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How to Set Up Hadoop Cluster with HDFS High Availability

Last updated on Nov 22,2022 94.3K Views

3 / 4 Blog from Hadoop Installation

HDFS 2.x High Availability Cluster Architecture

In this blog, I am going to talk about HDFS 2.x High Availability Cluster Architecture and the procedure to set up an HDFS High Availability cluster. This is an important part of the Big Data course. The order in which the topics have been covered in this blog are as follows:

  • HDFS HA Architecture
    • Introduction
    • NameNode Availability
    • Architecture of HA
    • Implementation of HA (JournalNode and Shared storage)
  • How to set up HA (Quorum Journal Nodes) in a Hadoop cluster?

Introduction:

The concept of High Availability cluster was introduced in Hadoop 2.x to solve the single point of failure problem in Hadoop 1.x. As you know from my previous blog that the HDFS Architecture follows Master/Slave Topology where NameNode acts as a master daemon and is responsible for managing other slave nodes called DataNodes. This single Master Daemon or NameNode becomes a bottleneck. Although, the introduction of Secondary NameNode did prevent us from data loss and offloading some of the burden of the NameNode but, it did not solve the availability issue of the NameNode.

NameNode Availability:

If you consider the standard configuration of HDFS cluster, the NameNode becomes a single point of failure. It happens because the moment the NameNode becomes unavailable, the whole cluster becomes unavailable until someone restarts the NameNode or brings a new one.

The reasons for unavailability of NameNode can be:

  • A planned event like maintenance work such has upgradation of software or hardware.
  • It may also be due to an unplanned event where the NameNode crashes because of some reasons.

In either of the above cases, we have a downtime where we are not able to use the HDFS cluster which becomes a challenge. 

HDFS HA Architecture:

Let us understand that how HDFS HA Architecture solved this critical problem of NameNode availability:

The HA architecture solved this problem of NameNode availability by allowing us to have two NameNodes in an active/passive configuration. So, we have two running NameNodes at the same time in a High Availability cluster:

  • Active NameNode
  • Standby/Passive NameNode.

HDFS HA Architecture - High Availability Cluster - Edureka

If one NameNode goes down, the other NameNode can take over the responsibility and therefore, reduce the cluster down time. The standby NameNode serves the purpose of a backup NameNode (unlike the Secondary NameNode) which incorporate failover capabilities to the Hadoop cluster. Therefore, with the StandbyNode, we can have automatic failover whenever a NameNode crashes (unplanned event) or we can have a graceful (manually initiated) failover during the maintenance period. 

There are two issues in maintaining consistency in the HDFS High Availability cluster:

  • Active and Standby NameNode should always be in sync with each other, i.e. They should have the same metadata. This will allow us to restore the Hadoop cluster to the same namespace state where it got crashed and therefore, will provide us to have fast failover.
  • There should be only one active NameNode at a time because two active NameNode will lead to corruption of the data. This kind of scenario is termed as a split-brain scenario where a cluster gets divided into smaller cluster, each one believing that it is the only active cluster. To avoid such scenarios fencing is done. Fencing is a process of ensuring that only one NameNode remains active at a particular time.

Implementation of HA Architecture:

Now, you know that in HDFS HA Architecture, we have two NameNodes running at the same time. So, we can implement the Active and Standby NameNode configuration in following two ways:

  1. Using Quorum Journal Nodes
  2. Shared Storage using NFS

Let us understand these two ways of implementation taking one at a time:

1. Using Quorum Journal Nodes:

Journalnode - HDFS HA Architecture - Edureka

  • The standby NameNode and the active NameNode keep in sync with each other through a separate group of nodes or daemons -called JournalNodesThe JournalNodes follows the ring topology where the nodes are connected to each other to form a ring. The JournalNode serves the request coming to it and copies the information into other nodes in the ring.This provides fault tolerance in case of JournalNode failure. 
  • The active NameNode is responsible for updating the EditLogs (metadata information) present in the JournalNodes.
  • The StandbyNode reads the changes made to the EditLogs in the JournalNode and applies it to its own namespace in a constant manner.
  • During failover, the StandbyNode makes sure that it has updated its meta data information from the JournalNodes before becoming the new Active NameNode. This makes the current namespace state synchronized with the state before failover.
  • The IP Addresses of both the NameNodes are available to all the DataNodes and they send their heartbeats and block location information to both the NameNode. This provides a fast failover (less down time) as the StandbyNode has an updated information about the block location in the cluster.

