*rqlite* is a distributed system that provides a replicated SQLite database. rqlite is written in [Go](http://golang.org/) and uses [Raft](http://raftconsensus.github.io/) to achieve consensus across all the instances of the SQLite databases. rqlite ensures that every change made to the database is made to a majority of underlying SQLite files, or none-at-all.
[SQLite](http://www.sqlite.org/) is a "self-contained, serverless, zero-configuration, transactional SQL database engine". The entire database is contained within a single file on disk, making working with it very straightforward. Many people have experience with it, and it's been a natural choice for adding relational-database functionality to many systems. However, SQLite isn't replicated, which means it can become a single point of failure if used to store, for example, metadata about a cluster of machines. While it is possible to continually copy the SQLite file to a backup server everytime it is changed, this file-copy must not take place while the database is being accessed.
rqlite combines the ease-of-use of SQLite with straightfoward replication. Some more background can be found on [this blog post](http://www.philipotoole.com/replicating-sqlite-using-raft-consensus).
This starts a rqlite server listening on localhost, port 4001. This single node automatically becomes the leader. To see all available command-line options, execute:
rqlite exposes an HTTP API allowing the database to be modified such that the changes are replicated. Queries are also executed using the HTTP API,though the SQLite database could be queried directly. Modifications go through the Raft log, ensuring only changes committed by a quorum of Raft servers are actually executed against the SQLite database. Queries do not go through the Raft log, however, since they do not change the state of the database, and therefore do not need to be captured in the log.
To write data successfully to the database, you must create at least 1 table. To this, perform a HTTP POST, with a CREATE TABLE SQL command in the body of the request. For example:
The use of the URL param `pretty` is optional, and results in pretty-printed JSON responses. You can confirm that the data has been writen to the database by accessing the SQLite database directly.
Bulk updates are supported. To execute multipe statements in one HTTP call, separate each statement with a newline. An example of inserting two records is shown below:
Transactions are supported. To execute statements within a transaction, add `transaction` to the URL. An example of the above operation executed within a transaction is shown below.
When a transaction takes place either both statements will succeed, or neither. Performance is *much, much* better if multiple SQL INSERTs or UPDATEs are executed via a transaction.
rqlite replicates SQLite for fault-tolerance. It does not replicate it for performance. In fact performance is reduced somewhat due to the network round-trips.
Depending on your machine, individual INSERT performance could be anything from 1 operation per second to more than 10 operations per second. However, by using transactions, throughput will increase significantly, often by 2 orders of magnitude. This speed-up is due to the way SQLite works. So for high throughput, execute as many operations as possible within a single transaction.
An Administration API exists, which dumps some basic diagnostic and statistical information. Assuming rqlite is started with default settings, the endpoints are available like so:
rqlite does perform log compaction. After a configurable number of changes to the log, rqlite snapshots the SQLite database. And at start-up rqlite loads any existing snapshot.
This is new software, so it goes without saying it has bugs. It's by no means finished -- issues are now being tracked, and I plan to develop this project further.
This project uses the [go-raft](https://github.com/goraft/raft) implementation of the Raft consensus protocol, and was inspired by the [raftd](https://github.com/goraft/raftd) reference implementation. rqlite also borrows some ideas from [etcd](https://github.com/coreos/etcd).