mirror of
https://github.com/scylladb/scylladb.git
synced 2026-04-27 03:45:11 +00:00
1f868d516e
This is how PhD explain the need for prevoting stage: One downside of Raft's leader election algorithm is that a server that has been partitioned from the cluster is likely to cause a disruption when it regains connectivity. When a server is partitioned, it will not receive heartbeats. It will soon increment its term to start an election, although it won't be able to collect enough votes to become leader. When the server regains connectivity sometime later, its larger term number will propagate to the rest of the cluster (either through the server's RequestVote requests or through its AppendEntries response). This will force the cluster leader to step down, and a new election will have to take place to select a new leader. Prevoting stage is addressing that. In the Prevote algorithm, a candidate only increments its term if it first learns from a majority of the cluster that they would be willing to grant the candidate their votes (if the candidate's log is sufficiently up-to-date, and the voters have not received heartbeats from a valid leader for at least a baseline election timeout). The Prevote algorithm solves the issue of a partitioned server disrupting the cluster when it rejoins. While a server is partitioned, it won't be able to increment its term, since it can't receive permission from a majority of the cluster. Then, when it rejoins the cluster, it still won't be able to increment its term, since the other servers will have been receiving regular heartbeats from the leader. Once the server receives a heartbeat from the leader itself, it will return to the follower state(in the same term). In our implementation we have "stable leader" extension that prevents spurious RequestVote to dispose an active leader, but AppendEntries with higher term will still do that, so prevoting extension is also required.