Fencing of NameNode:

Now, as discussed earlier, it is very important to ensure that there is only one Active NameNode at a time. So, fencing is a process to ensure this very property in a cluster. 

  • The JournalNodes performs this fencing by allowing only one NameNode to be the writer at a time.
  • The Standby NameNode takes over the responsibility of writing to the JournalNodes and forbid any other NameNode to remain active.
  • Finally, the new Active NameNode can perform its activities safely.   

2. Using Shared Storage:

Shared Storage - HDFS HA Architecture - Edureka

  • The StandbyNode and the active NameNode keep in sync with each other by using a shared storage deviceThe active NameNode logs the record of any modification done in its namespace to an EditLog present in this shared storage. The StandbyNode reads the changes made to the EditLogs in this shared storage and applies it to its own namespace.
  • Now, in case of failover, the StandbyNode updates its metadata information using the EditLogs in the shared storage at first. Then, it takes the responsibility of the Active NameNode. This makes the current namespace state synchronized with the state before failover.
  • The administrator must configure at least one fencing method to avoid a split-brain scenario.
  • The system may employ a range of fencing mechanisms. It may include killing of the NameNode’s process and revoking its access to the shared storage directory.
  • As a last resort, we can fence the previously active NameNode with a technique known as STONITH, or “shoot the other node in the head”. STONITH uses a specialized power distribution unit to forcibly power down the NameNode machine.

Automatic Failover:

Failover is a procedure by which a system automatically transfers control to secondary system when it detects a fault or failure. There are two types of failover:

Graceful Failover: In this case, we manually initiate the failover for routine maintenance.

Automatic Failover: In this case, the failover is initiated automatically in case of NameNode failure (unplanned event).

Apache Zookeeper is a service that provides the automatic failover capability in HDFS High Availabilty cluster. It maintains small amounts of coordination data, informs clients of changes in that data, and monitors clients for failures. Zookeeper maintains a session with the NameNodes. In case of failure, the session will expire and the Zookeeper will inform other NameNodes to initiate the failover process. In case of NameNode failure, other passive NameNode can take a lock in Zookeeper stating that it wants to become the next Active NameNode.

The ZookeerFailoverController (ZKFC) is a Zookeeper client that also monitors and manages the NameNode status. Each of the NameNode runs a ZKFC also. ZKFC is responsible for monitoring the health of the NameNodes periodically.

Now that you have understood what is High Availability in a Hadoop cluster, it’s time to set it up. To set up High Availability in Hadoop cluster you have to use Zookeeper in all the nodes.

The daemons in Active NameNode are:

  • Zookeeper
  • Zookeeper Fail Over controller
  • JournalNode
  • NameNode

The daemons in Standby NameNode are:

  • Zookeeper
  • Zookeeper Fail Over controller
  • JournalNode
  • NameNode

The daemons in DataNode are:

  • Zookeeper
  • JournalNode
  • DataNode

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Setting Up and Configuring High Availability Cluster in Hadoop:

You have to first set up the Java and host names of each node.

Virtual machine IP address Host name
Active NameNode192.168.1.81nn1.cluster.com or nn1
Standby NameNode192.168.1.58nn2.cluster.com or nn2
DataNode192.168.1.82dn1.cluster.com or dn1

 

Download the Hadoop and Zookeeper binary tar file, extract the files to edit configuration files.

