MaxScale Administration Tutorial

Master common administrative tasks in MaxScale. Learn to start/stop services, rotate logs, manage servers with MaxCtrl, and put nodes into maintenance mode.

The purpose of this tutorial is to introduce the MariaDB MaxScale Administrator to a few of the common administration tasks. This is intended to be an introduction for administrators who are new to MariaDB MaxScale and not a reference to all the tasks that may be performed.

Administration audit file

The REST API calls that MaxCtrl and MaxGui issue to MaxScale can be logged by enabling admin_audit.

The generated file is a csv file that can be opened in most spread sheet programs.

[Rotating Log Files](#Rotating Log Files) also applies to the audit file. The admin audit file will never be overwritten as a result of a rotate, unlike the regular log file (in case a rotate is issued, but the file name has not been moved). There is also the option to change the audit file name, which effectively rotates it independently of the regular log file. For example:

maxctrl alter maxscale 
admin_audit_file=/var/log/maxscale/admin_audit.march.csv.

Starting and Stopping MariaDB MaxScale

MaxScale uses systemd for managing the process. This means that normalsystemctl commands can be used to start and stop MaxScale. To start MaxScale, use systemctl start maxscale. To stop it, use systemctl stop maxscale.

The systemd service file for MaxScale is located in /lib/systemd/system/maxscale.service.

Additional Options for MaxScale

Additional command line options and other systemd configuration options can be given to MariaDB MaxScale by creating a drop-in file for the service unit file. You can do this with the systemctl edit maxscale.servicecommand. For more information about systemd drop-in files, refer to the systemctl man page and the systemd documentation.

Checking The Status Of The MariaDB MaxScale Services

It is possible to use the maxctrl command to obtain statistics about the services that are running within MaxScale. The maxctrl command list serviceswill give very basic information regarding services. This command may be either run in interactive mode or passed on the maxctrl command line.

$ maxctrl list services
┌────────────────────────┬────────────────┬─────────────┬───────────────────┬────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Service                │ Router         │ Connections │ Total Connections │ Servers                            │
├────────────────────────┼────────────────┼─────────────┼───────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────┤
│ CLI                    │ cli            │ 1           │ 1                 │                                    │
├────────────────────────┼────────────────┼─────────────┼───────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────┤
│ RW-Split-Router        │ readwritesplit │ 1           │ 1                 │ server1, server2, server3, server4 │
├────────────────────────┼────────────────┼─────────────┼───────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────┤
│ RW-Split-Hint-Router   │ readwritesplit │ 1           │ 1                 │ server1, server2, server3, server4 │
├────────────────────────┼────────────────┼─────────────┼───────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────┤
│ SchemaRouter-Router    │ schemarouter   │ 1           │ 1                 │ server1, server2, server3, server4 │
├────────────────────────┼────────────────┼─────────────┼───────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Read-Connection-Router │ readconnroute  │ 1           │ 1                 │ server1                            │
└────────────────────────┴────────────────┴─────────────┴───────────────────┴────────────────────────────────────┘

Network listeners count as a user of the service, therefore there will always be one user per network port in which the service listens. More details can be obtained by using the "show service" command.

What Clients Are Connected To MariaDB MaxScale

To determine what client are currently connected to MariaDB MaxScale, you can use the list sessions command within maxctrl. This will give you IP address and the ID of the session for that connection. As with any maxctrl command this can be passed on the command line or typed interactively in maxctrl.

$ maxctrl list sessions
┌────┬─────────┬──────────────────┬──────────────────────────┬──────┬─────────────────┐
│ Id │ User    │ Host             │ Connected                │ Idle │ Service         │
├────┼─────────┼──────────────────┼──────────────────────────┼──────┼─────────────────┤
│ 6  │ maxuser │ ::ffff:127.0.0.1 │ Thu Aug 27 10:39:16 2020 │ 4    │ RW-Split-Router │
└────┴─────────┴──────────────────┴──────────────────────────┴──────┴─────────────────┘

Rotating Log Files

Log rotation applies to the MaxScale log file, admin audit file and qlafilter files.

