src/main/resources/Documentation/about.md

This plugin allows making Gerrit highly available by having redundant Gerrit
active/passive instances.

The Gerrit instances must be:

* sharing the git repositories using a shared file system (e.g. NFS)
* behind a load balancer (e.g. HAProxy)

Default mode is one active instance and multiple backup (passive) instances
but `n` active instances can be configured. In the active/passive mode, the active
instance is handling all traffic while the passives are kept updated to be always
ready to take over.

Even if git repositories are shared by the instances, there are a few areas
of concern in order to be able to switch traffic between instances in a
transparent manner from the user's perspective. The 4 areas of concern are
things that Gerrit stores either in memory or locally in the review site:

* caches
* secondary indexes
* stream-events
* web sessions

They need either to be shared or kept local to each instances but synchronized.
This plugin needs to be installed in all the instances and it will take care of
sharing or synchronizing them.

#### Caches

Every time a cache eviction occurs in one of the instances, the eviction will be
forwarded the other nodes so their caches do not contain stale entries.

#### Secondary indexes

Every time the secondary index is modified in one of the instances, e.g., a change
is added, updated or removed from the index, the others instances index are updated
accordingly. This way, both indexes are kept synchronized.

#### Stream events

Every time a stream event occurs in one of the instances
(see [more events info](https://gerrit-review.googlesource.com/Documentation/cmd-stream-events.html#events)),
the event is forwarded to the other instances which re-plays it. This way, the output
of the stream-events command is the same, no matter which  instance a client is
connected to.

#### Web session

The built-in Gerrit H2 based web session cache is replaced with a file based
implementation that is shared amongst the instances.

## Active/passive setup

Prerequisites:

* Git repositories must be located on a shared file system
* A directory on a shared file system must be available for @PLUGIN@ to use

For the instances:

* Configure `gerrit.basePath` in `gerrit.config` to the shared repositories location
* Configure `gerrit.serverId` in `gerrit.config` based on [config](config.md)'s introduction
* Install and configure this @PLUGIN@ plugin [further](config.md) or based on below.

Here is an example of the minimal @PLUGIN@.config:

Active instance

```
[main]
  sharedDirectory = /directory/accessible/from/both/nodes

[peerInfo "static"]
  url = http://backupNodeHost1:8081/

[http]
  user = username
  password = password
```

Backup instance

```
[main]
  sharedDirectory = /directory/accessible/from/both/nodes

[peerInfo "static"]
  url = http://primaryNodeHost:8080/

[http]
  user = username
  password = password
```

### HA replica site

It is possible to create a copy of the instance site and configure both
sites to run in HA mode as peers. This is possible when the directory where
the copy will be created is accessible from this machine. Such a replica site
can be created by means of a gerrit [site init](../../../Documentation/pgm-init.html) step,
contributed by the plugin under its init section.

This init step is optional but defaults to creating the replica. If you want to
create the other site manually, or if the other site needs to be created in a
directory not accessible from this machine, then please skip that init step.

For further information and supported options, refer to [config](config.md)
documentation.

## Active/active setup

Prerequisites:

* Git repositories must be located on a shared file system
* A directory on a shared file system must be available for @PLUGIN@ to use
* An implementation of `global-refdb` (e.g. Zookeeper) must be accessible from all the active
  instances to maintain consistent ref updates across all Gerrit primary sites

The following `global-refdb` implementations are available:

* [zookeeper-refdb plugin](https://gerrit.googlesource.com/plugins/zookeeper-refdb/+/refs/heads/master)
  using Apache Zookeeper
* [aws-dynamodb-refdb plugin](https://gerrit.googlesource.com/plugins/aws-dynamodb-refdb/+/refs/heads/master)
  using AWS DynamoDB
* [spanner-refdb plugin](https://gerrit.googlesource.com/plugins/spanner-refdb/+/refs/heads/master)
  using Google Cloud Spanner

For the instances:

* Configure `gerrit.basePath` in `gerrit.config` to the shared repositories location
* Configure `gerrit.serverId` in `gerrit.config` based on [config](config.md)'s introduction
* Install and configure this @PLUGIN@ plugin [further](config.md) or based on example
configuration
* Install @PLUGIN@ plugin as a database module in `$GERRIT_SITE/lib` (please note that
@PLUGIN plugin must be installed as a plugin and as a database module) and add <br/>
`installDbModule = com.ericsson.gerrit.plugins.highavailability.ValidationModule` <br/>
to the gerrit section in `gerrit.config`
* Install [global-refdb library](https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/com.gerritforge/global-refdb) as a library module in $GERRIT_SITE/lib and add  <br/>
`installModule = com.gerritforge.gerrit.globalrefdb.validation.LibModule` <br/>
to the `gerrit` section in `gerrit.config`
* Install and configure [zookeeper-refdb plugin](https://gerrit-ci.gerritforge.com/view/Plugins-master/job/plugin-zookeeper-refdb-bazel-master) based on [config.md](https://gerrit.googlesource.com/plugins/zookeeper-refdb/+/refs/heads/master/src/main/resources/Documentation/config.md)
* Configure `ref-database.enabled = true` in @PLUGIN@.config to enable validation with
`global-refdb`.

Here is an example of the minimal @PLUGIN@.config:

Active instance one

```
[main]
  sharedDirectory = /directory/accessible/from/both/instances

[peerInfo "static"]
  url = http://backupNodeHost1:8081/

[http]
  user = username
  password = password

[ref-database]
  enabled = true
```

Active instance two

```
[main]
  sharedDirectory = /directory/accessible/from/both/instances

[peerInfo "static"]
  url = http://primaryNodeHost:8080/

[http]
  user = username
  password = password

[ref-database]
  enabled = true
```

Minimal `zookeeper-refdb.config` for both active instances:

```
[ref-database "zookeeper"]
  connectString = zookeeperhost:2181
```

### Last index update timestamp storage

The plugin keeps track of the timestamp when it lastly updated an index.
When the [`autoReindex.enabled` option](config.md) is set to `true`, the timestamp
is used to determine which changes to reindex when a node is temporarily out of
sync with the primary, for example, after a node being offline for a long time.

The HA plugin keeps the last update timestamp for each index in the following files:

* `<gerrit_home>/data/high-availability/account`
* `<gerrit_home>/data/high-availability/change`

The timestamp is stored in this format `yyyy-mm-ddTHH:MM:SS.ss`, i.e.: `2020-12-18T12:17:53.25`.