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Use the yb-master binary and its flags to configure the YB-Master server. The yb-master executable file is located in the bin directory of YugabyteDB home.

Syntax

yb-master [ flag  ] | [ flag ]

Example

./bin/yb-master \
--master_addresses 172.151.17.130:7100,172.151.17.220:7100,172.151.17.140:7100 \
--rpc_bind_addresses 172.151.17.130 \
--fs_data_dirs "/home/centos/disk1,/home/centos/disk2" \
--replication_factor=3

Online help

To display the online help, run yb-master --help from the YugabyteDB home directory:

./bin/yb-master --help

General flags

--version

Shows version and build information, then exits.

--flagfile

Specifies the configuration file to load flags from.

--master_addresses

Specifies a comma-separated list of all RPC addresses for yb-master consensus-configuration.

Required.

Default: 127.0.0.1:7100

--fs_data_dirs

Specifies a comma-separated list of mount directories, where yb-master will add a yb-data/master data directory, master.err, master.out, and pg_data directory.

Required.

Changing the value of this flag after the cluster has already been created is not supported.

--fs_wal_dirs

Specifies a comma-separated list of directories, where yb-master will store write-ahead (WAL) logs. This can be the same as one of the directories listed in --fs_data_dirs, but not a subdirectory of a data directory.

Default: Same value as --fs_data_dirs

--rpc_bind_addresses

Specifies the comma-separated list of the network interface addresses to which to bind for RPC connections.

The values used must match on all yb-master and yb-tserver configurations.

Default: Private IP address of the host on which the server is running, as defined in /home/yugabyte/master/conf/server.conf. For example:

egrep -i rpc /home/yugabyte/master/conf/server.conf
--rpc_bind_addresses=172.161.x.x:7100

Make sure that the server_broadcast_addresses flag is set correctly if the following applies:

• rpc_bind_addresses is set to 0.0.0.0
• rpc_bind_addresses involves public IP addresses such as, for example, 0.0.0.0:7100, which instructs the server to listen on all available network interfaces.

--server_broadcast_addresses

Specifies the public IP or DNS hostname of the server (with an optional port). This value is used by servers to communicate with one another, depending on the connection policy parameter.

Default: ""

--dns_cache_expiration_ms

Specifies the duration, in milliseconds, until a cached DNS resolution expires. When hostnames are used instead of IP addresses, a DNS resolver must be queried to match hostnames to IP addresses. By using a local DNS cache to temporarily store DNS lookups, DNS queries can be resolved quicker and additional queries can be avoided. This reduces latency, improves load times, and reduces bandwidth and CPU consumption.

Default: 60000 (1 minute)

--use_private_ip

Specifies the policy that determines when to use private IP addresses for inter-node communication. Possible values are never, zone, cloud, and region. Based on the values of the geo-distribution flags.

Valid values for the policy are:

• never — Always use the --server_broadcast_addresses.
• zone — Use the private IP inside a zone; use the --server_broadcast_addresses outside the zone.
• region — Use the private IP address across all zone in a region; use --server_broadcast_addresses outside the region.

Default: never

--webserver_interface

Specifies the bind address for web server user interface access.

Default: 0.0.0.0

--webserver_port

Specifies the web server monitoring port.

Default: 7000

--webserver_doc_root

Monitoring web server home.

Default: The www directory in the YugabyteDB home directory.

--webserver_certificate_file

Location of the SSL certificate file (in .pem format) to use for the web server. If empty, SSL is not enabled for the web server.

Default: ""

--webserver_authentication_domain

Domain used for .htpasswd authentication. This should be used in conjunction with --webserver_password_file.

Default: ""

--webserver_password_file

Location of .htpasswd file containing usernames and hashed passwords, for authentication to the web server.

Default: ""

--defer_index_backfill

If enabled, yb-master avoids launching any new index-backfill jobs on the cluster for all new YCQL indexes.
You will need to run yb-admin backfill_indexes_for_table manually for indexes to be functional. See CREATE DEFERRED INDEX for reference.

Default: false

--allow_batching_non_deferred_indexes

If enabled, indexes on the same (YCQL) table may be batched together during backfill, even if they were not deferred.

Default: true

YSQL flags

--enable_ysql

Enables the YSQL API when value is true.

Default: true

Logging flags

--colorlogtostderr

Color messages logged to stderr (if supported by terminal).

Default: false

--logbuflevel

Buffer log messages logged at this level (or lower).

Valid values: -1 (don't buffer); 0 (INFO); 1 (WARN); 2 (ERROR); 3 (FATAL)

Default: 0

--logbufsecs

Buffer log messages for at most this many seconds.

