When creating the standby master gpinitstandby reports "Could not start standby master" in Greenplum

Products

• VMware Tanzu Greenplum

Issue/Introduction

When executing "gpinitstandby -s <hostname>" it reports:

20200319:16:13:34:295121 gpinitstandby:mdw:gpadmin-[INFO]:-pg_system -> /data/master/gpseg-1
20200319:16:13:38:295121 gpinitstandby:mdw:gpadmin-[INFO]:-Syncing Greenplum Database extensions to standby 
20200319:16:13:39:295121 gpinitstandby:mdw:gpadmin-[INFO]:-The packages on smdw.gphd.local are consistent.
20200319:16:13:39:295121 gpinitstandby:mdw:gpadmin-[INFO]:-Adding standby master to catalog... 
20200319:16:13:39:295121 gpinitstandby:mdw:gpadmin-[INFO]:-Database catalog updated successfully. 
20200319:16:13:39:295121 gpinitstandby:mdw:gpadmin-[INFO]:-Updating pg_hba.conf file... 
20200319:16:13:40:295121 gpinitstandby:mdw:gpadmin-[INFO]:-pg_hba.conf files updated successfully. 
20200319:16:13:48:295121 gpinitstandby:mdw:gpadmin-[INFO]:-Updating filespace flat files... 
20200319:16:13:48:295121 gpinitstandby:mdw:gpadmin-[INFO]:-Filespace flat file updated successfully. 
20200319:16:13:48:295121 gpinitstandby:mdw:gpadmin-[INFO]:-Starting standby master 
20200319:16:13:48:295121 gpinitstandby:mdw:gpadmin-[INFO]:-Checking if standby master is running on host: smdw.gphd.local in directory: /data/master/gpseg-1
20200319:16:15:49:295121 gpinitstandby:mdw:gpadmin-[WARNING]:-Could not start standby master 
20200319:16:15:49:295121 gpinitstandby:mdw:gpadmin-[INFO]:-Cleaning up pg_hba.conf backup files... 
20200319:16:15:50:295121 gpinitstandby:mdw:gpadmin-[INFO]:-Backup files of pg_hba.conf cleaned up successfully. 
20200319:16:15:50:295121 gpinitstandby:mdw:gpadmin-[INFO]:-Successfully created standby master on smdw.gphd.local [status1] 

Environment

Product Version: 5.22

Resolution

Check the startup.log file and the gpdb_* log files on the standby master for errors.

The files are located in $MASTER_DATA_DIRECTORY/pg_log on the standby master host. If the startup.log file report: 

"FATAL","XX000","cgroup is not properly configured: can not find cgroup mount point (resgroup-ops-linux.c:1330)"

The cluster is using Resource Groups rather than Resource Queues. Check that the cgroups have been configured on the master and also the standby master hosts.

See: Using Resource Groups for details on configuring the cgroups.

Note: This error could also be reported for gpstart for the same reason.