[pgpool-general: 2556] Preventing split-brain

[Theron Luhn]

I'm in charge of setting up a highly-available Postgres database.  To do
this, I've set up master-standby nodes behind two master-master PgPool
instances with watchdog enabled, distributed across multiple datacenters.
 Here's an illustration of what this looks like:

Datacenter A:  PgPool A ---- Postgres master
                  |      \/
                  |      /\
Datacenter B:  PgPool B ---- Postgres standby

But there's a glaring problem:  split-brain.  Let's say either datacenter
loses internet connectivity.  PgPool B will promote the standby, thinking
the master is down.  PgPool A will continue to send queries to the old
master, not aware that the standby was promoted, since PgPool B was not
able to communicate the promotion to A.

Virtual IP, I believe, is supposed to help with problem, by allowing for
only a single PgPool master.  However, this isn't an available option.  I
could emulate VIP by updating the configuration of the clients to point to
the new PgPool.  However, this would be fruitless:  If PgPool B can't
communicate with PgPool A, it very well may not be able to communicate with
a client in the same datacenter as PgPool A.

This seems like a very difficult problem to solve, but it cannot be an
uncommon one.  Can anybody share some insight?

-- Theron
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