Recovering From MySQL Cluster Downtime

Last Updated March 13, 2025

When to Bootstrap
Log In to Proxy Dashboard
Run the Bootstrap Errand

Determine Type of Cluster Failure
Scenario 1: Virtual Machines Running, Cluster Disrupted
Scenario 2: Virtual Machines Terminated or Lost

Bootstrap Manually

Shut Down MySQL
Determine which Node to Bootstrap
Bootstrap the First Node
Restart Remaining Nodes
Verify that the Nodes Have Joined the Cluster

Learn how to bootstrap your MySQL cluster in the event of a cluster failure.

You can bootstrap your cluster by using one of two methods:

Run the bootstrap errand. See Run the Bootstrap errand.
Bootstrap manually. See Bootstrap manually.

When to Bootstrap

You must bootstrap a cluster that loses quorum. A cluster loses quorum when fewer than half the nodes can communicate with each other for longer than the configured grace period. If a cluster does not lose quorum, individual unhealthy nodes automatically rejoin the cluster after resolving the error, restarting the node, or restoring connectivity.

Bootstrap only if your cluster has lost quorum, as determined by the following steps. If any of the following steps show that your cluster has retained quorum, then do not bootstrap. For example, if the proxy dashboard shows one or two nodes as "Healthy," then your cluster has retained quorum. In such cases, instead of bootstrapping, consider manually rejoining a node to a cluster, taking other steps to diagnose and restore your working cluster, or contacting Broadcom Support for assistance.

To discover if your cluster has lost quorum, look for the following symptoms:

All nodes appear “Unhealthy” on the proxy dashboard. To log in to the proxy dashboard, see Log in to proxy dashboard.

All responsive nodes report the value of wsrep_cluster_status as non-Primary:

mysql> SHOW STATUS LIKE 'wsrep_cluster_status';
+----------------------+-------------+
| Variable_name        | Value       |
+----------------------+-------------+
| wsrep_cluster_status | non-Primary |
+----------------------+-------------+

All unresponsive nodes respond with ERROR 1047 when using most statement types in the MySQL client:

mysql> select * from mysql.user;
ERROR 1047 (08S01) at line 1: WSREP has not yet prepared node for application use

Log In to Proxy Dashboard

To log in to the proxy dashboard:

Get the proxy dashboard credentials by entering the following URL into your web browser and recording the output:
```
https://OPS-MAN-FQDN/api/v0/deployed/products/TAS-FOR-VMS-GUID/variables?name=mysql-proxy-dashboard-credentials
```
Where:
- OPS-MAN-FQDN is the fully-qualified domain name (FQDN) for your Tanzu Operations Manager deployment.
- TAS-FOR-VMS-GUID is the GUID of your TAS for VMs tile. For more information about finding your GUID, see the Tanzu Operations Manager API Reference
Log in to the proxy dashboard by entering the following URL into your web browser:
```
https://BOSH-JOB-INDEX-proxy-p-mysql-ert.YOUR-SYSTEM-DOMAIN/
```
Where:
- BOSH-JOB-INDEX is 0, 1, or 2, representing the three proxies deployed on each node.
- SYSTEM-DOMAIN is the System domain you configured in the Domains pane of the BOSH Director tile.

Run the Bootstrap Errand

VMware Tanzu Operations Manager includes a BOSH errand that automates the manual bootstrapping procedure in the Bootstrap Manually section below.

It finds the node with the highest transaction sequence number and asks it to start up by itself (i.e. in bootstrap mode) and then asks the remaining nodes to join the cluster.

In most cases, running the errand recovers your cluster. But, certain scenarios require additional steps.

Determine Type of Cluster Failure

To determine which set of instructions to follow:

List your MySQL instances by running:
```
bosh -e YOUR-ENV -d YOUR-DEPLOYMENT instances
```
Where:
- YOUR-ENV is the environment where you deployed the cluster.
- YOUR-DEPLOYMENT is the deployment cluster name.
For example:
```
$ bosh -e prod -d mysql instances
```

Find and record the Process State for your MySQL instances. In the following example output, the MySQL instances are in the failing process state.