MariaDB MaxScale logs messages of different priority into a single log file. With the exception if error messages that are always logged, whether messages of a particular priority should be logged or not can be enabled via the maxctrl interface or in the configuration file. By default, MaxScale keeps on writing to the same log file. To prevent the file from growing indefinitely, the administrator must take action.

The name of the log file is maxscale.log. When the log is rotated, MaxScale closes the current log file and opens a new one using the same name.

Log file rotation is achieved by use of the rotate logs command in maxctrl.

maxctrl rotate logs

As there currently is only the maxscale log, that is the only one that will be rotated.

This may be integrated into the Linux logrotate mechanism by adding a configuration file to the /etc/logrotate.d directory. If we assume we want to rotate the log files once per month and wish to keep 5 log files worth of history, the configuration file would look as follows.

/var/log/maxscale/maxscale.log {
monthly
rotate 5
missingok
nocompress
sharedscripts
postrotate
\# run if maxscale is running
if test -n "`ps acx|grep maxscale`"; then
/usr/bin/maxctrl rotate logs
fi
endscript
}

MariaDB MaxScale will also rotate all of its log files if it receives the USR1 signal. Using this the logrotate configuration script can be rewritten as

/var/log/maxscale/maxscale.log {
monthly
rotate 5
missingok
nocompress
sharedscripts
postrotate
kill -USR1 `cat /run/maxscale/maxscale.pid`
endscript
}

In older versions MaxScale renamed the log file, behavior which is not fully compliant with the assumptions of logrotate and may lead to issues, depending on the used logrotate configuration file. From version 2.1 onward, MaxScale will not itself rename the log file, but when the log is rotated, MaxScale will simply close and reopen the same log file. That will make the behavior fully compliant with logrotate.

Taking Objects Temporarily Out of Use

Putting Servers into Maintenance

MariaDB MaxScale supports the concept of maintenance mode for servers within a cluster. This allows for planned, temporary removal of a database from the cluster without the need to change the MariaDB MaxScale configuration.

maxctrl set server db-server-3 maintenance

To achieve this, you can use the set server command in maxctrl to set the maintenance mode flag for the server. This may be done interactively within maxctrl or by passing the command on the command line.

This will cause MariaDB MaxScale to stop routing any new requests to the server, however if there are currently requests executing on the server these will not be interrupted. Connections to servers in maintenance mode are closed as soon as the next request arrives. To close them immediately, use the --force option for maxctrl set server.

maxctrl clear server db-server-3 maintenance

Clearing the maintenance mode for a server will bring it back into use. If multiple MariaDB MaxScale instances are configured to use the node then maintenance mode must be set within each MariaDB MaxScale instance.

Stopping and Starting Services

maxctrl stop service db-service

Services can be stopped to temporarily halt their use. Stopping a service will cause it to stop accepting new connections until it is started. New connections are not refused if the service is stopped and are queued instead. This means that connecting clients will wait until the service is started again.

maxctrl start service db-service

Starting a service will cause it to accept all queued connections that were created while it was stopped.

Stopping and Starting Monitors

maxctrl stop monitor db-monitor

Stopping a monitor will cause it to stop monitoring the state of the servers assigned to it. This is useful when the state of the servers is assigned manually with maxctrl set server.

maxctrl start monitor db-monitor

Starting a monitor will make it resume monitoring of the servers. Any manually assigned states will be overwritten by the monitor.

Runtime Configuration Modification

The MaxScale configuration can be changed at runtime by using the create,alter and destroy commands of maxctrl. These commands either create, modify or destroy objects (servers, services, monitors etc.) inside MaxScale. The exact syntax for each of the commands and any additional options that they take can be seen with maxctrl --help <command>.

Not all parameters can be modified at runtime. Refer to the module documentation for more information on which parameters can be modified at runtime. If a parameter cannot be modified at runtime, the object can be destroyed and recreated in order to change it.

All runtime changes are persisted in files stored by default in /var/lib/maxscale/maxscale.cnf.d/. This means that any changes done at runtime persist through restarts. Any changes done to objects in the main configuration file are ignored if a persisted entry is found for it.

For example, if the address of a server is modified with maxctrl alter server db-server-1 address 192.168.0.100, the file/var/lib/maxscale/maxscale.cnf.d/db-server-1.cnf is created with the complete configuration for the object. To remove all runtime changes for all objects, remove all files found in /var/lib/maxscale/maxscale.cnf.d.

