Setting up a cluster

This section discusses how to set up a cluster. However, let's first discuss the requirements of a cluster.

Requirements

As mentioned earlier, all cluster nodes must run on Linux systems.

There are no particular hardware requirements; in fact, if a server can smoothly run a standalone MariaDB server, it can also run on a Galera node. During normal operations, the additional amount of memory used for a Galera replication is minimal and wouldn't make much of a difference. The only exception is that the copying of the entire database from one node to another consumes a lot of memory. This happens when a new node joins the cluster, or when a disconnected node rejoins the cluster. However, when choosing the hardware of individual nodes, we should keep in mind that the cluster will be as slow as its slowest node.

The connection between nodes must be fast enough for the workload we are going to run. If possible, MariaDB Galera Cluster should run on a subnetwork that does not contain...