Default: 30

--logtostderr

Write log messages to stderr instead of logfiles.

Default: false

--log_dir

The directory to write yb-master log files.

Default: Same as --fs_data_dirs

--log_link

Put additional links to the log files in this directory.

Default: ""

--log_prefix

Prepend the log prefix to each log line.

Default: true

--max_log_size

The maximum log size, in megabytes (MB). A value of 0 will be silently overridden to 1.

Default: 1800 (1.8 GB)

--minloglevel

The minimum level to log messages. Values are: 0 (INFO), 1 (WARN), 2 (ERROR), 3 (FATAL).

Default: 0 (INFO)

--stderrthreshold

Log messages at, or above, this level are copied to stderr in addition to log files.

Default: 2

Raft flags

For a typical deployment, values used for Raft and the write ahead log (WAL) flags in yb-master configurations should match the values in yb-tserver configurations.

--follower_unavailable_considered_failed_sec

The duration, in seconds, after which a follower is considered to be failed because the leader has not received a heartbeat.

Default: 7200 (2 hours)

The --follower_unavailable_considered_failed_sec value should match the value for --log_min_seconds_to_retain.

--evict_failed_followers

Failed followers will be evicted from the Raft group and the data will be re-replicated.

Default: false

Note that it is not recommended to set the flag to true for masters as you cannot automatically recover a failed master once it is evicted.

--leader_failure_max_missed_heartbeat_periods

The maximum heartbeat periods that the leader can fail to heartbeat in before the leader is considered to be failed. The total failure timeout, in milliseconds, is --raft_heartbeat_interval_ms multiplied by --leader_failure_max_missed_heartbeat_periods.

For read replica clusters, set the value to 10 in all yb-tserver and yb-master configurations. Because the data is globally replicated, RPC latencies are higher. Use this flag to increase the failure detection interval in such a higher RPC latency deployment.

Default: 6

--leader_lease_duration_ms

The leader lease duration, in milliseconds. A leader keeps establishing a new lease or extending the existing one with every consensus update. A new server is not allowed to serve as a leader (that is, serve up-to-date read requests or acknowledge write requests) until a lease of this duration has definitely expired on the old leader's side, or the old leader has explicitly acknowledged the new leader's lease.

This lease allows the leader to safely serve reads for the duration of its lease, even during a network partition. For more information, refer to Leader leases.

Leader lease duration should be longer than the heartbeat interval, and less than the multiple of --leader_failure_max_missed_heartbeat_periods multiplied by --raft_heartbeat_interval_ms.

Default: 2000

--raft_heartbeat_interval_ms

The heartbeat interval, in milliseconds, for Raft replication. The leader produces heartbeats to followers at this interval. The followers expect a heartbeat at this interval and consider a leader to have failed if it misses several in a row.

Default: 500

Write ahead log (WAL) flags

Ensure that values used for the write ahead log (WAL) in yb-master configurations match the values in yb-tserver configurations.

--fs_wal_dirs

The directory where the yb-tserver retains WAL files. May be the same as one of the directories listed in --fs_data_dirs, but not a subdirectory of a data directory.

Default: Same as --fs_data_dirs

--durable_wal_write

If set to false, the writes to the WAL are synced to disk every interval_durable_wal_write_ms milliseconds (ms) or every bytes_durable_wal_write_mb megabyte (MB), whichever comes first. This default setting is recommended only for multi-AZ or multi-region deployments where the availability zones (AZs) or regions are independent failure domains and there is not a risk of correlated power loss. For single AZ deployments, this flag should be set to true.

Default: false

--interval_durable_wal_write_ms

When --durable_wal_write is false, writes to the WAL are synced to disk every --interval_durable_wal_write_ms or --bytes_durable_wal_write_mb, whichever comes first.

Default: 1000

--bytes_durable_wal_write_mb

When --durable_wal_write is false, writes to the WAL are synced to disk every --bytes_durable_wal_write_mb or --interval_durable_wal_write_ms, whichever comes first.

Default: 1

--log_min_seconds_to_retain

The minimum duration, in seconds, to retain WAL segments, regardless of durability requirements. WAL segments can be retained for a longer amount of time, if they are necessary for correct restart. This value should be set long enough such that a tablet server which has temporarily failed can be restarted in the given time period.

Default: 7200 (2 hours)

The --log_min_seconds_to_retain value should match the value for --follower_unavailable_considered_failed_sec.

--log_min_segments_to_retain

The minimum number of WAL segments (files) to retain, regardless of durability requirements. The value must be at least 1.