Instance                                                             Process State  AZ             IPs
backup-restore/c635410e-917d-46aa-b054-86d222b6d1c0                  running        us-central1-b  10.0.4.47
bootstrap/a31af4ff-e1df-4ff1-a781-abc3c6320ed4                       -              us-central1-b  -
broker-registrar/1a93e53d-af7c-4308-85d4-3b2b80d504e4                -              us-central1-b  10.0.4.58
cf-mysql-broker/137d52b8-a1b0-41f3-847f-c44f51f87728                 running        us-central1-c  10.0.4.57
cf-mysql-broker/28b463b1-cc12-42bf-b34b-82ca7c417c41                 running        us-central1-b  10.0.4.56
deregister-and-purge-instances/4cb93432-4d90-4f1d-8152-d0c238fa5aab  -              us-central1-b  -
monitoring/f7117dcb-1c22-495e-a99e-cf2add90dea9                      running        us-central1-b  10.0.4.48
mysql/220fe72a-9026-4e2e-9fe3-1f5c0b6bf09b                           failing        us-central1-b  10.0.4.44
mysql/28a210ac-cb98-4ab4-9672-9f4c661c57b8                           failing        us-central1-f  10.0.4.46
mysql/c1639373-26a2-44ce-85db-c9fe5a42964b                           failing        us-central1-c  10.0.4.45
proxy/87c5683d-12f5-426c-b925-62521529f64a                           running        us-central1-b  10.0.4.60
proxy/b0115ccd-7973-42d3-b6de-edb5ae53c63e                           running        us-central1-c  10.0.4.61
rejoin-unsafe/8ce9370a-e86b-4638-bf76-e103f858413f                   -              us-central1-b  -
smoke-tests/e026aaef-efd9-4644-8d14-0811cb1ba733                     -              us-central1-b  10.0.4.59

Choose your scenario:
- If your MySQL instances are in the failing state, continue to Scenario 1.
- If your MySQL instances are in the - state, continue to Scenario 2.
- If your MySQL instances are in the stopped state, continue to Scenario 3.

Scenario 1: VMs Running, Cluster Disrupted

In this scenario, the VMs are running, but the cluster has been disrupted.

To bootstrap in this scenario:

Run the bootstrap errand on the VM where the bootstrap errand is co-located, by running:

bosh -e YOUR-ENV -d YOUR-DEPLOYMENT run-errand bootstrap

Where:

YOUR-ENV is the name of your environment.
YOUR-DEPLOYMENT is the name of your deployment.

Important The errand runs for a long time, during which no output is returned.

The command returns many lines of output, eventually followed by:

Bootstrap errand completed
[stderr]
+ echo 'Started bootstrap errand ...'
+ JOB\_DIR=/var/vcap/jobs/bootstrap
+ CONFIG\_PATH=/var/vcap/jobs/bootstrap/config/config.yml
+ /var/vcap/packages/bootstrap/bin/cf-mysql-bootstrap -configPath=/var/vcap/jobs/bootstrap/config/config.yml
+ echo 'Bootstrap errand completed'
+ exit 0
Errand 'bootstrap' completed successfully (exit code 0)

If the errand fails, run the bootstrap errand command again after a few minutes. The bootstrap errand might not work the first time.
If the errand fails after several tries, bootstrap your cluster manually. See Bootstrap Manually below.

Scenario 2: VMs Terminated or Lost

In severe circumstances, such as a power failure, it is possible to lose all your VMs. You must re-create them before you can begin recovering the cluster.

When MySQL instances are in the - state, the VMs are lost. The procedures in this scenario bring the instances from a - state to a failing state. Then you run the bootstrap errand similar to Scenario 1 above and restore configuration.

To recover terminated or lost VMs, follow the procedures in the sections below:

Re-create the Missing VMs: Bring MySQL instances from a - state to a failing state.
Run the Bootstrap Errand: Because your instances are now in the failing state, continue similarly to Scenario 1 above.
Restore the BOSH Configuration: Go back to unignoring all instances and redeploy. This is a critical and mandatory step.

