,ddl_sql}"
    • sync_structure - specifies if to synchronize structure from provider to the subscriber, default false
    • sync_data - specifies if to synchronize data from provider to the subscriber, default true
    • forward_origins - array of origin names to forward, currently only supported values are empty array meaning don't forward any changes that didn't originate on provider node (this is useful for two-way replication between the nodes), or "{all}" which means replicate all changes no matter what is their origin, default is "{all}"
    • apply_delay - how much to delay replication, default is 0 seconds
    • force_text_transfer - force the provider to replicate all columns using a text representation (which is slower, but may be used to change the type of a replicated column on the subscriber), default is false

    The subscription_name is used as application_name by the replication connection. This means that it's visible in the pg_stat_replication monitoring view. It can also be used in synchronous_standby_names when spock is used as part of synchronous replication setup.

    Use spock.sub_wait_for_sync(subscription_name) to wait for the subscription to asynchronously start replicating and complete any needed schema and/or data sync.

spock-sub-drop

  • spock.sub_drop(subscription_name name, ifexists bool) Disconnects the subscription and removes it from the catalog.

    Parameters:

    • subscription_name - name of the existing subscription
    • ifexists - if true, error is not thrown when subscription does not exist, default is false

spock-sub-disable

  • spock.sub_disable(subscription_name name, immediate bool) Disables a subscription and disconnects it from the provider.

    Parameters:

    • subscription_name - name of the existing subscription
    • immediate - if true, the subscription is stopped immediately, otherwise it will be only stopped at the end of current transaction, default is false

spock-sub-enable

  • spock.sub_enable(subscription_name name, immediate bool) Enables disabled subscription.

    Parameters:

    • subscription_name - name of the existing subscription
    • immediate - if true, the subscription is started immediately, otherwise it will be only started at the end of current transaction, default is false

spock-sub-alter-interface

  • spock.sub_alter_interface(subscription_name name, interface_name name) Switch the subscription to use different interface to connect to provider node.

    Parameters:

    • subscription_name - name of an existing subscription
    • interface_name - name of an existing interface of the current provider node

spock-sub-sync

  • spock.sub_sync(subscription_name name, truncate bool) All unsynchronized tables in all sets are synchronized in a single operation. Tables are copied and synchronized one by one. Command does not block, just initiates the action. Use spock.wait_for_sub_sync to wait for completion.

    Parameters:

    • subscription_name - name of the existing subscription
    • truncate - if true, tables will be truncated before copy, default false

spock-sub-resync-table

  • spock.sub_resync_table(subscription_name name, relation regclass) Resynchronize one existing table. The table may not be the target of any foreign key constraints. WARNING: This function will truncate the table immediately, and only then begin synchronising it, so it will be empty while being synced

    Does not block, use spock.wait_for_table_sync to wait for completion.

    Parameters:

    • subscription_name - name of the existing subscription
    • relation - name of existing table, optionally qualified

spock-sub-wait-for-sync

  • spock.sub_wait_for_sync(subscription_name name)

    Wait for a subscription to finish synchronization after a spock.sub_create or spock.sub_sync.

    This function waits until the subscription's initial schema/data sync, if any, are done, and until any tables pending individual resynchronisation have also finished synchronising.

    For best results, run SELECT spock.wait_slot_confirm_lsn(NULL, NULL) on the provider after any replication set changes that requested resyncs, and only then call spock.sub_wait_for_sync on the subscriber.

spock-sub-wait-table-sync

  • spock.sub_wait_table_sync(subscription_name name, relation regclass)

    Same as spock.sub_wait_for_sync, but waits only for the subscription's initial sync and the named table. Other tables pending resynchronisation are ignored.

  • spock.wait_slot_confirm_lsn

    SELECT spock.wait_slot_confirm_lsn(NULL, NULL)

    Wait until all replication slots on the current node have replayed up to the xlog insert position at time of call on all providers. Returns when all slots' confirmed_flush_lsn passes the pg_current_wal_insert_lsn() at time of call.

    Optionally may wait for only one replication slot (first argument). Optionally may wait for an arbitrary LSN passed instead of the insert lsn (second argument). Both are usually just left null.