Default: 2

--log_segment_size_mb

The size, in megabytes (MB), of a WAL segment (file). When the WAL segment reaches the specified size, then a log rollover occurs and a new WAL segment file is created.

Default: 64

--reuse_unclosed_segment_threshold_bytes

When the server restarts from a previous crash, if the tablet's last WAL file size is less than or equal to this threshold value, the last WAL file will be reused. Otherwise, WAL will allocate a new file at bootstrap. To disable WAL reuse, set the value to -1.

Default: The default value in 2.18.1 is -1 - feature is disabled by default. The default value starting from 2.19.1 is 524288 (0.5 MB) - feature is enabled by default.

Load balancing flags

For information on YB-Master load balancing, see Data placement and load balancing.

For load balancing commands in yb-admin, see Rebalancing commands (yb-admin).

--enable_load_balancing

Enables or disables the load balancing algorithm, to move tablets around.

Default: true

--leader_balance_threshold

Specifies the number of leaders per tablet server to balance below. If this is configured to 0 (the default), the leaders will be balanced optimally at extra cost.

Default: 0

--leader_balance_unresponsive_timeout_ms

Specifies the period of time, in milliseconds, that a YB-Master can go without receiving a heartbeat from a YB-TServer before considering it unresponsive. Unresponsive servers are excluded from leader balancing.

Default: 3000 (3 seconds)

--load_balancer_max_concurrent_adds

Specifies the maximum number of tablet peer replicas to add in a load balancer operations.

Default: 1

--load_balancer_max_concurrent_moves

Specifies the maximum number of tablet leaders on tablet servers (across the cluster) to move in a load balancer operation.

Default: 2

--load_balancer_max_concurrent_moves_per_table

Specifies the maximum number of tablet leaders per table to move in any one run of the load balancer. The maximum number of tablet leader moves across the cluster is still limited by the flag load_balancer_max_concurrent_moves. This flag is meant to prevent a single table from using all of the leader moves quota and starving other tables.

Default: 1

--load_balancer_max_concurrent_removals

Specifies the maximum number of over-replicated tablet peer removals to do in a load balancer operation.

Default: 1

--load_balancer_max_concurrent_tablet_remote_bootstraps

Specifies the maximum number of tablets being remote bootstrapped across the cluster.

Default: 10

--load_balancer_max_concurrent_tablet_remote_bootstraps_per_table

Maximum number of tablets being remote bootstrapped for any table. The maximum number of remote bootstraps across the cluster is still limited by the flag load_balancer_max_concurrent_tablet_remote_bootstraps. This flag is meant to prevent a single table use all the available remote bootstrap sessions and starving other tables.

Default: 2

--load_balancer_max_over_replicated_tablets

Specifies the maximum number of running tablet replicas that are allowed to be over the configured replication factor.

Default: 1

--load_balancer_num_idle_runs

Specifies the number of idle runs of load balancer to deem it idle.

Default: 5

--load_balancer_skip_leader_as_remove_victim

Should the LB skip a leader as a possible remove candidate.

Default: false

Sharding flags

--max_clock_skew_usec

The expected maximum clock skew, in microseconds (µs), between any two servers in your deployment.

Default: 500000 (500,000 µs = 500ms)

--replication_factor

The number of replicas, or copies of data, to store for each tablet in the universe.

Default: 3

--yb_num_shards_per_tserver

The number of shards (tablets) per YB-TServer for each YCQL table when a user table is created.

Default: -1, where the number of shards is determined at runtime, as follows:

• If enable_automatic_tablet_splitting is true

  • The default value is considered as 1.
  • For servers with 4 CPU cores or less, the number of tablets for each table doesn't depend on the number of YB-TServers. Instead, for 2 CPU cores or less, 1 tablet per cluster is created; for 4 CPU cores or less, 2 tablets per cluster are created.

• If enable_automatic_tablet_splitting is false

  • For servers with up to two CPU cores, the default value is considered as 4.
  • For three or more CPU cores, the default value is considered as 8.

Local cluster installations created using yb-ctl and yb-docker-ctl use a default value of 2 for this flag.

Clusters created using yugabyted always use a default value of 1.

--ysql_num_shards_per_tserver

The number of shards (tablets) per YB-TServer for each YSQL table when a user table is created.

Default: -1, where the number of shards is determined at runtime, as follows:

• If enable_automatic_tablet_splitting is true

  • The default value is considered as 1.
  • For servers with 4 CPU cores or less, the number of tablets for each table doesn't depend on the number of YB-TServers. Instead, for 2 CPU cores or less, 1 tablet per cluster is created; for 4 CPU cores or less, 2 tablets per cluster are created.

