Integrate TiDB with ProxySQL

This document provides a high-level introduction to ProxySQL, describes how to integrate ProxySQL with TiDB in a development environment and a production environment, and demonstrates the key integration benefits through the scenario of query routing.

If you are interested in learning more about TiDB and ProxySQL, you can find some useful links as follows:

• TiDB Cloud
• TiDB Developer Guide
• ProxySQL Documentation

What is ProxySQL?

ProxySQL is a high-performance, open-source SQL proxy. It has a flexible architecture and can be deployed in several different ways, making it ideal for a variety of use cases. For example, ProxySQL can be used to improve performance by caching frequently-accessed data.

ProxySQL is designed from the ground up to be fast, efficient, and easy to use. It is fully compatible with MySQL, and supports all of the features you would expect from a high quality SQL proxy. In addition, ProxySQL comes with a number of unique features that make it an ideal choice for a wide range of applications.

Why ProxySQL integration?

• ProxySQL can help boost application performance by reducing latency when interacting with TiDB. Irrespective of what you are building, whether it is a scalable application using serverless functions like Lambda, where the workload is nondeterministic and can spike, or if you are building an application to execute queries that load tons of data. By leveraging powerful capabilities of ProxySQL such as connection pooling and caching frequently-used queries, applications can gain immediate benefits.
• ProxySQL can act as an additional layer of application security protection against SQL vulnerabilities such as SQL injection with the help of query rules, an easy-to-configure feature available in ProxySQL.
• As both ProxySQL and TiDB are open-source projects, you can get the benefits of zero vendor lock-in.

Deployment architecture

The most obvious way to deploy ProxySQL with TiDB is to add ProxySQL as a standalone intermediary between the application layer and TiDB. However, the scalability and failure tolerance are not guaranteed, and it also adds additional latency due to network hop. To avoid these problems, an alternate deployment architecture is to deploy ProxySQL as a sidecar as below:

Development environment

This section describes how to integrate TiDB with ProxySQL in a development environment. To get started with the ProxySQL integration, you can choose either of the following options depending on your TiDB cluster type after you have all the prerequisites in place.

• Option 1: Integrate TiDB Cloud with ProxySQL
• Option 2: Integrate TiDB (self-hosted) with ProxySQL

Prerequisites

Depending on the option you choose, you might need the following packages:

• Git
• Docker
• Python 3
• Docker Compose
• MySQL Client

You can follow the installation instructions as below:

• macOS
• CentOS
• Windows

curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com | bash -s docker
yum install -y git python39 docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io docker-compose-plugin mysql
systemctl start docker

Option 1: Integrate TiDB Cloud with ProxySQL

For this integration, you will be using the ProxySQL Docker image along with a TiDB Serverless cluster. The following steps will set up ProxySQL on port 16033, so make sure this port is available.

Step 1. Create a TiDB Serverless cluster

1. Create a free TiDB Serverless cluster. Remember the root password that you set for your cluster.

2. Get your cluster hostname, port, and username for later use.

   1. On the Clusters page, click your cluster name to go to the cluster overview page.
   2. On the cluster overview page, locate the Connection pane, and then copy the Endpoint, Port, and User fields, where the Endpoint is your cluster hostname.

Step 2. Generate ProxySQL configuration files

1. Clone the integration example code repository for TiDB and ProxySQL:

   • macOS
   • CentOS
   • Windows (Git Bash)

   git clone https://github.com/pingcap-inc/tidb-proxysql-integration.git
   

   git clone https://github.com/pingcap-inc/tidb-proxysql-integration.git
   

   git clone https://github.com/pingcap-inc/tidb-proxysql-integration.git
   

2. Change to the tidb-cloud-connect folder:

   • macOS
   • CentOS
   • Windows (Git Bash)

   cd tidb-proxysql-integration/example/tidb-cloud-connect
   

   cd tidb-proxysql-integration/example/tidb-cloud-connect
   

   cd tidb-proxysql-integration/example/tidb-cloud-connect
   

3. Generate ProxySQL configuration files by running proxysql-config.py:

   • macOS
   • CentOS
   • Windows (Git Bash)

   python3 proxysql-config.py
   

   python3 proxysql-config.py
   

   python proxysql-config.py
   

   When prompted, enter the endpoint of your cluster for Serverless Tier Host, and then enter the username and the password of your cluster.

