How to Setup MariaDB Galera Cluster 5.5 in CentOS, RHEL & Fedora

MariaDB is an relational database management system (RDBMS). Generally we use single node of database server for small application but think about application which have thousands of users keep online at a time, In that situation we need a structure which will capable to handle this load and provides high availability. So we need to add multiple database servers interconnected with each other and keep synchronized, so in case any server goes down other servers can take place of them and provide services to users.

MariaDB Galera Cluster is an synchronous Active-Active multi-master cluster of MariaDB databases. Which keeps all nodes synchronized. MariaDB Galera cluster provides synchronus replication which is always highly available (there is no data loss when one of the nodes crashes, and data replicas are always consistent). Currently it only supports XtraDB/InnoDB storage engines and available for Linux platform only.

This article will help you to setup MariaDB Galera Cluster with 3 servers running with CentOS. Cluster server details are as following.

• Cluster DB1: 192.168.1.10 ( HostName: db1 )
• Cluster DB2: 192.168.1.20 ( HostName: db2 )
• Cluster DB3: 192.168.1.30 ( HostName: db3 )

Note: Step 1/2/3 has to be done on all cluster nodes and remaining steps are node specific.

Step 1: Add MariaDB Repositories

Create a mariadb repository /etc/yum.repos.d/mariadb.repo using following content in your system. Below repository will work on CentOS 6.x systems, For other system use repository generation tool and add to your system.

For CentOS 6 – 64bit

[mariadb]
name = MariaDB
baseurl = http://yum.mariadb.org/5.5/centos6-amd64
gpgkey=https://yum.mariadb.org/RPM-GPG-KEY-MariaDB
gpgcheck=1

For CentOS 6 – 32bit

[mariadb]
name = MariaDB
baseurl = http://yum.mariadb.org/5.5/centos6-x86
gpgkey=https://yum.mariadb.org/RPM-GPG-KEY-MariaDB
gpgcheck=1

Step 2: Install MariaDB and Galera

Before installing MariaDB Galera cluster packages, remove any existing MySQL or MariaDB packages installed on system. After that use following command to install on all nodes.

# yum install MariaDB-Galera-server MariaDB-client galera

Step 3: Initial MariaDB Configuration

After successfully installing packages in above steps do the some initial MariaDB configurations. Use following command and follow the instructions on all nodes of cluster. If will prompt to set root account password also.

# mysql_secure_installation
# service mysql start

After that create a user in MariaDB on all nodes, which can access database from your network in cluster.

# mysql -u root -p

MariaDB [(none)]> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO 'root'@'%' IDENTIFIED BY 'password' WITH GRANT OPTION;
MariaDB [(none)]> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
MariaDB [(none)]> exit

and stop MariaDB service before starting cluster configuration

# service mysql stop

Step 4: Setup Cluster Configuration on DB1

Lets start setup MariaDB Galera cluster from DB1 server. Edit MariaDB server configuration file and add following values under [mariadb] section.

[[email protected] ~]# vim /etc/my.cnf.d/server.cnf

query_cache_size=0
binlog_format=ROW
default_storage_engine=innodb
innodb_autoinc_lock_mode=2
wsrep_provider=/usr/lib/galera/libgalera_smm.so
wsrep_cluster_address=gcomm://192.168.1.20,192.168.1.30
wsrep_cluster_name='cluster1'
wsrep_node_address='192.168.1.10'
wsrep_node_name='db1'
wsrep_sst_method=rsync
wsrep_sst_auth=root:password

Start cluster using following command.

[[email protected] ~]# /etc/init.d/mysql bootstrap
Bootstrapping the clusterStarting MySQL.... SUCCESS!

If you get any problem during startup check MariaDB error log file /var/lib/mysql/<hostname>.err

Step 5: Add DB2 in MariaDB Cluster

After successfully starting cluster on DB1. Start configuration on DB2. Edit MariaDB server configuration file and add following values under [mariadb] section. All the settings are similar to DB1 except wsrep_node_address, wsrep_cluster_address and wsrep_node_name.

[[email protected] ~]# vim /etc/my.cnf.d/server.cnf

query_cache_size=0
binlog_format=ROW
default_storage_engine=innodb
innodb_autoinc_lock_mode=2
wsrep_provider=/usr/lib/galera/libgalera_smm.so
wsrep_cluster_address=gcomm://192.168.1.10,192.168.1.30
wsrep_cluster_name='cluster1'
wsrep_node_address='192.168.1.20'
wsrep_node_name='db2'
wsrep_sst_method=rsync
wsrep_sst_auth=root:password

Start cluster using following command.

[[email protected] ~]# /etc/init.d/mysql start
Starting MySQL..... SUCCESS!

Step 6: Add DB3 in MariaDB Cluster

This server is optional, If you want only two server in cluster, you can ignore this step, but you need to remove third server ip from DB1/DB2 configuration files. To add this server make changes same as DB2.

[[email protected] ~]# vim /etc/my.cnf.d/server.cnf

query_cache_size=0
binlog_format=ROW
default_storage_engine=innodb
innodb_autoinc_lock_mode=2
wsrep_provider=/usr/lib/galera/libgalera_smm.so
wsrep_cluster_address=gcomm://192.168.1.10,192.168.1.20
wsrep_cluster_name='cluster1'
wsrep_node_address='192.168.1.30'
wsrep_node_name='db2'
wsrep_sst_method=rsync
wsrep_sst_auth=root:password

Start cluster using following command.

[[email protected] ~]# /etc/init.d/mysql start
Starting MySQL..... SUCCESS!

Step 7: Test MariaDB Galera Cluster Setup

At this stage your cluster setup has been completed and running properly. Now you can test the cluster setup by creating database and tables at any server in cluster, it will replicate immediately to all servers in cluster.

Above GIF image is showing that databases are replicating properly to all nodes of cluster.