    This function is very useful to ensure all subscribers have received changes up to a certain point on the provider.

spock-sub-show-status

  • spock.sub_show_status(subscription_name name) Shows status and basic information about subscription.

    Parameters:

    • subscription_name - optional name of the existing subscription, when no name was provided, the function will show status for all subscriptions on local node

spock-sub-show-table

  • spock.sub_show_table(subscription_name name, relation regclass) Shows synchronization status of a table.

    Parameters:

    • subscription_name - name of the existing subscription
    • relation - name of existing table, optionally qualified

spock-sub-add-repset

  • spock.sub_add_repset(subscription_name name, replication_set name) Adds one replication set into a subscriber. Does not synchronize, only activates consumption of events.

    Parameters:

    • subscription_name - name of the existing subscription
    • replication_set - name of replication set to add

spock-sub-remove-repset

  • spock.sub_remove_repset(subscription_name name, replication_set name) Removes one replication set from a subscriber.

    Parameters:

    • subscription_name - name of the existing subscription
    • replication_set - name of replication set to remove

There is also a postgresql.conf parameter, spock.extra_connection_options, that may be set to assign connection options that apply to all connections made by spock. This can be a useful place to set up custom keepalive options, etc.

spock defaults to enabling TCP keepalives to ensure that it notices when the upstream server disappears unexpectedly. To disable them add keepalives = 0 to spock.extra_connection_options.

Replication sets

Replication sets provide a mechanism to control which tables in the database will be replicated and which actions on those tables will be replicated.

Each replicated set can specify individually if INSERTs, UPDATEs, DELETEs and TRUNCATEs on the set are replicated. Every table can be in multiple replication sets and every subscriber can subscribe to multiple replication sets as well. The resulting set of tables and actions replicated is the union of the sets the table is in. The tables are not replicated until they are added into a replication set.

There are three preexisting replication sets named "default", "default_insert_only" and "ddl_sql". The "default" replication set is defined to replicate all changes to tables in it. The "default_insert_only" only replicates INSERTs and is meant for tables that don't have primary key (see Limitations section for details). The "ddl_sql" replication set is defined to replicate schema changes specified by spock.replicate_ddl

The following functions are provided for managing the replication sets:

spock-repset-create

  • spock.repset_create(set_name name, replicate_insert bool, replicate_update bool, replicate_delete bool, replicate_truncate bool) This function creates a new replication set.

    Parameters:

    • set_name - name of the set, must be unique
    • replicate_insert - specifies if INSERT is replicated, default true
    • replicate_update - specifies if UPDATE is replicated, default true
    • replicate_delete - specifies if DELETE is replicated, default true
    • replicate_truncate - specifies if TRUNCATE is replicated, default true

spock-repset-alter

  • spock.repset_alter(set_name name, replicate_inserts bool, replicate_updates bool, replicate_deletes bool, replicate_truncate bool) This function changes the parameters of the existing replication set.

    Parameters:

    • set_name - name of the existing replication set
    • replicate_insert - specifies if INSERT is replicated, default true
    • replicate_update - specifies if UPDATE is replicated, default true
    • replicate_delete - specifies if DELETE is replicated, default true
    • replicate_truncate - specifies if TRUNCATE is replicated, default true

spock-repset-drop

  • spock.repset_drop(set_name text) Removes the replication set.

    Parameters:

    • set_name - name of the existing replication set

spock-repset-add-table

  • spock.repset_add_table(set_name name, relation regclass, sync_data boolean, columns text[], row_filter text) Adds a table to replication set.

    Parameters:

    • set_name - name of the existing replication set
    • relation - name or OID of the table to be added to the set
    • sync_data - if true, the table data is synchronized on all subscribers which are subscribed to given replication set, default false
    • columns - list of columns to replicate. Normally when all columns should be replicated, this will be set to NULL which is the default
    • row_filter - row filtering expression, default NULL (no filtering), see Row Filtering for more info. WARNING: Use caution when synchronizing data with a valid row filter. Using sync_data=true with a valid row_filter is like a one-time operation for a table. Executing it again with modified row_filter won't synchronize data to subscriber. Subscribers may need to call spock.alter_sub_resync_table() to fix it.

spock-repset-add-all-tables

  • spock.repset_add_all_tables(set_name name, schema_names text[], sync_data boolean) Adds all tables in given schemas. Only existing tables are added, table that will be created in future will not be added automatically. For how to ensure that tables created in future are added to correct replication set, see Automatic assignment of replication sets for new tables.

