Remote cluster state

Introduced 2.10

The remote cluster state functionality for remote-backed storage protects against any cluster state metadata loss resulting due to the permanent loss of the majority of cluster manager nodes inside the cluster.

Cluster state is an internal data structure that contains the metadata of the cluster, including the following:

Index settings
Index mappings
Active copies of shards in the cluster
Cluster-level settings
Data streams
Templates

The cluster state metadata is managed by the elected cluster manager node and is essential for the cluster to properly function. When the cluster loses the majority of the cluster manager nodes permanently, then the cluster may experience data loss because the latest cluster state metadata might not be present in the surviving cluster manager nodes. Persisting the state of all the cluster manager nodes in the cluster to remote-backed storage provides better durability.

When the remote cluster state feature is enabled, the cluster metadata will be published to a remote repository configured in the cluster. As of OpenSearch 2.10, only index metadata will persist to remote-backed storage. Any time new cluster manager nodes are launched after disaster recovery, the nodes will automatically bootstrap using the latest index metadata stored in the remote repository. Consequently, the index data will also be restored when the remote store is enabled.

Configuring the remote cluster state

Remote cluster state settings can be enabled while bootstrapping the cluster. After the remote cluster state is enabled, it can be disabled by updating the settings and performing a rolling restart of all the nodes.

To enable the remote cluster state for a given cluster, add the following cluster-level and repository settings to the cluster’s opensearch.yml file:

# Enable Remote cluster state cluster setting
cluster.remote_store.state.enabled: true
# Remote cluster state repository settings
node.attr.remote_store.state.repository: my-remote-state-repo
node.attr.remote_store.repository.my-remote-state-repo.type: s3
node.attr.remote_store.repository.my-remote-state-repo.settings.bucket: <Bucket Name 3>
node.attr.remote_store.repository.my-remote-state-repo.settings.base_path: <Bucket Base Path 3>
node.attr.remote_store.repository.my-remote-state-repo.settings.region: <Bucket region>

copy

Limitations

The remote cluster state functionality has the following limitations:

As of OpenSearch 2.10, only index metadata can be uploaded and restored from remote-backed storage.
Unsafe bootstrap scripts cannot be run when the remote cluster state is enabled. When a majority of cluster-manager nodes are lost and the cluster goes down, the user needs to replace any remaining cluster manager nodes and reseed the nodes in order to bootstrap a new cluster.
The remote cluster state cannot be enabled without first configuring remote-backed storage.