Command : wget https://archive.apache.org/dist/zookeeper/zookeeper-3.4.6/zookeeper-3.4.6.tar.gz

Zookeeper Download - High Availability Cluster - Edureka

 

 

 

 

 

 

                               

 

Untar the zookeeper-3.4.6.tar.gz

Command:  tar –xvf zookeeper-3.4.6.tar.gz

Untar Zookeepr Package - High Availability Cluster - Edureka

 

 

 

Download the stable Hadoop binary tar to from Apache Hadoop site.

Command: wget https://archive.apache.org/dist/hadoop/core/hadoop-2.6.0/hadoop-2.6.0.tar.gz

Hadoop Download HA - High Availability Cluster - Edureka

 

 

 

 

Extract the Hadoop tar ball.

Command: tar –xvf hadoop-2.6.0.tar.gz

Download Hadoop binary file and extract it.
Untar hadoop binary.

Add the Hadoop, Zookeeper and paths to .bashrc file.

Open the .bashrc file.

Command: sudo gedit ~/.bashrc

Add the below paths:

export HADOOP_HOME=< Path to your Hadoop-2.6.0 directory>
export HADOOP_MAPRED_HOME=$HADOOP_HOME
export HADOOP_COMMON_HOME=$HADOOP_HOME
export HADOOP_HDFS_HOME=$HADOOP_HOME
export YARN_HOME=$HADOOP_HOME
export HADOOP_CONF_DIR=$HADOOP_HOME/etc/hadoop
export YARN_CONF_DIR=$HADOOP_HOME/etc/hadoop
export JAVA_HOME=<Path to your Java Directory>
export ZOOKEEPER_HOME =<Path to your Zookeeper Directory>
export PATH=$PATH: $JAVA_HOME/bin: $HADOOP_HOME/bin: $HADOOP_HOME/sbin:$ZOOKEEPER_HOME/bin
Add Hadoop and zookeeper paths to .bashrc file
Edit .bashrc file.

Enable the SSH in all the node.

Generate the SSH key in all the nodes.

Command: ssh-keygen –t rsa (This Step in all the Nodes)

Set up SSH key in all the nodes
Set up SSH key in all the nodes.

Don’t give any path to the Enter file to save the key and don’t give any passphrase. Press enter button.

Generate the ssh key process in all the nodes.

Once ssh key is generated, you will get the public key and private key.

The .ssh key Directory should contain the Permission 700 and all the keys inside the .ssh directory should contain the permissions 600.

Change the SSH directory permission
Change the SSH directory permission.

Change the directory to .ssh and change the permission of files to 600

Change public and private key permission
Change public and private key permission.

You have to copy the Name nodes ssh public key to all the nodes.

In Active Namenode, copy the id_rsa.pub using cat command.

Command: cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys

Copy Namenode ssh key to it's authorized keys
Copy Namenode ssh key to it’s authorized keys.

Copy the NameNode public key to all the nodes using ssh-copy-id command.

Command: ssh-copy-id –i .ssh/id_rsa.pub edureka@nn2.cluster.com

Copy namenode key to Standby NameNode
Copy namenode key to Standby NameNode.

Copy NameNode public key to data node.

Command: ssh-copy-id –i .ssh/id_rsa.pub edureka@dn1.cluster.com

Copy Namenode public key to data node.
Copy Namenode public key to data node.

Restart the sshd service in all the nodes.

Command: sudo service sshd restart (Do in all the nodes)

Restart SSH service
Restart SSH service.

Now you can login to the any node from Namenode without any authentication.

Open the core-site.xml file from the Active Name node and add the below properties.

Edit core-site.xml from Active namenode
Edit core-site.xml from Active namenode

Open hdfs-site.xml file in Active Namenode. Add the below Properties.

