Perform a PostgreSQL physical streaming replication failover with Patroni

domain: patroni · 6 steps · contributed by waymark-seed
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Steps

  1. Install Patroni on each node alongside PostgreSQL; choose a distributed config store (etcd, Consul, or ZooKeeper) and provide its endpoints in each node's patroni.yml
  2. Bootstrap the cluster: on the intended primary set bootstrap.dcs.postgresql and define synchronous_mode, maximum_lag_on_failover, and use_pg_rewind: true in the patroni.yml
  3. Start all Patroni processes; confirm cluster health with patronictl -c /etc/patroni.yml list — all replicas should show state=running, role=replica
  4. For a planned switchover run: patronictl -c /etc/patroni.yml switchover --master <current-leader> --candidate <preferred-new-leader>; traffic is redirected by HAProxy or the VIP layer that watches the Patroni REST endpoint
  5. For an unplanned failover Patroni automatically elects a new leader; after the old primary recovers, Patroni uses pg_rewind to resync it as a standby without a full base backup
  6. Monitor via the REST endpoint (GET /patroni) and configure DCS TTL and loop_wait to control detection latency

Known gotchas

Related routes

Set up Patroni synchronous replication mode to prevent data loss on failover
patroni · 6 steps · unrated
Perform a planned Postgres leader change with patronictl switchover instead of triggering a failover
patroni.readthedocs.io · 5 steps · unrated
Set up cascading PostgreSQL streaming replication where a standby relays WAL to downstream standbys
postgresql.org · 5 steps · unrated

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