> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://mariadb.com/docs/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://mariadb.com/docs/release-notes/advanced-cluster/raft-system-variables.md). # Raft System Variables A detailed reference for the system variables used by the Raft consensus implementation. These variables configure cluster heartbeat behavior, election timeouts, log management, and flow control ## List of Raft System Variables ### raft-vote-timeout Time candidate waits for a majority of granted votes during election. Uses exponential backoff up to raft\_max\_vote\_timeout. | Property | Value | | ------------ | ----------------- | | Command Line | | | Scope | Global | | Dynamic | No | | Data Type | Numeric (ms) | | Range | 100 to 4294967295 | | Default | 200 | ### raft-data-dir Data directory where to store replication logs and other node persistent state. | Property | Value | | ------------ | ------ | | Command Line | | | Scope | Global | | Dynamic | No | | Data Type | String | | Range | | | Default | ./ | ### raft-applied-event-memory-limit Maximum size, in bytes, of received but not-yet-applied write set payloads before event delivery pauses. Set to `0` to disable the limit. | Property | Value | | ------------ | ----------------------------------- | | Command Line | --raft-applied-event-memory-limit=# | | Scope | Global | | Dynamic | Yes | | Data Type | Numeric (Bytes) | | Range | 0 to 18446744073709551615 | | Default | 134217728 (128 MB) | ### raft-event-store-file-size Maximum size of single log file in bytes. When a log file reaches this size, a new file is created. | Property | Value | | ------------ | -------------------------------------- | | Command Line | | | Scope | Global | | Dynamic | No | | Data Type | Numeric (Bytes) | | Range | 1048576 (1 MB) to 1048576000 (1000 MB) | | Default | 128MB | ### raft-event-store-max-memory Maximum size of the in-memory event store buffer in bytes. Events are cached in memory for faster access before being written to disk. | Property | Value | | ------------ | ---------------------------------------- | | Command Line | | | Scope | Global | | Dynamic | No | | Data Type | Numeric (Bytes) | | Range | 1048576 (1 MB) to 10485760000 (10000 MB) | | Default | 32MB | ### raft-event-store-max-size Maximum total size of the event store on disk in bytes. Older log files are purged when this limit is exceeded. | Property | Value | | ------------ | -------------------------------------------- | | Command Line | | | Scope | Global | | Dynamic | No | | Data Type | Numeric (Bytes) | | Range | 1048576 (1 MB) to 1048576000000 (1000000 MB) | | Default | 512MB | ### raft-flow-control-drift-limit Maximum index drift allowed between nodes before flow control throttling activates. When the difference between the slowest and fastest node commit positions exceeds this limit, the leader begins throttling requests. | Property | Value | | ------------ | --------------- | | Command Line | | | Scope | Global | | Dynamic | Yes | | Data Type | Numeric | | Range | 0 to 4294967295 | | Default | 100 | ### raft-flow-control-max-throttle-rate Maximum request rate (requests per second) to sustain when flow control throttling is active. Lower values provide more aggressive throttling. | Property | Value | | ------------ | --------------- | | Command Line | | | Scope | Global | | Dynamic | Yes | | Data Type | Numeric | | Range | 0 to 4294967295 | | Default | 100 | ### raft-election-timeout Time follower waits without leader messages before starting election. Should be significantly larger than raft\_heartbeat\_timeout to avoid unnecessary elections. | Property | Value | | ------------ | ----------------- | | Command Line | | | Scope | Global | | Dynamic | No | | Data Type | Numeric (ms) | | Range | 500 to 4294967295 | | Default | 5000 | ### raft-heartbeat-timeout Interval at which leader sends heartbeat messages (milliseconds). Shorter intervals provide faster failure detection but increase network traffic. | Property | Value | | ------------ | ----------------- | | Command Line | | | Scope | Global | | Dynamic | No | | Data Type | Numeric (ms) | | Range | 100 to 4294967295 | | Default | 1000 | ### raft-leadership-priority Priority for the current node to become leader. Nodes with a