    Parameters:

    • set_name - name of the existing replication set
    • schema_names - array of names name of existing schemas from which tables should be added
    • sync_data - if true, the table data is synchronized on all subscribers which are subscribed to given replication set, default false

spock-repset-remove-table

  • spock.repset_remove_table(set_name name, relation regclass) Remove a table from replication set.

    Parameters:

    • set_name - name of the existing replication set
    • relation - name or OID of the table to be removed from the set

spock-repset-add-seq

Warning: For a multi master system, adding sequences to replication sets is not recomended. Use our new Snowflake Sequences instead.

  • spock.repset_add_seq(set_name name, relation regclass, sync_data boolean) Adds a sequence to a replication set.

    Parameters:

    • set_name - name of the existing replication set
    • relation - name or OID of the sequence to be added to the set
    • sync_data - if true, the sequence value will be synchronized immediately, default false

spock-repset-add-all-seqs

Warning: For a multi master system, adding sequences to replication sets is not recomended. Use our new Snowflake Sequences instead.

  • spock.repset_add_all_seqs(set_name name, schema_names text[], sync_data boolean) Adds all sequences from the given schemas. Only existing sequences are added, any sequences that will be created in future will not be added automatically.

    Parameters:

    • set_name - name of the existing replication set
    • schema_names - array of names name of existing schemas from which tables should be added
    • sync_data - if true, the sequence value will be synchronized immediately, default false

spock-repset-remove-seq

  • spock.repset_remove_seq(set_name name, relation regclass) Remove a sequence from a replication set.

    Parameters:

    • set_name - name of the existing replication set
    • relation - name or OID of the sequence to be removed from the set

You can view the information about which table is in which set by querying the spock.tables view.

Automatic assignment of replication sets for new tables

The event trigger facility can be used for describing rules which define replication sets for newly created tables.

Example:

CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION spock_assign_repset()
RETURNS event_trigger AS $$
DECLARE obj record;
BEGIN
    FOR obj IN SELECT * FROM pg_event_trigger_ddl_commands()
    LOOP
        IF obj.object_type = 'table' THEN
            IF obj.schema_name = 'config' THEN
                PERFORM spock.repset_add_table('configuration', obj.objid);
            ELSIF NOT obj.in_extension THEN
                PERFORM spock.repset_add_table('default', obj.objid);
            END IF;
        END IF;
    END LOOP;
END;
$$ LANGUAGE plpgsql;

CREATE EVENT TRIGGER spock_assign_repset_trg
    ON ddl_command_end
    WHEN TAG IN ('CREATE TABLE', 'CREATE TABLE AS')
    EXECUTE PROCEDURE spock_assign_repset();

The above example will put all new tables created in schema config into replication set configuration and all other new tables which are not created by extensions will go to default replication set.

Additional functions

spock-replicate-ddl

  • spock.replicate_ddl(command text, repsets text[]) Execute locally and then send the specified command to the replication queue for execution on subscribers which are subscribed to one of the specified repsets.

    Parameters:

    • command - DDL query to execute
    • repsets - array of replication sets which this command should be associated with, default "{ddl_sql}"

spock-seq-sync

  • spock.seq_sync(relation regclass) Push sequence state to all subscribers. Unlike the subscription and table synchronization function, this function should be run on provider. It forces update of the tracked sequence state which will be consumed by all subscribers (replication set filtering still applies) once they replicate the transaction in which this function has been executed.

    Parameters:

    • relation - name of existing sequence, optionally qualified

Row Filtering

Spock allows row based filtering both on provider side and the subscriber side.

Row Filtering on Provider

On the provider the row filtering can be done by specifying row_filter parameter for the spock.repset_add_table function. The row_filter is normal PostgreSQL expression which has the same limitations on what's allowed as the CHECK constraint.