• If enable_automatic_tablet_splitting is false

  • For servers with up to two CPU cores, the default value is considered as 2.
  • For servers with three or four CPU cores, the default value is considered as 4.
  • Beyond four cores, the default value is considered as 8.

Local cluster installations created using yb-ctl and yb-docker-ctl use a default value of 2 for this flag.

Clusters created using yugabyted always use a default value of 1.

--ysql_colocate_database_by_default

When enabled, all databases created in the cluster are colocated by default. If you enable the flag after creating a cluster, you need to restart the YB-Master and YB-TServer services.

For more details, see clusters in colocated tables.

Default: false

Tablet splitting flags

--enable_automatic_tablet_splitting

Enables YugabyteDB to automatically split tablets, based on the specified tablet threshold sizes configured below.

Default: true

--tablet_split_low_phase_shard_count_per_node

The threshold number of shards (per cluster node) in a table below which automatic tablet splitting will use --tablet_split_low_phase_size_threshold_bytes to determine which tablets to split.

Default: 8

--tablet_split_low_phase_size_threshold_bytes

The size threshold used to determine if a tablet should be split when the tablet's table is in the "low" phase of automatic tablet splitting. See --tablet_split_low_phase_shard_count_per_node.

Default: 512_MB

--tablet_split_high_phase_shard_count_per_node

The threshold number of shards (per cluster node) in a table below which automatic tablet splitting will use --tablet_split_high_phase_size_threshold_bytes to determine which tablets to split.

Default: 24

--tablet_split_high_phase_size_threshold_bytes

The size threshold used to determine if a tablet should be split when the tablet's table is in the "high" phase of automatic tablet splitting. See --tablet_split_high_phase_shard_count_per_node.

Default: 10_GB

--tablet_force_split_threshold_bytes

The size threshold used to determine if a tablet should be split even if the table's number of shards puts it past the "high phase".

Default: 100_GB

--tablet_split_limit_per_table

The maximum number of tablets per table for tablet splitting. Limitation is disabled if this value is set to 0.

Default: 256

--index_backfill_tablet_split_completion_timeout_sec

Total time to wait for tablet splitting to complete on a table on which a backfill is running before aborting the backfill and marking it as failed.

Default: 30

--index_backfill_tablet_split_completion_poll_freq_ms

Delay before retrying to see if tablet splitting has completed on the table on which a backfill is running.

Default: 2000

--process_split_tablet_candidates_interval_msec

The minimum time between automatic splitting attempts. The actual splitting time between runs is also affected by catalog_manager_bg_task_wait_ms, which controls how long the background tasks thread sleeps at the end of each loop.

Default: 0

--outstanding_tablet_split_limit

Limits the number of total outstanding tablet splits. Limitation is disabled if value is set to 0. Limit includes tablets that are performing post-split compactions.

Default: 1

--outstanding_tablet_split_limit_per_tserver

Limits the number of outstanding tablet splits per node. Limitation is disabled if value is set to 0. Limit includes tablets that are performing post-split compactions.

Default: 1

--enable_tablet_split_of_pitr_tables

Enables automatic tablet splitting of tables covered by Point In Time Recovery schedules.

Default: true

--enable_tablet_split_of_xcluster_replicated_tables

Enables automatic tablet splitting for tables that are part of an xCluster replication setup.

Default: false

To enable tablet splitting on cross cluster replicated tables, this flag should be set to true on both the producer and consumer clusters, as they will perform splits independently of each other. Both the producer and consumer clusters must be running v2.14.0+ to enable the feature (relevant in case of cluster upgrades).

--prevent_split_for_ttl_tables_for_seconds

Number of seconds between checks for whether to split a tablet with a default TTL. Checks are disabled if this value is set to 0.

Default: 86400

--prevent_split_for_small_key_range_tablets_for_seconds

Number of seconds between checks for whether to split a tablet whose key range is too small to be split. Checks are disabled if this value is set to 0.

Default: 300

--sort_automatic_tablet_splitting_candidates

Determines whether to sort automatic split candidates from largest to smallest (prioritizing larger tablets for split).

Default: true

Syntax:

yb-admin --master_addresses <master-addresses> --tablet_force_split_size_threshold_bytes <bytes>

• master-addresses: Comma-separated list of YB-Master hosts and ports. Default value is localhost:7100.
• bytes: The threshold size, in bytes, after which tablets should be split. Default value of 0 disables automatic tablet splitting.

