Proposal:
Add the ability to the PostgreSQL server instance to route the traffic to a
different server instance based on the rules defined in server's pg_bha.conf
configuration file. At a high level this enables offloading the user requests
to a different server instance based on the rules defined in the pg_hba.conf
configuration file. Some of the interesting scenarios this enables include but
not limited to - rerouting traffic based on the client hosts, users, database,
etc. specified, redirecting read-only query traffic to the hot stand by
replicas, and in multi-master scenarios.
The rules to route the traffic will be provided in the pg_hba.conf file. The
proposal is to add a new optional field 'RoutingList' to the record format. The
RoutingList contains comma-seperated list of one or more servers that can be
routed the traffic to. In the absence of this new field there is no change to
the current login code path for both the server and the client. RoutingList can
be updated for each new connection to balance the load across multiple server
instances
RoutingList format:
server_address1:port, server_address2:port...
The message flow
1. Client connects to the server, and server accepts the connections
2. Client sends the startup message
3. Server looks at the rules configured in the pg_hba.conf file and
* If the rule matches redirection
i. Send a
special message with the RoutingList described above
ii. Server
disconnects
* If the rule doesn't have RoutingList defined
i. Server
proceeds in the existing code path and sends auth request
1. Client gets the list of addresses and attempts to connect to a server in
the list provided until the first successful connections is established or the
list is exhausted. If the client can't connect to any server instance on the
RoutingList, client reports the login failure message.
Backward compatibility:
There are a few ways to provide the backward compatibility, and each approach
has their own advantages and disadvantage and are listed below
1. Bumping the protocol version - old server instances may not understand
the new client protocol
2. Adding additional optional parameter routing_enabled, without bumping the
protocol version. In this approach, old Postgres server instances may not
understand this and fail the connections.
3. The current proposal - to keep it in the hba.conf and let the server
admin deal with the configuration by taking conscious choice on the
configuration of routing list based on the clients connecting to the server
instance.
Backward compatibility scenarios:
* The feature is not usable for the existing clients, and the new servers
shouldn't set the routing list if they expect any connections from the legacy
clients. We should do either (1) or (2) in the above list to achieve this.
Otherwise need to rely on the admin to take care of the settings.
* For the new client connecting to the old server, there is no change in
the message flow
* For the new clients to the new server, the message flow will be based on
the routing list filed in the configuration.
This proposal is in very early stage, comments and feedback is very much
appreciated.
Thanks,
Satya
