Setting the Restart Policy

The Restart Policy enables you to determine whether or not nodes in a K-Safe database are automatically restarted when they are rebooted. Since this feature does not automatically restart nodes if the entire database is DOWN, it is not useful for databases that are not K-Safe.

To set the Restart Policy for a database:

  1. Open the Administration Tools.
  2. On the Main Menu, select Configuration Menu, and click OK.
  3. In the Configuration Menu, select Set Restart Policy, and click OK.
  4. Select the database for which you want to set the Restart Policy, and click OK.

  5. Select one of the following policies for the database:

    • Never — Nodes are never restarted automatically.
    • K-Safe — Nodes are automatically restarted if the database cluster is still UP. This is the default setting.
    • Always — Node on a single node database is restarted automatically.

      • Always does not work if a single node database was not shutdown cleanly or crashed.

  6. Click OK.

Best Practice for Restoring Failed Hardware

Following this procedure will prevent Vertica from misdiagnosing missing disk or bad mounts as data corruptions, which would result in a time-consuming, full-node recovery.

If a server fails due to hardware issues, for example a bad disk or a failed controller, upon repairing the hardware:

  1. Reboot the machine into runlevel 1, which is a root and console-only mode.

    Runlevel 1 prevents network connectivity and keeps Vertica from attempting to reconnect to the cluster.

  2. In runlevel 1, validate that the hardware has been repaired, the controllers are online, and any RAID recover is able to proceed.

    You do not need to initialize RAID recover in runlevel 1; simply validate that it can recover.

  3. Once the hardware is confirmed consistent, only then reboot to runlevel 3 or higher.

At this point, the network activates, and Vertica rejoins the cluster and automatically recovers any missing data. Note that, on a single-node database, if any files that were associated with a projection have been deleted or corrupted, Vertica will delete all files associated with that projection, which could result in data loss.