Caution: If you do not set each of your ignored instances to unignore, your instances are not updated in future deploys. You must follow the procedure in the final section of Scenario 2, Restore the BOSH Configuration.

Recreate the missing VMs

The procedure in this section uses BOSH to re-create the VMs, install software on them, and try to start the jobs.

The procedure below allows you to:

Redeploy your cluster while expecting the jobs to fail.
Instruct BOSH to ignore the state of each instance in your cluster. This allows BOSH to deploy the software to each instance even if the instance is failing.

To re-create your missing VMs:

If BOSH Resurrector is activated, deactivate it by running:
```
bosh -e YOUR-ENV update-resurrection off
```
Where YOUR-ENV is the name of your environment.
Download the current manifest by running:
```
bosh -e YOUR-ENV -d YOUR-DEPLOYMENT manifest > /tmp/manifest.yml
```
Where:
- YOUR-ENV is the name of your environment.
- YOUR-DEPLOYMENT is the name of your deployment.
Redeploy deployment by running:
```
bosh -e YOUR-ENV -d YOUR-DEPLOYMENT deploy /tmp/manifest.yml
```
Where:
- YOUR-ENV is the name of your environment.
- YOUR-DEPLOYMENT is the name of your deployment.
Important Expect one of the MySQL VMs to fail. Deploying causes BOSH to create new VMs and install the software. Forming a cluster is in a subsequent step.
View the instance GUID of the MySQL VM that attempted to start by running:
```
bosh -e YOUR-ENV -d YOUR-DEPLOYMENT instances
```
Where:
- YOUR-ENV is the name of your environment.
- YOUR-DEPLOYMENT is the name of your deployment.
Record the instance GUID, which is the string after mysql/ in your BOSH instances output.
Instruct BOSH to ignore the MySQL VM that just attempted to start, by running:
```
bosh -e YOUR-ENV -d YOUR-DEPLOYMENT ignore mysql/INSTANCE-GUID
```
Where:
- YOUR-ENV is the name of your environment.
- YOUR-DEPLOYMENT is the name of your deployment.
- INSTANCE-GUID is the GUID of your instance you recorded in the previous step.
Repeat steps 3 through 5 until all instances have attempted to start.
If you deactivated the BOSH Resurrector in step 1, re-enable it by running:
```
bosh -e YOUR-ENV update-resurrection on
```
Where YOUR-ENV is the name of your environment.
Confirm that your MySQL instances have gone from the - state to the failing state by running:
```
bosh -e YOUR-ENV -d YOUR-DEPLOYMENT instances
```
Where:
- YOUR-ENV is the name of your environment.
- YOUR-DEPLOYMENT is the name of your deployment.

Run the Bootstrap Errand

After you re-create the VMs, all instances now have a failing process state and have the MySQL code. You must run the bootstrap errand to recover the cluster.

To bootstrap:

Run the bootstrap errand by running:

bosh -e YOUR-ENV -d YOUR-DEPLOYMENT run-errand bootstrap

Where:

YOUR-ENV is the name of your environment.
YOUR-DEPLOYMENT is the name of your deployment.

Important The errand runs for a long time, during which no output is returned.

The command returns many lines of output, eventually with the following successful output:

  Bootstrap errand completed
  [stderr]
  echo 'Started bootstrap errand ...'
  JOB\_DIR=/var/vcap/jobs/bootstrap
  CONFIG\_PATH=/var/vcap/jobs/bootstrap/config/config.yml
  /var/vcap/packages/bootstrap/bin/cf-mysql-bootstrap -configPath=/var/vcap/jobs/bootstrap/config/config.yml
  echo 'Bootstrap errand completed'
  exit 0
  Errand 'bootstrap' completed successfully (exit code 0)

If the errand fails, run the bootstrap errand command again after a few minutes. The bootstrap errand might not work immediately.
See that the errand completes successfully in the shell output and continue to Restore the BOSH Configuration below.

After you complete the bootstrap errand, you might still see instances in the failing state. Continue to the next section anyway.