<property>
 <name>dfs.namenode.name.dir</name>
 <value>/home/edureka/HA/data/namenode</value>
 </property>
 <property>
 <name>dfs.replication</name>
 <value>1</value>
 </property>
 <property>
 <name>dfs.permissions</name>
 <value>false</value>
 </property>
 <property>
 <name>dfs.nameservices</name>
 <value>ha-cluster</value>
 </property>
 <property>
 <name>dfs.ha.namenodes.ha-cluster</name>
 <value>nn1,nn2</value>
 </property>
 <property>
 <name>dfs.namenode.rpc-address.ha-cluster.nn1</name>
 <value>nn1.cluster.com:9000</value>
 </property>
 <property>
 <name>dfs.namenode.rpc-address.ha-cluster.nn2</name>
 <value>nn2.cluster.com:9000</value>
 </property>
 <property>
 <name>dfs.namenode.http-address.ha-cluster.nn1</name>
 <value>nn1.cluster.com:50070</value>
 </property>
 <property>
 <name>dfs.namenode.http-address.ha-cluster.nn2</name>
 <value>nn2.cluster.com:50070</value>
 </property>
 <property>
 <name>dfs.namenode.shared.edits.dir</name>
 <value>qjournal://nn1.cluster.com:8485;nn2.cluster.com:8485;dn1.cluster.com:8485/ha-cluster</value>
 </property>
 <property>
 <name>dfs.client.failover.proxy.provider.ha-cluster</name>
 <value>org.apache.hadoop.hdfs.server.namenode.ha.ConfiguredFailoverProxyProvider</value>
 </property>
 <property>
 <name>dfs.ha.automatic-failover.enabled</name>
 <value>true</value>
 </property>
 <property>
 <name>ha.zookeeper.quorum</name>
 <value> nn1.cluster.com:2181,nn2.cluster.com:2181,dn1.cluster.com:2181 </value>
 </property>
 <property>
 <name>dfs.ha.fencing.methods</name>
 <value>sshfence</value>
 </property>
 <property>
 <name>dfs.ha.fencing.ssh.private-key-files</name>
 <value>/home/edureka/.ssh/id_rsa</value>
 </property>

Change the directory to zookeeper’s conf directory.

Command: cd zookeeper-3.4.6/conf

change your current directory to Zookeeper Conf directory
Zookeeper Conf directory.

In a conf directory you have zoo_sample.cfg file, create the zoo.cfg using zoo_sample.cfg file.

Command: cp zoo_sample.cfg zoo.cfg

Create zoo.cfg file
Create zoo.cfg file.

Create the directory in any location and use this directory to store the zookeeper data.

Command: mkdir <path, where you want to store the zookeeper files>

create a directory to store zookeeper data
Create a directory to store zookeeper data.

Open the zoo.cfg file.

Command: gedit zoo.cfg

Add the directory path that is created in above step to the dataDir property and add the below details regarding remaining node, in the zoo.cfg file.

Server.1=nn1.cluster.com:2888:3888

Server.2=nn2.cluster.com:2888:3888

Server.3=dn1.cluster.com:2888:3888

Edit zoo.cfg file
Edit zoo.cfg file.

Now copy the Java and Hadoop-2.6.0, zookeeper-3.4.6 directories, and .bashrc file to all the nodes (Standby name node, Data node) using scp command.

Command: scp –r <path of directory> edureka@<ip address>:<path where you need to copy>

Copy Hadoop, Zookeeper and .bashrc file to all nodes
Copy Hadoop, Zookeeper and .bashrc file to all nodes.

Similarly, copy the .bashrc file and zookeeper directory to all the nodes and change the environment variables in each according to the respective node.

In a data node, create any directory where you need to store the HDFS blocks.

In a data node, you have to add the dfs.datanode.data.dir properties.

In my case, I created datanode directory to store the blocks.

Create Datanode directory
Create Datanode directory.

Change the permission to data node directory.

Change Datanode directory permission
Change Datanode directory permission.

Open the HDFS-site.xml file, add this Datanode directory path in dfs.datanode.data.dir property.

Note: Keep all the properties that are copied from the Active namenode; add dfs.datanode.data.dir  one extract property in namenode.

<property>
<name> dfs.datanode.data.dir</name>
<value>/home/edureka/HA/data/datanode</value>
</property>

In Active namenode, change the directory where you want to store the zookeeper configuration file (dataDir property path).

