Simple Slony-I Replication Setup.

Above shown is an overview about Slony-I Asynchronous replication in short. For more information,Slony-I documentation is your best friend :).

Let's start with replication methods, in perltools method,you need to configure slony at the time of source installation to enable built-in perl scripts. These scripts start with "SLONIK_" and they are designed to carry replication administrative tasks.

My demo for two methods shell(slonik) & Perl is on Localhost Single instance(5432) with two databases Master & Slave replicating one table "rep_table". For replication, master/Slave should hold same table structure. If you have many tables use pg_dump/pg_restore structure dump option. Since am replicating one table I just created the same on Master/Slave.
Note: Set environment variables like PGDATA,PGPORT,PGHOST,PGPASSWORD & PGUSER.

Source Installation:

Download the Slony-I 2.1 source(http://slony.info/downloads/) 

#bunzip2 slony1-2.1.0.tar.bz2
#tar -xvf slony1-2.1.0.tar
# cd slony1-2.1.0
#./configure --prefix=/opt/PostgreSQL/9.1/bin 
             --with-pgconfigdir=/opt/PostgreSQL/9.1/bin 
             --with-perltools=/opt/PostgreSQL/9.1/bin
             // Exclude --with-perltools if not needed
# make
# make install

Basic setup on Master/Slave

createdb -p 5432 master
createdb -p 5432 slave

psql -p 5432 -d master -c "create table rep_table(id int primary key);"
psql -p 5432 -d slave -c "create table rep_table(id int primary key);"

Insert some data on master to replicate to slave
psql -p 5432 -d master -c "insert into rep_table values(generate_series(1,10));"

Method 1:  --with-perltools :

1. Create on standard .conf file, with information like, Log location, No. of Nodes, Set of Tables etc.,

$CLUSTER_NAME = 'myrep';
$LOGDIR = '/opt/PostgreSQL/9.1/slonylogs';
$MASTERNODE = 1;
$DEBUGLEVEL = 2;

&add_node(node => 1,host => 'localhost',dbname => 'master',port => 5432,user => 'postgres',password => 'postgres');
&add_node(node => 2,host => 'localhost',dbname => 'slave',port => 5433,user => 'postgres',password => 'postgres');

$SLONY_SETS =
{
    "set1" =>
    {
        "set_id" => 1,
        "table_id" => 1,
        "pkeyedtables" =>
                       [rep_table,],
    },
};

Initialize, Create-set & subscribe-set, these are the three phases of slony replication. For each phase, "slonik_" perl scripts are created in the location mentioned at the time of source installation with option "--with-perltools". In my case its, "/opt/PostgreSQL/9.1/bin". Above CONF file is used in all phases.

2. Initialize the cluster. Here slonik, cross-checks the nodes connection.

cd /opt/PostgreSQL/9.1/bin
./slonik_init_cluster -c slon.conf 
./slonik_init_cluster -c slon.conf| ./slonik

3. Create a set, means which set of tables to replicate from Node 1 to Node 2.

./slonik_create_set -c slon.conf 1 
./slonik_create_set -c slon.conf 1|./slonik 

4. Start Slon daemons. Each node will have two slon process to carry work. Each node slon process should be started.

./slon_start -c slon.conf 1
./slon_start -c slon.conf 2

5. Subscribe Set, from here slony maintains data consistency between two nodes by allowing Master for all DML's and Denying them on Slave.

./slonik_subscribe_set -c slon.conf 1 2 
./slonik_subscribe_set -c slon.conf 1 2|./slonik

After the above steps now your slave will have replicated data.

Method 2: With standard scripts:

In Standard script methods, there are many way to implement, but to understand clearly I have split as same as Perl we did above like Initialize, create-set & subscribe set. All scripts are binded with SLONIK command.

1. Create two .conf files for Master & Slave Node.

vi master_slon.conf
cluster_name=myrep
pid_file='/opt/PostgreSQL/9.1/data/master_slon.pid'
conn_info='host=localhost dbname=master user=postgres port=5432'

vi slave_slon.conf
cluster_name=myrep
pid_file='/opt/PostgreSQL/9.1/data/slave_slon.pid'
conn_info='host=localhost dbname=slave1 user=postgres port=5432'

2. Initialize the cluster.

#!/bin/bash
# Initialize Cluster (init_cluster.sh)

slonik <<_eof_
cluster name = myrep;
node 1 admin conninfo='host=127.0.0.1 dbname=master user=postgres port=5432';
node 2 admin conninfo='host=127.0.0.1 dbname=slave1 user=postgres port=5432';

#Add Node
init cluster (id = 1, comment = 'Primary Node For the Slave postgres');
store node (id = 2, event node = 1, comment = 'Slave Node For The Primary postgres');

#Setting Store Paths ...
echo  'Stored all nodes in the slony catalogs';
store path(server = 1, client = 2, conninfo='host=127.0.0.1 dbname=master user=postgres port=5432');
store path(server = 2, client = 1, conninfo='host=127.0.0.1 dbname=slave1 user=postgres port=5432');
_eof_

$./init_cluster.sh

3. Create a set.

#!/bin/bash
# Create Set for set of tables (create-set.sh)

slonik <<_eof_
cluster name = myrep;
node 1 admin conninfo='host=127.0.0.1 dbname=master user=postgres port=5432';
node 2 admin conninfo='host=127.0.0.1 dbname=slave1 user=postgres port=5432';

try { create set (id = 1 ,origin = 1 , comment = 'Set for public'); } on error { echo  'Could not create set1'; exit 1;}

set add table (set id = 1 , origin = 1, id = 1, full qualified name = 'public.rep_table1', comment = 'Table action with primary key');
_eof_

$./create-set.sh

4. To start Slon daemons, use custom script which comes along with source tarbal under "/tools" location "start_slon.sh". Modify the script by changing .conf file locations for Master/slave startup scripts. This script will give flexibility to use and track all slon process with the help of PID's mentioned in .conf file.

Usage: ./master_start_slon.sh [start|stop|status]

-bash-4.1$ ./master_start_slon.sh  start
-bash-4.1$ ./slave_start_slon.sh  start

Sample STATUS output:

-bash-4.1$ ./master_start_slon.sh status
---------------------
Slony Config File    : /opt/PostgreSQL/9.1/slony_scripts/bash_slony/master_slon.conf
Slony Bin Path       : /opt/PostgreSQL/9.1/bin
Slony Running Status : Running...
Slony Running (M)PID : 28487
---------------------

4. Subscribe set.

#!/bin/bash
# Subscribe Set (subscribe-set.sh)

slonik <<_eof_
cluster name = myrep;
node 1 admin conninfo='host=127.0.0.1 dbname=master user=postgres port=5432';
node 2 admin conninfo='host=127.0.0.1 dbname=slave1 user=postgres port=5432';

try { subscribe set (id = 1, provider = 1 , receiver = 2, forward = yes, omit copy = false); } on error { exit 1; } echo  'Subscribed nodes to set 1';
_eof_

$./subscribe-set.sh

Now your slave database will have replicated data in "rep_table" table.
These two methods will help to understand the basic setup of slony replication. Will be back with more advanced slony concepts.

--Raghav