For details on automatic tablet splitting, see the following:

• Automatic tablet splitting — Architecture overview.
• Automatic Re-sharding of Data with Tablet Splitting — Architecture design document in the GitHub repository.

Geo-distribution flags

Settings related to managing geo-distributed clusters.

--placement_zone

The name of the availability zone (AZ), or rack, where this instance is deployed.

Default: rack1

--placement_region

Name of the region or data center where this instance is deployed.

Default: datacenter1

--placement_cloud

Name of the cloud where this instance is deployed.

Default: cloud1

--placement_uuid

The unique identifier for the cluster.

Default: ""

-- use_private_ip

Determines when to use private IP addresses. Possible values are never (default),zone,cloud and region. Based on the values of the placement_* configuration flags.

Default: never

--auto_create_local_transaction_tables

If true, transaction tables will be automatically created for any YSQL tablespace which has a placement and at least one other table in it.

Default: true

Security flags

For details on enabling server-to-server encryption, see Server-server encryption.

--certs_dir

Directory that contains certificate authority, private key, and certificates for this server.

Default: "" (uses <data drive>/yb-data/master/data/certs.)

--allow_insecure_connections

Allow insecure connections. Set to false to prevent any process with unencrypted communication from joining a cluster. Note that this flag requires the use_node_to_node_encryption to be enabled.

Default: true

--dump_certificate_entries

Adds certificate entries, including IP addresses and hostnames, to log for handshake error messages. Enabling this flag is helpful for debugging certificate issues.

Default: false

--use_node_to_node_encryption

Enables server-server or node-to-node encryption between YB-Master and YB-TServer servers in a cluster or universe. To work properly, all YB-Master servers must also have their --use_node_to_node_encryption flag enabled. When enabled, then --allow_insecure_connections flag must be disabled.

Default: false

--cipher_list

Specify cipher lists for TLS 1.2 and earlier versions. (For TLS 1.3, use --ciphersuite.) Use a colon-separated list of TLS 1.2 cipher names in order of preference. Use an exclamation mark ( ! ) to exclude ciphers. For example:

--cipher_list DEFAULTS:!DES:!IDEA:!3DES:!RC2

This allows all ciphers for TLS 1.2 to be accepted, except those matching the category of ciphers omitted.

This flag requires a restart or rolling restart.

Default: DEFAULTS

For more information, refer to SSL_CTX_set_cipher_list in the OpenSSL documentation.

--ciphersuite

Specify cipher lists for TLS 1.3. For TLS 1.2 and earlier, use --cipher_list.

Use a colon-separated list of TLS 1.3 ciphersuite names in order of preference. Use an exclamation mark ( ! ) to exclude ciphers. For example:

--ciphersuite DEFAULTS:!CHACHA20

This allows all ciphersuites for TLS 1.3 to be accepted, except CHACHA20 ciphers.

This flag requires a restart or rolling restart.

Default: DEFAULTS

For more information, refer to SSL_CTX_set_cipher_list in the OpenSSL documentation.

Change data capture (CDC) flags

To learn about CDC, see Change data capture (CDC).

For information on other CDC configuration flags, see YB-TServer's CDC flags.

--cdc_state_table_num_tablets

The number of tablets to use when creating the CDC state table. Used in both xCluster and CDCSDK.

Default: 0 (Use the same default number of tablets as for regular tables.)

--cdc_wal_retention_time_secs

WAL retention time, in seconds, to be used for tables for which a CDC stream was created. Used in both xCluster and CDCSDK.

Default: 14400 (4 hours)

Metric export flags

--export_help_and_type_in_prometheus_metrics

YB-Master metrics are available in Prometheus format at http://localhost:7000/prometheus-metrics. This flag controls whether #TYPE and #HELP information is included as part of the Prometheus metrics output by default.

To override this flag on a per-scrape basis, set the URL parameter show_help to true to include or to false to not include type and help information. For example, querying http://localhost:7000/prometheus-metrics?show_help=true will return type and help information regardless of the setting of this flag.

Default: true

Advanced flags

ysql_index_backfill_rpc_timeout_ms

Deadline (in milliseconds) for each internal YB-Master to YB-TServer RPC for backfilling a chunk of the index.

Default: 60000 (1 minute)

Admin UI

The Admin UI for YB-Master is available at http://localhost:7000.

Home

Home page of the YB-Master server that gives a high level overview of the cluster. Not all YB-Master servers in a cluster show identical information.

Namespaces

List of namespaces present in the cluster.

Tables

List of tables present in the cluster.

Tablet servers

List of all nodes (aka YB-TServer servers) present in the cluster.

Debug

List of all utilities available to debug the performance of the cluster.