Create the myid file inside the directory and add numeric 1 to the file and save the file.

Command: vi myid

Create myid file
Create myid file.

In a standby namenode change the directory where you want to store the zookeeper configuration file (dataDir property path).

Create the myid file inside the directory and add numeric 2 to the file and save the file.

In a data node, change the directory where you want to store the zookeeper configuration file (dataDir property path).

Create the myid file inside the directory and add numeric 3 to the file and save the file.

Start the Journalnode in all the three nodes.

Command: hadoop-daemon.sh start journalnode

Start the Journalnode
Start the Journalnode.

When you enter jps command, you will see the JournalNode daemon in all the nodes.

Format the Active namenode.

Command: HDFS namenode -format

Format Active Name Node
Format Active NameNode.

Start the Namenode daemon in Active namenode.

Command: hadoop-daemon.sh start namenode

Start Namenode in Active Node
Start Namenode.

Copy the HDFS Meta data from active name node to standby namenode.

Command: HDFS namenode -bootstrapStandby

Copy the HDFS Meta data from Active name node to Standby Name node
Copy the HDFS Meta data from Active name node to Standby Namenode.

Once you run this command, you will get the information from which node and location the meta data is copying and whether it is copying successfully or not.

Information of Active namenode details
Information of Active namenode details.

Once Meta data is copied from Active namenode to standby namenode, you will get the message shown  below in the screenshot.

Information regarding HDFS in Standby Name node
Information regarding HDFS in Standby Namenode.

Start the namenode daemon in Standby namenode machine.

Command: hadoop-daemon.sh start namenode

Now start the Zookeeper service in all the three nodes.

Command: zkServer.sh start (Run this command in all the nodes)

In Active Namenode:

Start zookeeper in Active Name Node
Start zookeeper in Active NameNode.

In Standby Namenode:

Start zookeepr in standby Name Node
Start zookeeper in standby NameNode.

In Data node:

Start zookeeper in Data Node
Start zookeeper in DataNode.

After running the Zookeeper server, enter JPS command. In all the nodes you will see the QuorumPeerMain service.

Start the Data node daemon in Data node machine.

Command: hadoop-daemon.sh start datanode

Start the Zookeeper fail over controller in Active name node and standby name node.

Format the zookeeper fail over controller in Active namenode.

Command: HDFS zkfc –formatZK

Format ZKFC
Format ZKFC.

Start the ZKFC in Active namenode.

Command: hadoop-daemon.sh start zkfc

Enter jps command to check the DFSZkFailoverController daemons.

Start ZKFC
Start ZKFC.

Format the zookeeper fail over controller in Standby namenode.

Command: hdfs zkfc –formatZK

Start the ZKFC in Standby namenode.

Command: hadoop-daemon.sh start zkfc

Enter jps command to check the DFSZkFailoverController daemons.

Now check the status of each Namenode, which node is Active or which node is on Standby by using the below command.

Command: hdfs haadmin –getServiceState nn1

Check status of each Name Node
Check status of each NameNode.

Now Check the status of each Namenode using the web browser.

Open the Web browser and enter the below URL.

<IP Address of Active Namenode>:50070

It will show whether the name node is Active or on standby.

Active Name Node
Active NameNode.

Open another name node details using the web browser.

Sandby Name Node
Standby NameNode.

In the Active namenode, kill the namenode daemon to change the Standby name node to active namenode.

Enter jps in Active namenode and kill the daemon.

Command: sudo kill -9 <namenode process ID>

Daemons Process ID
Daemons Process ID.

The Namenode process ID is 7606, kill the namenode.

Command : Sudo kill -9 7606

Kill the Name Node process
Kill the Name Node process

Open the two nodes through web browser and check the status.

Namenode details
Namenode details.

Name Node status

NameNode status.

Congratulations, you have successfully setup a HDFS High Availability Cluster in Hadoop.