Restore the BOSH Configuration

If you do not set each of your ignored instances to unignore, your instances are never updated in future deploys.

To restore your BOSH configuration to its previous state, this procedure unignores each instance that was previously ignored:

For each ignored instance, run:
```
bosh -e YOUR-ENV -d YOUR-DEPLOYMENT unignore mysql/INSTANCE-GUID
```
Where:
- YOUR-ENV is the name of your environment.
- YOUR-DEPLOYMENT is the name of your deployment.
- INSTANCE-GUID is the GUID of your instance.
Redeploy your deployment by running:
```
bosh -e YOUR-ENV -d YOUR-DEPLOYMENT deploy
```
Where:
- YOUR-ENV is the name of your environment.
- YOUR-DEPLOYMENT is the name of your deployment.
Verify that all mysql instances are in a running state by running:
```
bosh -e YOUR-ENV -d YOUR-DEPLOYMENT instances
```
Where:
- YOUR-ENV is the name of your environment.
- YOUR-DEPLOYMENT is the name of your deployment.

Bootstrap Manually

If the bootstrap errand is not able to automatically recover the cluster, you need to do the steps manually.

Follow the procedures in the sections below to manually bootstrap your cluster.

The following procedures are prone to user-error and can result in lost data if followed incorrectly. Follow the procedure in Bootstrap with the BOSH Errand above first, and only resort to the manual process if the errand fails to repair the cluster.

Shut Down MySQL

Follow these steps to stop the galera-init process for each node in the cluster. For each node, record if the monit stop command was successful:

SSH into the node using the procedure in Advanced troubleshooting with the BOSH CLI.
To shut down the mysqld process on the node, run:
```
monit stop galera-init
```
Record if the monit command succeeds or exits with an error:
- If monit succeeds in stopping galera-init, then you can use monit to restart this node. Follow all the steps below including the steps marked Monit Restart but omitting the steps marked Manual Redeploy.
- If monit exits with the following error, then you must manually deploy this node:
```
Warning: include files not found '/var/vcap/monit/job/*.monitrc'
monit: action failed -- There is no service by that name
```
  Follow all the steps below including the steps marked **Manual Redeploy** but omitting the steps marked **Monit Restart**.
  Do not proceed with Manual Redeploy if you have lost quorum while upgrading your Tanzu Platform for Cloud Foundry or service instance deployment (using Tanzu Operations Manager Apply Changes, cf update-service, or bosh deploy operations). Manual Redeploy requires a stable manifest, which is used to predictably recreate damaged VMs. Upgrades introduce a second manifest, which can trigger unpredictable outcomes if you proceed with the following Manual Redeploy steps.
  If you have lost both HA quorum and monit capability on your VMs while upgrading your database, contact Broadcom Support for assistance.
Repeat the preceding steps for each node in the cluster.

You cannot bootstrap the cluster unless you have shut down the mysqld process on all nodes in the cluster.

Determine which Node to Bootstrap

To avoid losing data, you must bootstrap from a node in the cluster that has the highest transaction sequence number (seqno).

For each node in the cluster, to find its seqno:

SSH into the node using the procedure in Advanced troubleshooting with the BOSH CLI.
Find seqno values in the node’s Galera state file, grastate.dat by running:
```
cat /var/vcap/store/pxc-mysql/grastate.dat | grep 'seqno:'
```
Do one of the following, based on the last and highest seqno value in the grep output above:
- If seqno is a positive integer, then the node shut down gracefully. Record this number for comparison with the latest seqno of other nodes in the cluster.
- If seqno is -1, then the node crashed or was stopped. Proceed as follows to attempt to recover the seqno from the database:
  1. Temporarily start the database and append the last sequence number to its error log by running:
```
$ /var/vcap/jobs/pxc-mysql/bin/get-sequence-number
```
  2. The output of the get-sequence-number utility will look similar to this:
```
{ "cluster_uuid": "1f594c30-a709-11ed-a00e-5330bbda96d3", "seqno": 4237, "instance_id": "4213a73e-069f-4ac7-b01b-43068ab312b6" }
```
  The seqno in the above output is 4237.
After you retrieve the seqno for all nodes in your cluster, identify the one with the highest seqno. If multiple nodes share the same highest seqno, and it is not -1, you can bootstrap from any of them.