Simple row_filter would look something like row_filter := 'id > 0' which would ensure that only rows where values of id column is bigger than zero will be replicated.

It's allowed to use volatile function inside row_filter but caution must be exercised with regard to writes as any expression which will do writes will throw error and stop replication.

It's also worth noting that the row_filter is running inside the replication session so session specific expressions such as CURRENT_USER will have values of the replication session and not the session which did the writes.

Row Filtering on Subscriber

On the subscriber the row based filtering can be implemented using standard BEFORE TRIGGER mechanism.

It is required to mark any such triggers as either ENABLE REPLICA or ENABLE ALWAYS otherwise they will not be executed by the replication process.

Synchronous Replication

Synchronous replication is supported using same standard mechanism provided by PostgreSQL for physical replication.

The synchronous_commit and synchronous_standby_names settings will affect when COMMIT command reports success to client if spock subscription name is used in synchronous_standby_names. Refer to PostgreSQL documentation for more info about how to configure these two variables.

The batch inserts will improve replication performance of transactions that did many inserts into one table. Spock will switch to batch mode when transaction did more than 5 INSERTs.

It's only possible to switch to batch mode when there are no INSTEAD OF INSERT and BEFORE INSERT triggers on the table and when there are no defaults with volatile expressions for columns of the table. Also the batch mode will only work when spock.conflict_resolution is set to error.

The default is true.

  • spock.use_spi Tells Spock to use SPI interface to form actual SQL (INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE) statements to apply incoming changes instead of using internal low level interface.

    This is mainly useful for debugging purposes.

    The default in PostgreSQL is false.

    This can be set to true only when spock.conflict_resolution is set to error. In this state, conflicts are not detected.

  • spock.temp_directory Defines system path where to put temporary files needed for schema synchronization. This path need to exist and be writable by user running Postgres.

    Default is empty, which tells Spock to use default temporary directory based on environment and operating system settings.

Limitations and restrictions

Superuser is required

Currently spock replication and administration requires superuser privileges. It may be later extended to more granular privileges.

UNLOGGED and TEMPORARY not replicated

UNLOGGED and TEMPORARY tables will not and cannot be replicated, much like with physical streaming replication.

One database at a time

To replicate multiple databases you must set up individual provider/subscriber relationships for each. There is no way to configure replication for all databases in a PostgreSQL install at once.

PRIMARY KEY or REPLICA IDENTITY required

UPDATEs and DELETEs cannot be replicated for tables that lack a PRIMARY KEY or other valid replica identity such as using an index, which must be unique, not partial, not deferrable, and include only columns marked NOT NULL. Replication has no way to find the tuple that should be updated/deleted since there is no unique identifier. REPLICA IDENTITY FULL is not supported yet.

Only one unique index/constraint/PK

If more than one upstream is configured or the downstream accepts local writes then only one UNIQUE index should be present on downstream replicated tables. Conflict resolution can only use one index at a time so conflicting rows may ERROR if a row satisfies the PRIMARY KEY but violates a UNIQUE constraint on the downstream side. This will stop replication until the downstream table is modified to remove the violation.

It's fine to have extra unique constraints on an upstream if the downstream only gets writes from that upstream and nowhere else. The rule is that the downstream constraints must not be more restrictive than those on the upstream(s).

Partial secondary unique indexes are permitted, but will be ignored for conflict resolution purposes.

Unique constraints must not be deferrable

On the downstream end spock does not support index-based constraints defined as DEFERRABLE. It will emit the error

ERROR: spock doesn't support index rechecks needed for deferrable indexes
DETAIL: relation "public"."test_relation" has deferrable indexes: "index1", "index2"

if such an index is present when it attempts to apply changes to a table.

DDL

Automatic DDL replication is not supported. Managing DDL so that the provider and subscriber database(s) remain compatible is the responsibility of the user.

spock provides the spock.replicate_ddl function to allow DDL to be run on the provider and subscriber at a consistent point.

No replication queue flush

There's no support for freezing transactions on the master and waiting until all pending queued xacts are replayed from slots. Support for making the upstream read-only for this will be added in a future release.