Now that you have understood Hadoop High Availability Cluster Architecture, check out the Big Data course in Pune by Edureka, a trusted online learning company with a network of more than 250,000 satisfied learners spread across the globe. The Edureka’s Big Data Architect Course helps learners become expert in HDFS, Yarn, MapReduce, Pig, Hive, HBase, Oozie, Flume and Sqoop using real-time use cases on Retail, Social Media, Aviation, Tourism, Finance domain.

Got a question for us? Please mention it in the comments section and we will get back to you.

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Comments
20 Comments
  • Normally a client would send a get/put file request to a particular “namenode” right? So once a failover has happened how would client get to know about it?

    Assuming it is client responsibility to perform the retry on failure in that case is there a way client can first query for currently active namenode and then send a request to that one?

  • my hadoop cluster is setup, and working fine:

    i ran word count example:
    can anybody provide me the following formulas to calculate some parameters:

    Response Time:
    Throughput:
    Average I/o Rate:
    Execution Time:

    Thanks in advance

  • Normally when we setup a hadoop cluster (non HA), we need to configure yarn by modifying its yarn-site.xml . For HA, don’t we require any HA specific modification to yarn-site.xml ?

  • After killing active or standby namenode I am not getting web view of killing namenode. Is it possible to getting web view after killing namenode ?. But you have seen two namenode web view after killing one namenode. How it is possible? I am facing some problem in my namenode.

    Thank you
    Rakib

    • Hey Rakib,
      If the namenode is manualy transitioned from active to standby you should be able to see the WEB UI of the namenode as it is still active. But if there is a failover in the active namenode and the it got a automatic transition to the standby namenode you can’t have the web ui because of the obvious reason that the namenode is down. Once you fix the dead namenode you can see the UI with STANDBY mentioned in the UI. Hope this helps

      Thanks,
      MK

    • Hey Rakibul, thanks for checking out the blog. Please follow the steps given below:
      -> Please Check your hdfs-site.xml configuration file and make sure that you have set up the automatic failover as per given in the blog.
      -> In case you are still facing the issue, change the directory for namenode, datanode, JN and zookeeper and give the permission 755 for these directories
      chmod 755 directory_path
      -> Format the Active Namenode and start the services as per given in the blog
      Hope this helps.

  • am inistaling high avalability like nn1 & nn2 and dn1 …. in that nn1 and nn2 both are standby mode only what i do now

    • Hope you got the solution by now anil. It might be the reason that you did not enable automatic failover property in hdfs-site.xml. According to what you are saying that your cluster is in manual failover mode. In this scenario you have to individually designate which name node should be active or standby.

      hdfs haadmin -transitionToActive nn1
      (nn1 – Active , nn2 – Standby)

      hdfs haadmin -transitionToStandby nn1
      (nn1 – Standby , nn2 – Standby)

      hdfs haadmin -transitionToActive nn2
      (nn1 – Standby , nn2 – Active)

      hdfs haadmin -transitionToStandby nn2
      (nn1 – Standby , nn2 – Standby)

      Check your name node service status using the command:
      hdfs haadmin -getServiceStatus

      If you by mistake make both of them active you might encounter scenario of split-brain where on both nodes edits will be in progress resulting in corrupted metadata.

      Hope this helps!

      Thanks,
      MK

  • Getting below error when i follow the above configuration settings.

    15/11/08 01:58:34 ERROR namenode.FSNamesystem: FSNamesystem initialization failed.

    java.io.IOException: Invalid configuration: a shared edits dir must not be specified if HA is not enabled.

    and i dont find solution for this from google.

    Can someone help

    regards
    suresh bk

    • Hi Suresh bk
      Thank you for reaching out to us.
      You can connect with our 24/7 support team with all your queries and doubts regarding Hadoop once you enroll for the course.
      You can also get in touch with us by contacting our sales team on +91-8880862004 (India) or 1800 275 9730 (US toll free). You can mail us on sales@edureka.co.

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How to Set Up Hadoop Cluster with HDFS High Availability

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