   The following is an example output. You will see that three configuration files are generated under the current tidb-cloud-connect folder.

   [Begin] generating configuration files..
   tidb-cloud-connect.cnf generated successfully.
   proxysql-prepare.sql generated successfully.
   proxysql-connect.py generated successfully.
   [End] all files generated successfully and placed in the current folder.
   

Step 3. Configure ProxySQL

1. Start Docker. If Docker has already started, skip this step:

   • macOS
   • CentOS
   • Windows

   Double-click the icon of the installed Docker to start it.

   systemctl start docker
   

   Double-click the icon of the installed Docker to start it.

2. Pull the ProxySQL image and start a ProxySQL container in the background:

   • macOS
   • CentOS
   • Windows (Git Bash)

   docker compose up -d
   

   docker compose up -d
   

   docker compose up -d
   

3. Integrate with ProxySQL by running the following command, which executes proxysql-prepare.sql inside ProxySQL Admin Interface:

   • macOS
   • CentOS
   • Windows (Git Bash)

   docker compose exec proxysql sh -c "mysql -uadmin -padmin -h127.0.0.1 -P6032 < ./proxysql-prepare.sql"
   

   docker compose exec proxysql sh -c "mysql -uadmin -padmin -h127.0.0.1 -P6032 < ./proxysql-prepare.sql"
   

   docker compose exec proxysql sh -c "mysql -uadmin -padmin -h127.0.0.1 -P6032 < ./proxysql-prepare.sql"
   

   Note

   The proxysql-prepare.sql script does the following:

   1. Adds a user using the username and password of your cluster.
   2. Assigns the user to the monitoring account.
   3. Adds your TiDB Serverless cluster to the list of hosts.
   4. Enables a secure connection between ProxySQL and the TiDB Serverless cluster.

   To have a better understanding, it is strongly recommended that you check the proxysql-prepare.sql file. To learn more about ProxySQL configuration, see ProxySQL documentation.

   The following is an example output. You will see that the hostname of your cluster is shown in the output, which means that the connectivity between ProxySQL and the TiDB Serverless cluster is established.

   *************************** 1. row ***************************
       hostgroup_id: 0
           hostname: gateway01.us-west-2.prod.aws.tidbcloud.com
               port: 4000
           gtid_port: 0
               status: ONLINE
               weight: 1
           compression: 0
       max_connections: 1000
   max_replication_lag: 0
               use_ssl: 1
       max_latency_ms: 0
               comment:
   

Step 4. Connect to your TiDB cluster through ProxySQL

1. To connect to your TiDB cluster, run proxysql-connect.py. The script will automatically launch the MySQL client and use the username and password you specified in Step 2 for connection.

   • macOS
   • CentOS
   • Windows (Git Bash)

   python3 proxysql-connect.py
   

   python3 proxysql-connect.py
   

   python proxysql-connect.py
   

2. After connecting to your TiDB cluster, you can use the following SQL statement to validate the connection:

   SELECT VERSION();
   

   If the TiDB version is displayed, you are successfully connected to your TiDB Serverless cluster through ProxySQL. To exit from the MySQL client anytime, enter quit and press enter.

   Note

   For Debugging: If you are unable to connect to the cluster, check the files tidb-cloud-connect.cnf, proxysql-prepare.sql, and proxysql-connect.py. Make sure that the server information you provided is available and correct.