This means that care must be taken when applying table structure changes. If there are committed transactions that aren't yet replicated and the table structure of the provider and subscriber are changed at the same time in a way that makes the subscriber table incompatible with the queued transactions replication will stop.

Administrators should either ensure that writes to the master are stopped before making schema changes, or use the spock.replicate_ddl function to queue schema changes so they're replayed at a consistent point on the replica.

Once multi-master replication support is added then using spock.replicate_ddl will not be enough, as the subscriber may be generating new xacts with the old structure after the schema change is committed on the publisher. Users will have to ensure writes are stopped on all nodes and all slots are caught up before making schema changes.

FOREIGN KEYS

Foreign keys constraints are not enforced for the replication process - what succeeds on provider side gets applied to subscriber even if the FOREIGN KEY would be violated.

TRUNCATE

Using TRUNCATE ... CASCADE will only apply the CASCADE option on the provider side.

(Properly handling this would probably require the addition of ON TRUNCATE CASCADE support for foreign keys in PostgreSQL).

TRUNCATE ... RESTART IDENTITY is not supported. The identity restart step is not replicated to the replica.

Sequences

We strongly recommend that you use our new Snowflake Sequences rather than using the legacy sequences described below.

The state of sequences added to replication sets is replicated periodically and not in real-time. Dynamic buffer is used for the value being replicated so that the subscribers actually receive future state of the sequence. This minimizes the chance of subscriber's notion of sequence's last_value falling behind but does not completely eliminate the possibility.

It might be desirable to call sync_sequence to ensure all subscribers have up to date information about given sequence after "big events" in the database such as data loading or during the online upgrade.

It's generally recommended to use bigserial and bigint types for sequences on multi-node systems as smaller sequences might reach end of the sequence space fast.

Users who want to have independent sequences on provider and subscriber can avoid adding sequences to replication sets and create sequences with step interval equal to or greater than the number of nodes. And then setting a different offset on each node. Use the INCREMENT BY option for CREATE SEQUENCE or ALTER SEQUENCE, and use setval(...) to set the start point.

Triggers

Apply process and the initial COPY process both run with session_replication_role set to replica which means that ENABLE REPLICA and ENABLE ALWAYS triggers will be fired.

PostgreSQL Version differences

Spock can replicate across PostgreSQL major versions. Despite that, long term cross-version replication is not considered a design target, though it may often work. Issues where changes are valid on the provider but not on the subscriber are more likely to arise when replicating across versions.

It is safer to replicate from an old version to a newer version since PostgreSQL maintains solid backward compatibility but only limited forward compatibility. Initial schema synchronization is only supported when replicating between same version of PostgreSQL or from lower version to higher version.

Replicating between different minor versions makes no difference at all.

Database encoding differences

Spock does not support replication between databases with different encoding. We recommend using UTF-8 encoding in all replicated databases.

Large objects

PostgreSQL's logical decoding facility does not support decoding changes to large objects, so spock cannot replicate large objects.

Also any DDL limitations apply so extra care need to be taken when using replicate_ddl_command().

Spock Read Only

Spock support enabling a cluster to be operated in read-only mode.

The read-only status is managed only in (shared) memory with a global flag. SQL functions are provided to set the flag, to unset the flag and to query the flag. The current functionality does not allow to store the read-only status in a permanent way.

The flag is at cluster level: either all databases are read-only or all database are read-write (the usual setting).

The read-only mode is implemented by filtering SQL statements:

  • SELECT statements are allowed if they don't call functions that write.
  • DML (INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE) and DDL statements including TRUNCATE are forbidden entirely.
  • DCL statements GRANT and REVOKE are also forbidden.

This means that the databases are in read-only mode at SQL level: however, the checkpointer, background writer, walwriter and the autovacuum launcher are still running; this means that the database files are not read-only and that in some cases the database may still write to disk.

Functions

Spock read only supports following functions:

  • set_cluster_readonly This function is for setting the cluster in read-only mode.

  • unset_cluster_readonly This function is for setting cluster in read-write mode.

  • get_cluster_readonly This function can be used to query the cluster status. It returns true if the cluster is read-only and false if not.

  • terminate_active_transactions This function is to terminate any active transactions.

Spock is licensed under the pgEdge Community License v1.0