higher priority are preferred when a leader is elected. A leader that detects a follower with a higher priority steps down immediately, rather than waiting for the heartbeat timeout to expire. The priority can also be changed at runtime, without restarting the session — see [Leadership Priority](/docs/release-notes/advanced-cluster/mariadb-advanced-cluster-quickstart-guide.md#leadership-priority) in the quickstart guide. | Property | Value | | ------------ | ------------------------- | | Command Line | | | Scope | Global | | Dynamic | Yes | | Data Type | Numeric | | Range | -2147483647 to 2147483647 | | Default | 0 | {% hint style="warning" %} Leadership priority changes the cluster protocol, and is **not** backwards compatible with the 0.9.0 technical preview release. All nodes must run the same release. {% endhint %} ### raft-bind-address The local network address the node uses for its Raft cluster communication. The node binds its listening sockets to this address — both the acceptor for incoming cluster connections and the acceptor for incoming SST connections — and uses it as the source address when connecting out to the other nodes. On a host with several network interfaces, this confines all Raft traffic to one chosen interface, for example a dedicated internal or replication network, instead of the node listening on every interface. The value must be a local IPv4 or IPv6 address, without a port and without hostnames. By default the value is empty, so the node listens on all interfaces and the operating system selects the source address. | Property | Value | | ------------ | ------------------------ | | Command Line | --raft-bind-address=name | | Scope | Global | | Dynamic | No | | Data Type | String | | Range | | | Default | (empty) | ### raft-listen-port Port to listen for incoming cluster connections. | Property | Value | | ------------ | -------------- | | Command Line | | | Scope | Global | | Dynamic | No | | Data Type | Numeric (Port) | | Range | 0 to 65535 | | Default | 50002 | ### raft-log-durability Durability level of Raft log writes. | Property | Value | | ------------ | -------------------------- | | Command Line | --raft-log-durability=name | | Scope | Global | | Dynamic | No | | Data Type | Enumeration | | Range | FLUSH, SYNC | | Default | FLUSH | ### raft-log-filter In order to reduce amount of logging on DEBUG level, this filter can be used to select output from specific operations. The format is comma separated list of strings, e.g. 'rvc\_send,rvc\_recv'. The actual useful values for filter depend on underlying Craft implementation and is subject to change. | Property | Value | | ------------ | ---------------------------------------- | | Command Line | | | Scope | Global | | Dynamic | Yes | | Data Type | String | | Range | | | Default | admin,client,server,replication\_service | ### raft-log-level Verbosity level for logging. Supported values are ERROR, WARN, INFO and DEBUG. The DEBUG setting may get very verbose, so it should be used sparingly (see also raft\_log\_filter). | Property | Value | | ------------ | ------------------------ | | Command Line | | | Scope | Global | | Dynamic | Yes | | Data Type | Enumeration | | Range | ERROR, WARN, INFO, DEBUG | | Default | INFO | ### raft-max-vote-timeout Upper bound for raft\_vote\_timeout after exponential backoff. Limits how long a candidate will wait between election attempts. | Property | Value | | ------------ | ----------------- | | Command Line | | | Scope | Global | | Dynamic | No | | Data Type | Numeric (ms) | | Range | 100 to 4294967295 | | Default | 1500 | ### raft-max-reconnect-attempts Number of attempts to reconnect to the cluster after ending up in non-primary state. | Property | Value | | ------------ | --------------- | | Command Line | | | Scope | Global | | Dynamic | Yes | | Data Type | Numeric | | Range | 1 to 4294967295 | | Default | 5 | ### raft-node-id Unique node identifier. The identifier can be either a human-readable string up to 15 characters long or a UUID. If human-readable name is used, it must be unique within the cluster. If another node with the same name already exists in the cluster, the newly added node will fail connecting the cluster. The special value 'auto' is reserved for generating a UUID whenever the server