Core Parameter Configuration

Modify global MaxScale parameters:

maxctrl alter maxscale auth_connect_timeout 5s

Some global parameters cannot be modified at runtime. Refer to the Configuration Guide for a full list of parameters that can be modified at runtime.

Managing Servers

Create a new server

maxctrl create server db-server-1 192.168.0.100 3306

Modify a Server

maxctrl alter server db-server-1 port 3307

Destroy a Server

maxctrl destroy server db-server-1

A server can only be destroyed if it is not used by any services or monitors. To automatically remove the server from the services and monitors that use it, use the --force flag.

Drain a Server

maxctrl set server db-server-1 drain

When a server is set into the drain state, no new connections to it are created. Unlike to the maintenance state which immediately stops all new requests and closes all connections if used with the --force option, thedrain state allows existing connections to continue routing requests to them in order to be gracefully closed once the client disconnects.

To remove the drain state, use clear server command:

maxctrl clear server db-server-1 drain

Servers with the Master state cannot be drained. To drain them, first perform a switchover to another node and then drain the server.

Managing Monitors

Create a new Monitor

maxctrl create monitor db-monitor mariadbmon 
user=db-user password=db-password

Modify a Monitor

maxctrl alter monitor db-monitor monitor_interval 1000

Add Server to a Monitor

maxctrl link monitor db-monitor db-server-1

Remove a Server from a Monitor

maxctrl unlink monitor db-monitor db-server-1

Destroy a Monitor

maxctrl destroy monitor db-monitor

A monitor can only be destroyed if it is not monitoring any servers. To automatically remove the servers from the monitor, use the --force flag.

Managing Services

Create a New Service

maxctrl create service db-service readwritesplit 
user=db-user password=db-password

Modify a Service

maxctrl alter service db-service user new-db-user

Add Servers to a Service

maxctrl link service db-service db-server1

Any servers added to services will only be used by new sessions. Existing sessions will use the servers that were available when they connected.

Remove Servers from a Service

maxctrl unlink service db-service db-server1

Similarly to adding servers, removing servers from a service will only affect new sessions. Existing sessions keep using the servers even if they are removed from a service.

Change the Filters of a Service

maxctrl alter service-filters my-regexfilter my-qlafilter

The order of the filters is significant: the first filter will be the first to receive the query. The new set of filters will only be used by new sessions. Existing sessions will keep using the filters that were configured when they connected.

Destroy a Service

maxctrl destroy service db-service

The service can only be destroyed if it uses no servers or clusters and has no listeners associated with it. To force destruction of a service even if it does use servers or has listeners, use the --force flag. This will also destroy any listeners associated with the service.

Managing Filters

Create a New Filter

maxctrl create filter regexfilter match=ENGINE=MyISAM 
replace=ENGINE=InnoDB

Destroy a Filter

maxctrl destroy filter my-regexfilter

A filter can only be destroyed if it is not used by any services. To automatically remove the filter from all services using it, use the --forceflag.

Filters cannot be altered at runtime in MaxScale 2.5. To modify the parameters of a filter, destroy it and recreate it with the modified parameters.

Managing Listeners

Create a New Listener

maxctrl create listener db-listener db-service 4006

Destroy a Listener

maxctrl destroy listener db-listener

Destroying a listener will close the network socket and stop it from accepting new connections. Existing connections that were created through it will keep displaying it as the originating listener.

Listeners cannot be moved from one service to another. In order to do this, the listener must be destroyed and then recreated with the new service.

Managing MaxCtrl and REST API Users

MaxCtrl uses the same credentials as the MaxScale REST API. These users can be managed via MaxCtrl.

Create a New MaxCtrl User

maxctrl create user basic-user basic-password

By default new users are only allowed to read data. To make the account an administrative account, add the --type=admin option to the command:

maxctrl create user admin-user admin-password --type=admin

Administrative accounts are allowed to use all MaxCtrl commands and modify any parts of MaxScale.

Change the Password of an Existing User

maxctrl alter user admin-user new-admin-password

Remove a User

maxctrl destroy user basic-user

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