3. To stop and remove containers, and go to the previous directory, run the following command:

   • macOS
   • CentOS
   • Windows (Git Bash)

   docker compose down
   cd -
   

   docker compose down
   cd -
   

   docker compose down
   cd -
   

Option 2: Integrate TiDB (self-hosted) with ProxySQL

For this integration, you will set up an environment using Docker images of TiDB and ProxySQL. You are encouraged to try other ways of installing TiDB (self-hosted) in your own interest.

The following steps will set up ProxySQL and TiDB on ports 6033 and 4000 respectively, so make sure these ports are available.

1. Start Docker. If Docker has already started, skip this step:

   • macOS
   • CentOS
   • Windows

   Double-click the icon of the installed Docker to start it.

   systemctl start docker
   

   Double-click the icon of the installed Docker to start it.

2. Clone the integration example code repository for TiDB and ProxySQL:

   • macOS
   • CentOS
   • Windows (Git Bash)

   git clone https://github.com/pingcap-inc/tidb-proxysql-integration.git
   

   git clone https://github.com/pingcap-inc/tidb-proxysql-integration.git
   

   git clone https://github.com/pingcap-inc/tidb-proxysql-integration.git
   

3. Pull the latest images of ProxySQL and TiDB:

   • macOS
   • CentOS
   • Windows (Git Bash)

   cd tidb-proxysql-integration && docker compose pull
   

   cd tidb-proxysql-integration && docker compose pull
   

   cd tidb-proxysql-integration && docker compose pull
   

4. Start an integrated environment using both TiDB and ProxySQL running as containers:

   • macOS
   • CentOS
   • Windows (Git Bash)

   docker compose up -d
   

   docker compose up -d
   

   docker compose up -d
   

   To log in to the ProxySQL 6033 port, you can use the root username with an empty password.

5. Connect to TiDB via ProxySQL:

   • macOS
   • CentOS
   • Windows (Git Bash)

   mysql -u root -h 127.0.0.1 -P 6033
   

   mysql -u root -h 127.0.0.1 -P 6033
   

   mysql -u root -h 127.0.0.1 -P 6033
   

6. After connecting to your TiDB cluster, you can use the following SQL statement to validate the connection:

   SELECT VERSION();
   

   If the TiDB version is displayed, you are successfully connected to your TiDB containers through ProxySQL.

7. To stop and remove containers, and go to the previous directory, run the following command:

   • macOS
   • CentOS
   • Windows (Git Bash)

   docker compose down
   cd -
   

   docker compose down
   cd -
   

   docker compose down
   cd -
   

Production environment

For a production environment, it is recommended that you use TiDB Dedicated directly for a fully-managed experience.

Prerequisite

Download and install a MySQL client. For example, MySQL Shell.

Integrate TiDB Cloud with ProxySQL on CentOS

ProxySQL can be installed on many different platforms. The following takes CentOS as an example.

For a full list of supported platforms and the corresponding version requirements, see ProxySQL documentation.

Step 1. Create a TiDB Dedicated cluster

For detailed steps, see Create a TiDB Cluster.

Step 2. Install ProxySQL

1. Add ProxySQL to the YUM repository:

   cat > /etc/yum.repos.d/proxysql.repo << EOF
   [proxysql]
   name=ProxySQL YUM repository
   baseurl=https://repo.proxysql.com/ProxySQL/proxysql-2.4.x/centos/\$releasever
   gpgcheck=1
   gpgkey=https://repo.proxysql.com/ProxySQL/proxysql-2.4.x/repo_pub_key
   EOF
   

2. Install ProxySQL:

   yum install -y proxysql
   

3. Start ProxySQL:

   systemctl start proxysql
   

To learn more about the supported platforms of ProxySQL and their installation, refer to ProxySQL README or ProxySQL installation documentation.

Step 3. Configure ProxySQL

To use ProxySQL as a proxy for TiDB, you need to configure ProxySQL. To do so, you can either execute SQL statements inside ProxySQL Admin Interface (recommended) or use the configuration file.