Bootstrap the First Node

After determining the node with the highest seqno, do the following to bootstrap the node:

Only run these bootstrap commands on the node with the highest seqno. Otherwise the node with the highest seqno is unable to join the new cluster unless its data is abandoned. Its mysqld process exits with an error.

SSH into the node using the procedure in Advanced troubleshooting with BOSH CLI.
Update the node state to trigger its initialization of the cluster by running:
```
echo -n "NEEDS_BOOTSTRAP" > /var/vcap/store/pxc-mysql/state.txt
```
Monit Restart: If in Shut Down MySQL above you successfully used monit to shut down your galera-init process, then re-launch the mysqld process on the new bootstrap node.
1. Start the mysqld process by running:
```
monit start galera-init
```
2. It can take up to ten minutes for monit to start the mysqld process. To confirm if the mysqld process has started successfully, run:
```
watch monit summary
```
  If monit succeeds in starting the galera-init process, then the output includes the line Process 'galera-init' running.
Manual Redeploy: If in Shut Down MySQL above you encountered monit errors, then redeploy the mysqld software to your bootstrap node as follows:
1. Leave the MySQL SSH login shell and return to your local environment.
2. Target BOSH on your bootstrap node by instructing it to ignore the other nodes in your cluster. For nodes all nodes except the bootstrap node you identified above, run:
```
bosh -e YOUR-ENV -d YOUR-DEPLOYMENT ignore mysql/M
bosh -e YOUR-ENV -d YOUR-DEPLOYMENT ignore mysql/N
```
  Where N and M are the numbers of the non-bootstrapped nodes. For example, if you bootstrap node 0, then M=1 and N=2.
3. Turn off the BOSH Resurrector by running:
```
bosh update-resurrection off
```
4. Use the BOSH manifest to bootstrap your bootstrap machine by running:
```
bosh -e YOUR-ENV -d YOUR-DEPLOYMENT manifest > /tmp/manifest.yml
bosh -e YOUR-ENV -d YOUR-DEPLOYMENT deploy /tmp/manifest.yml
```

Restart Remaining Nodes

After the bootstrapped node is running, restart the remaining nodes.

The procedure that you follow for restarting a node, depends on the output you got for that node during Shut Down MySQL above. Do one of the following procedures:

Monit restart

If in Shut down MySQL, you successfully used monit to shut down your galera-init process, then restart the nodes as follows:

SSH into the node using the procedure in Advanced troubleshooting with BOSH CLI.
Start the mysqld process with monit by running:
```
monit start galera-init
```
If the interruptor prevents the node from starting, follow the manual procedure to force the node to rejoin the cluster. See Manually force a MySQL node to rejoin if a node cannot rejoin the HA cluster.

Caution Forcing a node to rejoin the cluster is a destructive procedure. Only follow the procedure with the help of [Broadcom Support](https://www.broadcom.com/support).
If the monit start command fails, it might be because the node with the highest seqno is mysql/0.

In this case:
1. Ensure BOSH ignores updating mysql/0 by running:
```
bosh -e YOUR-ENV -d YOUR-DEPLOYMENT ignore mysql/0
```
  Where:
  - YOUR-ENV is the name of your environment.
  - YOUR-DEPLOYMENT is the name of your deployment.
2. Go to Tanzu Operations Manager in a browser, log in, and click Apply Changes.
3. When the deploy finishes, run the following command from the Tanzu Operations Manager VM:
```
bosh -e YOUR-ENV -d YOUR-DEPLOYMENT unignore mysql/0
```
  Where:
  - YOUR-ENV is the name of your environment.
  - YOUR-DEPLOYMENT is the name of your deployment.