starts from a clean state. This is mainly useful for test scenarios where the grastate.dat is removed, and the node is expected to rejoin the cluster before the previous instance is evicted from the group. | Property | Value | | ------------ | -------------------------------------------- | | Command Line | | | Scope | Global | | Dynamic | No | | Data Type | String | | Range | Human-readable string (max 15 chars) or UUID | | Default | auto | ### raft-node-weight Node weight for replication and voting quorum. The default weight is 1, all nodes in the cluster have the same weight in voting and replication. {% hint style="danger" %} **PRODUCTION WARNING:** Using unequal weights in a cluster is unsafe for production workloads. Weighted quorum does not guarantee that data is replicated on the majority of servers before log events are committed on the leader, which can lead to data loss scenarios. This setting is mainly useful for testing and should not be used in production. {% endhint %} | Property | Value | | ------------ | -------- | | Command Line | | | Scope | Global | | Dynamic | No | | Data Type | Numeric | | Range | 1 to 256 | | Default | 1 | ### raft-liveness-timeout Timeout after which the node is considered unresponsive. If no replication events appear in the log within this period, the node moves to non-primary state. | Property | Value | | ------------ | ------------------ | | Command Line | | | Scope | Global | | Dynamic | No | | Data Type | Numeric (ms) | | Range | 1000 to 4294967295 | | Default | 20000 | ### raft-eviction-timeout Timeout after which session to replication system is considered expired if there is no activity. If the node cannot communicate with the leader within this time period, it will be evicted from the cluster. | Property | Value | | ------------ | ------------------ | | Command Line | | | Scope | Global | | Dynamic | No | | Data Type | Numeric (ms) | | Range | 1000 to 4294967295 | | Default | 15000 | ### raft-sst-listen-port Port to listen for SST requests. | Property | Value | | ------------ | -------------- | | Command Line | | | Scope | Global | | Dynamic | No | | Data Type | Numeric (Port) | | Range | 0 to 65535 | | Default | 50001 | ### raft-segment-id Read-only datacenter segment identifier. The identifier can be either a human-readable string up to 15 characters long or a UUID. By default it is unset, meaning no segmentation is applied. | Property | Value | | ------------ | -------------------------------------------- | | Command Line | | | Scope | Global | | Dynamic | No | | Data Type | String | | Range | Human-readable string (max 15 chars) or UUID | | Default | (unset) | ### raft-have-ssl Indicates whether SSL/TLS is enabled for cluster communication. Possible values are YES, NO, or DISABLED. This is a read-only variable that reflects the current SSL state. | Property | Value | | ------------ | ----------------- | | Command Line | | | Scope | Global | | Dynamic | No | | Data Type | Enumeration | | Range | YES, NO, DISABLED | | Default | YES | {% hint style="info" %} The `VERIFY_PEER` value was removed. Peer certificate verification is now controlled by the separate [raft-ssl-verify-server-cert](#raft-ssl-verify-server-cert) variable. {% endhint %} ### raft-ssl-key Path to the SSL private key file in PEM format. This variable is read-only and must be set at server startup. | Property | Value | | ------------ | ------- | | Command Line | | | Scope | Global | | Dynamic | No | | Data Type | String | | Range | | | Default | (empty) | ### raft-ssl-cert Path to the SSL certificate file in PEM format. This variable is read-only and must be set at server startup. | Property | Value | | ------------ | ------- | | Command Line | | | Scope | Global | | Dynamic | No | | Data Type | String | | Range | | | Default | (empty) | ### raft-ssl-ca Path to the CA certificate file in PEM format used to verify peer certificates. This variable is read-only and must be set at server startup. | Property | Value | | ------------ | ------- | | Command Line | | | Scope | Global | | Dynamic | No | | Data Type | String | | Range | | | Default | (empty) | ### raft-ssl-capath Path to a directory containing CA certificate files in PEM format. This variable is read-only and must be set at server startup. | Property | Value | | ------------ | ------- | | Command Line | | | Scope | Global | | Dynamic | No | | Data Type | String | | Range | | | Default | (empty) | ### raft-ssl-cipher OpenSSL cipher list for TLS 1.2 and below. Uses OpenSSL cipher string format. This variable is read-only and must be set at server startup. | Property | Value | | ------------ | ------- | | Command Line | | | Scope | Global | | Dynamic | No | | Data Type | String | | Range | | | Default | (empty) | ### raft-ssl-crl Path to the Certificate Revocation List (CRL) file. This variable is read-only and must be set at server startup. | Property | Value | | ------------ | ------- | | Command Line | | | Scope | Global | | Dynamic | No | | Data Type | String | | Range | | | Default | (empty) | ### raft-ssl-crlpath Path to a directory containing Certificate Revocation List files. This variable is read-only and must be set at server startup. | Property | Value | | ------------ | ------- | | Command Line | | | Scope | Global | | Dynamic | No | | Data Type | String | | Range | | | Default | (empty) | ### raft-tls-version Comma-separated list of allowed TLS protocol versions. Supported values include TLSv1.2 and TLSv1.3. Default includes both TLSv1.2 and TLSv1.3. This variable is read-only and must be set at server startup. | Property | Value | | ------------ | ---------------- | | Command Line | | | Scope | Global | | Dynamic | No | | Data Type | String | | Range | TLSv1.2, TLSv1.3 | | Default | TLSv1.2,TLSv1.3 | ### raft-ssl-ciphersuites List of permitted TLS 1.3 ciphersuites. This is separate from raft\_ssl\_cipher which applies to earlier TLS versions. This variable is read-only and must be set at server startup. | Property | Value | | ------------ | ------- | | Command Line | | | Scope | Global | | Dynamic | No | | Data Type | String | | Range | | | Default | (empty) | ### raft-ssl-verbose Verbose logging level for SSL context initialization. | Property | Value | | ------------ | -------------------- | | Command Line | --raft-ssl-verbose=# | | Scope | Global | | Dynamic | No | | Data Type | Numeric | | Range | 0 to 2 | | Default | 1 | ### raft-ssl-verify-depth Maximum depth for certificate chain verification. This variable is read-only and must be set at server startup. | Property | Value | | ------------ | --------------- | | Command Line | | | Scope | Global | | Dynamic | No | | Data Type | Numeric | | Range | 0 to 4294967295 | | Default | 9 | ### raft-ssl-verify-server-cert Enables verification of the peer's server certificate against the configured CA certificate or certificates. This variable is read-only and must be set at server startup. This variable replaces the removed `VERIFY_PEER` value of [raft-have-ssl](#raft-have-ssl). As with other MariaDB system variables, the underscore and dash forms are interchangeable. By convention, use `raft_ssl_verify_server_cert` in configuration files and `raft-ssl-verify-server-cert` on the command line — see [Setting Server System Variables](/docs/server/server-management/variables-and-modes/server-system-variables.md#setting-server-system-variables). | Property | Value | | ------------ | ------- | | Command Line | | | Scope | Global | | Dynamic | No | | Data Type | Boolean | | Range | | | Default | NO | {% hint style="warning" %} When this variable is set to `YES` and both `raft_ssl_cert` and `raft_ssl_ca` are configured, the cluster performs mutual TLS: each peer verifies the other peer's server certificate against the configured CA. One limitation remains, and it matters when you are planning cluster security: * It does **not** perform hostname verification. All communication in the cluster is bi-directional and there are no fixed client and server roles, so the accepting side has no independent way to verify the other peer's hostname. The default is `NO`, so unless you set `raft_ssl_verify_server_cert=YES` (and configure `raft_ssl_cert` and `raft_ssl_ca`), Raft inter-node TLS encrypts traffic without authenticating the peer at all. Certificate verification cannot be used with the self-signed certificate generated at startup when no certificate information is provided, because that certificate is not signed by the configured CA. {% endhint %} *This page is: Copyright © 2026 MariaDB. All rights reserved.*