Option 1: Configure ProxySQL using the Admin Interface

1. Reconfigure ProxySQL’s internals using the standard ProxySQL Admin interface, accessible via any MySQL command line client (available by default on port 6032):

   mysql -u admin -padmin -h 127.0.0.1 -P6032 --prompt 'ProxySQL Admin> '
   

   The above step will take you to the ProxySQL admin prompt.

2. Configure the TiDB clusters to be used, where you can add one or multiple TiDB clusters to ProxySQL. The following statement will add one TiDB Dedicated cluster for example. You need to replace <tidb cloud dedicated cluster host> and <tidb cloud dedicated cluster port> with your TiDB Cloud endpoint and port (the default port is 4000).

   INSERT INTO mysql_servers(hostgroup_id, hostname, port) 
   VALUES 
     (
       0,
       '<tidb cloud dedicated cluster host>', 
       <tidb cloud dedicated cluster port>
     );
   LOAD mysql servers TO runtime;
   SAVE mysql servers TO DISK;
   

   Note

   • hostgroup_id: specify an ID of the hostgroup. ProxySQL manages clusters using hostgroup. To distribute SQL traffic to these clusters evenly, you can configure several clusters that need load balancing to the same hostgroup. To distinguish the clusters, such as for read and write purposes, you can configure them to use different hostgroups.
   • hostname: the endpoint of the TiDB cluster.
   • port: the port of the TiDB cluster.

3. Configure Proxy login users to make sure that the users have appropriate permissions on the TiDB cluster. In the following statements, you need to replace 'tidb cloud dedicated cluster username' and 'tidb cloud dedicated cluster password' with the actual username and password of your cluster.

   INSERT INTO mysql_users(
     username, password, active, default_hostgroup, 
     transaction_persistent
   ) 
   VALUES 
     (
       '<tidb cloud dedicated cluster username>', 
       '<tidb cloud dedicated cluster password>', 
       1, 0, 1
     );
   LOAD mysql users TO runtime;
   SAVE mysql users TO DISK;
   

   Note

   • username: TiDB username.
   • password: TiDB password.
   • active: controls whether the user is active. 1 indicates that the user is active and can be used for login, while 0 indicates that the user is inactive.
   • default_hostgroup: the default hostgroup used by the user, where SQL traffic is distributed unless the query rule overrides the traffic to a specific hostgroup.
   • transaction_persistent: 1 indicates a persistent transaction. When a user starts a transaction within a connection, all query statements are routed to the same hostgroup until the transaction is committed or rolled back.

Option 2: Configure ProxySQL using a configuration file

This option should only be considered as an alternate method for configuring ProxySQL. For more information, see Configuring ProxySQL through the config file.

1. Delete any existing SQLite database (where configurations are stored internally):

   rm /var/lib/proxysql/proxysql.db
   

   Warning

   If you delete the SQLite database file, any configuration changes made using ProxySQL Admin interface will be lost.

2. Modify the configuration file /etc/proxysql.cnf according to your need. For example:

   mysql_servers:
   (
       {
           address="<tidb cloud dedicated cluster host>"
           port=<tidb cloud dedicated cluster port>
           hostgroup=0
           max_connections=2000
       }
   )
   
   mysql_users:
   (
       {
           username = "<tidb cloud dedicated cluster username>"
           password = "<tidb cloud dedicated cluster password>"
           default_hostgroup = 0
           max_connections = 1000
           default_schema = "test"
           active = 1
           transaction_persistent = 1
       }
   )
   

   In the preceding example:

   • address and port: specify the endpoint and port of your TiDB Cloud cluster.
   • username and password: specify the username and password of your TiDB Cloud cluster.

3. Restart ProxySQL:

   systemctl restart proxysql
   

   After the restart, the SQLite database will be created automatically.