Manual redeploy

If in Shut Down MySQL above you encountered monit errors, then restart the nodes as follows:

Instruct BOSH to no longer ignore the non-bootstrap nodes in your cluster by running:
```
bosh -e YOUR-ENV -d YOUR-DEPLOYMENT unignore mysql/M
bosh -e YOUR-ENV -d YOUR-DEPLOYMENT unignore mysql/N
```
Where N and M are the numbers of the non-bootstrapped nodes. For example, if you bootstrap node 0, then M=1 and N=2.
Redeploy software to the other two nodes and have them rejoin the cluster, bootstrapped from the node above by running:
```
bosh -e YOUR-ENV -d YOUR-DEPLOYMENT deploy /tmp/manifest.yml
```
You only need to run this command once to deploy both the nodes that you unignored in the step above.
With your redeploys completed, turn the BOSH Resurrector back on by running:
```
bosh -e YOUR-ENV update-resurrection on
```

Verify that the Nodes Have Joined the Cluster

The final task is to verify that all the nodes have joined the cluster.

SSH into the bootstrap node then run the following command to output the total number of nodes in the cluster:
```
mysql> SHOW STATUS LIKE 'wsrep_cluster_size';
```

Manually force a MySQL node to rejoin if a node cannot rejoin the HA cluster

When a MySQL node cannot rejoin the HA cluster automatically, a Tanzu Application Service (TAS for VMs) operator must manually force the node to rejoin. The following procedure applies to TAS for VMs MySQL and MySQL tile HA clusters. This section describes the case where a single node is joined to a cluster. For bootstrapping, see the TAS for VMs or MySQL tile documentation.

When a node cannot rejoin the HA (Percona XtraDB Cluster - PXC) cluster automatically, an operator needs to manually force a MySQL node to rejoin.

If your HA cluster is experiencing downtime or is in a degraded state, VMware recommends first running the mysql-diag tool to gather information about the current state of the cluster. This tool will either report a healthy cluster with (typically) 3 running nodes, a cluster in quorum with two running nodes and a third node needing to re-join, or a cluster that has lost quorum and requires a bootstrap. The mysql-diag tool is available on the mysql_monitor instance for a TAS for VMs internal cluster or on the mysql_jumpbox instance for a MySQL tile HA service instance.

This procedure removes all the data from a server node, forces it to join the cluster, receiving a current copy of the data from one of the other nodes already in the cluster. The steps are slightly different based on which MySQL cluster this is for.

Cautions:

Do not do this if there is any data on the local node that you need to preserve.
The other two nodes must be online and healthy. You can validate this by looking at the mysql-diag output or checking the MySQL Proxy logs (i.e., grep 'Healthcheck failed on backend' proxy.combined.log). mysql-diag reports a healthy node as “Synced” and “Primary”.

For a TAS MySQL cluster or a MySQL tile HAS cluster:

Log into the instance as root.
Run monit stop galera-init. Skip to step 3 if the monit job is unavailable.
Ensure mysql is stopped by running ps auxw | grep mysqld. Kill the mysqld process(es) if they are running.
Run mv /var/vcap/store/pxc-mysql /var/vcap/store/pxc-mysql-backup (or if disk space is a concern, run rm -rf /var/vcap/store/pxc-mysql). Clean up the backup after successfully joining the node to the cluster.
Run /var/vcap/jobs/pxc-mysql/bin/pre-start. An error code of 0 indicates success.
Restart the database on the instance using one of these commands:
- If the monit job is available, run monit start galera-init
- If the instance has no galera-init monit job, run bosh -d deploymentName restart mysql/instanceGUID --no-converge

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Tanzu Platform for Cloud Foundry 4.0

Recovering From MySQL Cluster Downtime

When to Bootstrap

Log In to Proxy Dashboard

Run the Bootstrap Errand

Determine Type of Cluster Failure

Scenario 1: VMs Running, Cluster Disrupted

Scenario 2: VMs Terminated or Lost

Recreate the missing VMs

Run the Bootstrap Errand

Restore the BOSH Configuration

Bootstrap Manually

Shut Down MySQL

Determine which Node to Bootstrap

Bootstrap the First Node

Restart Remaining Nodes

Verify that the Nodes Have Joined the Cluster

Manually force a MySQL node to rejoin if a node cannot rejoin the HA cluster