Asynchronous connection failover for replicas is activated automatically for a replication channel on a Group Replication primary when you set SOURCE_CONNECTION_AUTO_FAILOVER=1 in the CHANGE REPLICATION SOURCE TO statement for the channel. The feature is designed for a group of senders and a group of receivers to keep synchronized with each other even when some members are temporarily unavailable. When the feature is active and correctly configured, if the primary that is replicating goes offline or into an error state, the new primary starts replication on the same channel when it is elected. The new primary uses the source list for the channel to select the source with the highest priority (weight) setting, which might not be the same as the original source.

To configure this feature, the replication channel and the replication user account and password for the channel must be set up on all the member servers in the replication group, and on any new joining members. Ensure that SOURCE_RETRY_COUNT and SOURCE_CONNECT_RETRY are set to minimal numbers that just allow a few retry attempts, for example 3 and 10. You can set up the replication channel using CHANGE REPLICATION SOURCE TO, or if the new servers are provisioned using MySQL's clone functionality, this all happens automatically. The SOURCE_CONNECTION_AUTO_FAILOVER setting for the channel is broadcast to group members from the primary when they join. If you later disable SOURCE_CONNECTION_AUTO_FAILOVER for the channel on the primary, this is also broadcast to the secondary servers, and they change the status of the channel to match.

Asynchronous connection failover for replicas is activated and deactivated using the Group Replication member action mysql_start_failover_channels_if_primary, which is enabled by default. You can disable it for the whole group by disabling that member action on the primary, using the group_replication_disable_member_action function, as in this example:

mysql> SELECT group_replication_disable_member_action("mysql_start_failover_channels_if_primary", "AFTER_PRIMARY_ELECTION");

The function can only be changed on a primary, and must be enabled or disabled for the whole group, so you cannot have some members providing failover and others not. When the mysql_start_failover_channels_if_primary member action is disabled, the channel does not need to be configured on secondary members, but if the primary goes offline or into an error state, replication stops for the channel. Note that if there is more than one channel with SOURCE_CONNECTION_AUTO_FAILOVER=1 , the member action covers all the channels, so they cannot be individually enabled and disabled by that method. Set SOURCE_CONNECTION_AUTO_FAILOVER=0 on the primary to disable an individual channel.

The source list for a channel with SOURCE_CONNECTION_AUTO_FAILOVER=1 is broadcast to all group members when they join, and also when it changes. This is the case whether the sources are a managed group for which the membership is updated automatically, or whether they are added or changed manually using asynchronous_connection_failover_add_source(), asynchronous_connection_failover_delete_source(), asynchronous_connection_failover_add_managed(), or asynchronous_connection_failover_delete_managed(). All group members receive the current source list as recorded in the mysql.replication_asynchronous_connection_failover and mysql.replication_asynchronous_connection_failover_managed tables. Because the sources do not have to be in a managed group, you can set up the function to synchronize a group of receivers with one or more alternative standalone senders, or even a single sender. A standalone replica that is not part of a replication group cannot use this feature.