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Configure Leader Pinning

Produce requests that write data to Redpanda topics are routed through the topic partition leader, which syncs messages across its follower replicas. For a Redpanda cluster deployed across multiple availability zones (AZs), Leader Pinning ensures that a topic’s partition leaders are geographically closer to clients, which helps decrease networking costs and guarantees lower latency.

If consumers are located in the same preferred region or AZ for Leader Pinning, and you have not set up follower fetching, Leader Pinning can also help reduce networking costs on consume requests.

After reading this page, you will be able to:

  • Configure preferred partition leader placement using rack labels

  • Configure ordered rack preference for priority-based leader failover

  • Identify conditions where Leader Pinning cannot place leaders in preferred racks

Set leader rack preferences

Configure Leader Pinning if you have Redpanda deployed in a multi-AZ or multi-region cluster and your ingress is concentrated in a particular AZ or region.

Use the topic configuration property redpanda.leaders.preference to configure Leader Pinning for individual topics. The property accepts the following string values:

  • none: Disable Leader Pinning for the topic.

  • racks:<rack1>[,<rack2>,…​]: Specify the preferred location (rack) of all topic partition leaders. The list can contain one or more racks, and you can list the racks in any order. Spaces in the list are ignored, for example: racks:rack1,rack2 and racks: rack1, rack2 are equivalent. You cannot specify empty racks, for example: racks: rack1,,rack2. If you specify multiple racks, Redpanda tries to distribute the partition leader locations equally across brokers in these racks.

  • ordered_racks:<rack1>[,<rack2>,…​]: Supported in Redpanda v26.1 or later. Specify the preferred racks in priority order. Redpanda places leaders in the first listed rack when available, failing over to each subsequent rack when higher-priority racks are unavailable. If all listed racks are unavailable, leaders fall back to any other available brokers. Brokers with no rack assignment are treated as lowest priority.

To find the rack identifiers of all brokers, run:

rpk cluster info
Expected output
CLUSTER
=======
redpanda.be267958-279d-49cd-ae86-98fc7ed2de48

BROKERS
=======
ID    HOST            PORT  RACK
0*    54.70.51.189    9092  us-west-2a
1     35.93.178.18    9092  us-west-2b
2     35.91.121.126   9092  us-west-2c

To set the topic property:

rpk topic alter-config <topic-name> --set redpanda.leaders.preference=ordered_racks:<rack1>,<rack2>

If there is more than one broker in the preferred AZ (or AZs), Leader Pinning distributes partition leaders uniformly across brokers in the AZ.

Limitations

Leader Pinning controls which replica is elected as leader, and does not move replicas to different brokers. If all of a topic’s replicas are on brokers in non-preferred racks, no replica exists in the preferred racks to elect as leader, and Redpanda may elect a non-preferred leader indefinitely.

For example, consider a cluster deployed across four racks (A, B, C, D) with Leader Pinning configured as ordered_racks:A,B,C,D. With a replication factor of 3, rack awareness can only place replicas in three of the four racks. If the highest-priority rack (A) does not receive a replica, no replica exists there to elect as leader, and Redpanda may elect a non-preferred leader indefinitely.

To prevent this scenario, ensure the topic’s replication factor at least equals the total number of racks in the cluster, so every rack, including the highest-priority rack, receives a replica.

Leader Pinning failover across availability zones

If there are three AZs: A, B, and C, and A becomes unavailable, the failover behavior with racks is as follows:

  • The topic with A as the preferred leader AZ will have its partition leaders uniformly distributed across B and C.

  • The topic with A,B as the preferred leader AZs will have its partition leaders in B.

  • The topic with B as the preferred leader AZ will have its partition leaders in B as well.

Failover with ordered rack preference

With ordered_racks, the failover order follows the configured priority list. Leaders move to the next available rack in the list when higher-priority racks become unavailable.

For a topic configured with ordered_racks:A,B,C:

  • The topic with A as the first-priority rack will have its partition leaders in A.

  • If A becomes unavailable, leaders move to B.

  • If A and B become unavailable, leaders move to C.

  • If A, B, and C all become unavailable, leaders fall back to any available brokers.

If a higher-priority rack recovers and the topic’s replication factor ensures that rack receives a replica, Redpanda automatically moves leaders back to the highest available preferred rack.

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