Typical scenario

This section takes query routing as an example to show some of the benefits that you can leverage by integrating ProxySQL with TiDB.

Query rules

Databases can be overloaded by high traffic, faulty code, or malicious spam. With query rules of ProxySQL, you can respond to these issues quickly and effectively by rerouting, rewriting, or rejecting queries.

1. Clone the integration example code repository for TiDB and ProxySQL. Skip this step if you have already cloned it in the previous steps.

   • macOS
   • CentOS
   • Windows (Git Bash)

   git clone https://github.com/pingcap-inc/tidb-proxysql-integration.git
   

   git clone https://github.com/pingcap-inc/tidb-proxysql-integration.git
   

   git clone https://github.com/pingcap-inc/tidb-proxysql-integration.git
   

2. Change to the example directory for ProxySQL rules:

   • macOS
   • CentOS
   • Windows (Git Bash)

   cd tidb-proxysql-integration/example/proxy-rule-admin-interface
   

   cd tidb-proxysql-integration/example/proxy-rule-admin-interface
   

   cd tidb-proxysql-integration/example/proxy-rule-admin-interface
   

3. Run the following command to start two TiDB containers and a ProxySQL container:

   • macOS
   • CentOS
   • Windows (Git Bash)

   docker compose up -d
   

   docker compose up -d
   

   docker compose up -d
   

   If everything goes well, the following containers are started:

   • Two Docker containers of TiDB clusters exposed via ports 4001, 4002
   • One ProxySQL Docker container exposed via port 6034.

4. In the two TiDB containers, using mysql to create a table with a similar schema definition and then insert different data ('tidb-server01-port-4001', 'tidb-server02-port-4002') to identify these containers.

   • macOS
   • CentOS
   • Windows (Git Bash)

   mysql -u root -h 127.0.0.1 -P 4001 << EOF
   DROP TABLE IF EXISTS test.tidb_server;
   CREATE TABLE test.tidb_server (server_name VARCHAR(255));
   INSERT INTO test.tidb_server (server_name) VALUES ('tidb-server01-port-4001');
   EOF
   
   mysql -u root -h 127.0.0.1 -P 4002 << EOF
   DROP TABLE IF EXISTS test.tidb_server;
   CREATE TABLE test.tidb_server (server_name VARCHAR(255));
   INSERT INTO test.tidb_server (server_name) VALUES ('tidb-server02-port-4002');
   EOF
   

   mysql -u root -h 127.0.0.1 -P 4001 << EOF
   DROP TABLE IF EXISTS test.tidb_server;
   CREATE TABLE test.tidb_server (server_name VARCHAR(255));
   INSERT INTO test.tidb_server (server_name) VALUES ('tidb-server01-port-4001');
   EOF
   
   mysql -u root -h 127.0.0.1 -P 4002 << EOF
   DROP TABLE IF EXISTS test.tidb_server;
   CREATE TABLE test.tidb_server (server_name VARCHAR(255));
   INSERT INTO test.tidb_server (server_name) VALUES ('tidb-server02-port-4002');
   EOF
   

   mysql -u root -h 127.0.0.1 -P 4001 << EOF
   DROP TABLE IF EXISTS test.tidb_server;
   CREATE TABLE test.tidb_server (server_name VARCHAR(255));
   INSERT INTO test.tidb_server (server_name) VALUES ('tidb-server01-port-4001');
   EOF
   
   mysql -u root -h 127.0.0.1 -P 4002 << EOF
   DROP TABLE IF EXISTS test.tidb_server;
   CREATE TABLE test.tidb_server (server_name VARCHAR(255));
   INSERT INTO test.tidb_server (server_name) VALUES ('tidb-server02-port-4002');
   EOF
   

5. Configure ProxySQL by running the following command, which executes proxysql-prepare.sql inside ProxySQL Admin Interface to establish a proxy connection between the TiDB containers and ProxySQL.

