MySQL Group Replication using MySQL binaries and Docker containers

Setting up Group Replication using MySQL binaries and Docker containers

The MySQL Group Replication feature is a multi-master update anywhere replication plugin for MySQL with built-in conflict detection and resolution, automatic distributed recovery and group membership.

References

Other ways to setup Group Replication using Docker containers

https://github.com/wagnerjfr/mysql-group-replication-docker

https://github.com/wagnerjfr/mysql-group-replication-binaries-docker

Prerequisites

Docker installed
MySQL binaries compatible to run on Ubuntu (which is the OS used in the Docker image)

Overview

We start by building our Docker image, then we are going to create a Docker network and later create a group replication topology with 3 group members in different hosts.

MySQL Download

https://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/

You can choose any MySQL Community Server version (5.7, 8, or both) but you must select Linux-Generic in "Select Operating System". That's because we are going to run it in a Ubuntu Docker Image.

Download and unpack the tar file into a directory of your choice.

In my example, I'm going to use: /home/wfranchi/MySQL/mysql-8.0.11

Building the Image

Let’s create the image by running this command:

$ docker build -t mysqlubuntu .

A path is a mandatory argument for the build command. We used . as the path because we’re currently in the same directory. We also used the -t flag to tag the image. The name of the image is mysqlubuntu and can be any name you want.

The following output show be printed:

Successfully built 3c9769f24bf0
Successfully tagged mysqlubuntu:latest

Check whether the image was created:

$ docker images

If the build was successful you should have:

REPOSITORY           TAG                 IMAGE ID            CREATED             SIZE
mysqlubuntu          latest              422a05ed125c        10 seconds ago      114MB

Creating a Docker network

Fire the following command to create a network:

$ docker network create group1

You just need to create it once, unless you remove it from Docker.

To see all Docker networks:

$ docker network ls

This network by default is a IPv4 network.

You can check it by running:

$ docker inspect -f '{{.EnableIPv6}}' groupnet

The output should be "false".

Note: To create a Docker network with IPv6 enabled true:

$ docker network create --ipv6 --subnet 2a02:6b8:b010:9020:1::/80 group1

More information about IPv6 on Docker here and here.

Creating 3 containers with shared MySQL

You must have the binaries or compiled MySQL servers that can be executed in Ubuntu (since we are using Ubuntu as the OS in the container). It's also possible to use different MySQL versions.

The command to start the containers is:

docker run -d --rm --net [network_name] --name [container_name] --hostname [container_hostname] -v [Path-MySQL-Folder]/:/mysql -e DATADIR=[data_directory] -e SERVERID=[server_id] -e PORT=[port_number] mysqlubuntu

Run the below commands:

for N in 1 2 3
do docker run -d --rm \
  --net group1 \
  --name node$N \
  --hostname node$N \
  -v /home/wfranchi/MySQL/mysql-8.0.11/:/mysql \
  -e DATADIR="d$N" \
  -e SERVERID=$N \
  -e PORT=3308 \
  mysqlubuntu
done

Command	Description
docker run	starts the container
-d	detached mode (background)
--rm	remove container automatically after it exits
--net	container's network
--name	container's name
--hostname	container's hostname
-v	shared volume between host and container
-e	environment variable

The containers are running in background. To see the containers, run:

$ docker ps -a

Fetch the logs of a container (ex. in node1), run:

$ docker logs node1

To get container's IP from all the containers, run:

$ docker inspect -f '{{range .NetworkSettings.Networks}}{{.IPAddress}}{{end}}' node1 node2 node3

In our example, it prints something like:

172.19.0.2
172.19.0.3
172.19.0.4

To fetch all the container's information:

$ docker inspect node1

Creating a group replication with 3 nodes

Open 3 new terminals and run the below commands in each one:

node1

Access MySQL server inside the container:

$ docker exec -it node1 ./bin/mysql -uroot --socket=/tmp/mysql.0.sock

Command	Description
docker exec	run this command ./bin/mysql -uroot -P 3308 --socket=/tmp/mysql.0.sock in a running container
-it	iterative mode using container's OS shell

Run these commands in server console:

create user 'repl'@'%';
GRANT ALL  ON * . * TO repl@'%';
flush privileges;
SET @@GLOBAL.group_replication_group_name='aaaaaaaa-bbbb-cccc-dddd-eeeeeeeeeeee';
SET @@GLOBAL.group_replication_local_address='node1:6606';
SET @@GLOBAL.group_replication_group_seeds='node1:6606,node2:6606,node3:6606';
SET @@GLOBAL.group_replication_bootstrap_group=1;
change master to master_user='repl' for channel 'group_replication_recovery';
START GROUP_REPLICATION;
SET @@GLOBAL.group_replication_bootstrap_group=0;
SELECT * FROM performance_schema.replication_group_members;

node2

Access MySQL server inside the container:

$ docker exec -it node2 ./bin/mysql -uroot --socket=/tmp/mysql.0.sock

Run these commands in server console:

SET @@GLOBAL.group_replication_group_name='aaaaaaaa-bbbb-cccc-dddd-eeeeeeeeeeee';
SET @@GLOBAL.group_replication_local_address='node2:6606';
SET @@GLOBAL.group_replication_group_seeds='node1:6606,node2:6606,node3:6606';
SET @@GLOBAL.group_replication_bootstrap_group=0;
SET @@global.group_replication_recovery_retry_count=5;
change master to master_user='repl' for channel 'group_replication_recovery';
START GROUP_REPLICATION;
SELECT * FROM performance_schema.replication_group_members;

node3

Access MySQL server inside the container:

$ docker exec -it node3 ./bin/mysql -uroot --socket=/tmp/mysql.0.sock

Run these commands in server console:

SET @@GLOBAL.group_replication_group_name='aaaaaaaa-bbbb-cccc-dddd-eeeeeeeeeeee';
SET @@GLOBAL.group_replication_local_address='node3:6606';
SET @@GLOBAL.group_replication_group_seeds='node1:6606,node2:6606,node3:6606';
SET @@GLOBAL.group_replication_bootstrap_group=0;
SET @@global.group_replication_recovery_retry_count=5;
change master to master_user='repl' for channel 'group_replication_recovery';
START GROUP_REPLICATION;
SELECT * FROM performance_schema.replication_group_members;

By now, you should see:

Dropping network in one of the nodes

Docker allows us to drop the network from a container by just running a command.

In another terminal, let's disconnect node3 from the network:

$ docker network disconnect group1 node3

Running the query (SELECT * FROM performance_schema.replication_group_members;) in node3 terminal we should see:

Running the same query in node1 terminal, we noticed that node3 was expelled from the group:

To kill running container(s):

$ docker kill node3

Stopping containers, removing created network and image

Stopping running container(s):

$ docker stop node1 node2

Stopping running MySQL inside the container (ex. node3)

$ docker exec node3 ./bin/mysqladmin -h node3 -P 3308 -u root shutdown

Removing the created network:

$ docker network rm group1

Removing the created image:

$ docker rmi mysqlubuntu