[Pgpool-general] Newbie questions

[Tatsuo Ishii]

> Hello,
> 
> I am working on setting up a pgpool + heartbeat cluster for pgsql
> replication and fail over, and have a few questions:
> 
> - Do I need the health check running for proper fail-over? What is a good
> value?

Without health checking some case such as plugging out ethernet cables
may not be detected for a while since in this case the kernel TCP/IP
keep on retrying for hours.

I recommend health_check_period to be larger than
health_check_timeout. For example, health_check_period=30 and
health_check_timeout=20 would be your starter.

> - Does degeneration mode imply "read-only"? Is there any way to make things
> read-only while the cluster isn't fully available?

Currently no.

> - Sometimes when I connect with the secondary server down, I get an error.
> I can connect the second time around.  Is this normal?

Can you be more specific? What pgpool log says? (hint: -d option will
be helpfull).
--
Tatsuo Ishii
SRA OSS, Inc. Japan