   • macOS
   • CentOS
   • Windows (Git Bash)

   docker compose exec proxysql sh -c "mysql -uadmin -padmin -h127.0.0.1 -P6032 < ./proxysql-prepare.sql"
   

   docker compose exec proxysql sh -c "mysql -uadmin -padmin -h127.0.0.1 -P6032 < ./proxysql-prepare.sql"
   

   docker compose exec proxysql sh -c "mysql -uadmin -padmin -h127.0.0.1 -P6032 < ./proxysql-prepare.sql"
   

   Note

   The proxysql-prepare.sql does the following:

   • Adds the TiDB clusters in ProxySQL with hostgroup_id as 0 and 1.
   • Adds a user root with an empty password and sets default_hostgroup as 0.
   • Adds the rule ^SELECT.*FOR UPDATE$ with rule_id as 1 and destination_hostgroup as 0. If a SQL statement matches this rule, the request will be forwarded to the TiDB cluster with hostgroup as 0.
   • Adds the rule ^SELECT with rule_id as 2 and destination_hostgroup as 1. If a SQL statement matches this rule, the request will be forwarded to the TiDB cluster with hostgroup as 1.

   To have a better understanding, it is strongly recommended that you check the proxysql-prepare.sql file. To learn more about ProxySQL configuration, see ProxySQL documentation.

   The following is some additional information about how ProxySQL patterns match query rules:

   • ProxySQL tries to match the rules one by one in the ascending order of rule_id.
   • ^ symbol matches the beginning of a SQL statement and $ matches the end.

   For more information about ProxySQL regular expression and pattern matching, see mysql-query_processor_regex in ProxySQL documentation.

   For a full list of parameters, see mysql_query_rules in ProxySQL documentation.

6. Verify the configuration and check whether the query rules work.

   1. Log into ProxySQL MySQL Interface as the root user:

      • macOS
      • CentOS
      • Windows (Git Bash)

      mysql -u root -h 127.0.0.1 -P 6034
      

      mysql -u root -h 127.0.0.1 -P 6034
      

      mysql -u root -h 127.0.0.1 -P 6034
      

   2. Execute the following SQL statements:

      • Execute a SELECT statement:

        SELECT * FROM test.tidb_server;
        

        This statement will match rule_id 2 and forward the statement to the TiDB cluster on hostgroup 1.

      • Execute a SELECT ... FOR UPDATE statement:

        SELECT * FROM test.tidb_server FOR UPDATE;
        

        This statement will match rule_id 1 and forward the statement to the TiDB cluster on hostgroup 0.

      • Start a transaction:

        BEGIN;
        INSERT INTO test.tidb_server (server_name) VALUES ('insert this and rollback later');
        SELECT * FROM test.tidb_server;
        ROLLBACK;
        

        In this transaction, the BEGIN statement will not match any rules. It uses the default hostgroup (hostgroup 0 in this example). Because ProxySQL enables user transaction_persistent by default, which will execute all statements within the same transaction in the same hostgroup, the INSERT and SELECT * FROM test.tidb_server; statements will also be forwarded to the TiDB cluster hostgroup 0.

      The following is an example output. If you get a similar output, you have successfully configured the query rules with ProxySQL.

      +-------------------------+
      | server_name             |
      +-------------------------+
      | tidb-server02-port-4002 |
      +-------------------------+
      +-------------------------+
      | server_name             |
      +-------------------------+
      | tidb-server01-port-4001 |
      +-------------------------+
      +--------------------------------+
      | server_name                    |
      +--------------------------------+
      | tidb-server01-port-4001        |
      | insert this and rollback later |
      +--------------------------------+
      

   3. To exit from the MySQL client anytime, enter quit and press enter.

7. To stop and remove containers, and go to the previous directory, run the following command:

   • macOS
   • CentOS
   • Windows (Git Bash)

   docker compose down
   cd -
   

   docker compose down
   cd -
   

   docker compose down
   cd -
   

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