Now that heartbeats are distinct from MsgApp{,Resp}, the retries
currently performed in stepLeader's MsgAppResp section are only
performed on an actual MsgAppResp (or a new MsgProp). This means
that it may take a long time to recover from a dropped MsgAppResp
in a quiet cluster.
This commit adds a dedicated heartbeat response message. This message
does not convey the follower's current log position because the
MsgHeartbeat does not include the leaders term and index. Upon receipt
of a heartbeat response, the leader may retry the latest MsgApp if it
believes the follower to be behind.
In code outside the raft package, we cannot call raft.bcastHeartbeat
directly. Instead, to control heartbeats we set heartbeatInterval to 1
and call Tick().
It is reasonable for the leader to wait for the reply before sending out the next
msgApp or msgSnap for the follower in bad path. Or the leader will send out useless
messages if the previous message is rejected or the previous message is a snapshot.
Especially for the snapshot case, the leader will be 100% to send out duplicate message
including the snapshot, which is a huge waste.
This commit implement a timeout based wait mechanism. The timeout for normal msgApp is a
heartbeatTimeout and the timeout for snapshot is electionTimeout(snapshot is larger). We
can implement a piggyback mechanism(application notifies the msg lost) in the future
if necessary.
This panic can never be reached when using raft.Node, because we only
read from propc when there is a leader. However, it is possible to see
this error when using raft the raft object directly (as in MultiNode),
and in this case it is better to simply drop the proposal (as if we had
sent it to a leader that immediately vanished).
Add an error return to MemoryStorage.Append for consistency.
If we cannot find the `m.from` from current peers in the raft and it is a response
message, we should filter it out or raft panics. We are not targetting to avoid
malicious peers.
It has to be done in the raft node layer syncchronously. Although we can check
it at the application layer asynchronously, but after the checking and before
the message going into raft, the raft state machine might make progress and
unfortunately remove the `m.from` peer.
It is necessary to make this check because of the following case:
1. memory storage contains ents from index 0 to 50, and unstable has
ents from index 50 to 60.
2. raft receives an incoming snapshot with index 100.
3. raft restores its unstable to 100, but has not applied snapshot on memory storage.
4. raft receives an out-dated MsgApp from index 60.
5. raft finds the term of index 60 to check the match.
6. raft asks memory storage about the term of index 60 after it failed to get
it from unstable.
7. memory storage panics because it knows nothing about index 60.
Xiang Li