FAILOVER

In Redis, FAILOVER makes a primary hand its role to one of its replicas. HotKV accepts the command so that tools which send it get a clear answer, but does not perform a failover with it:

• FAILOVER with any arguments that do not include ABORT replies with an error.
• FAILOVER ABORT (or any arguments that include ABORT) replies OK, since there is never a FAILOVER in progress to cancel.

To fail over:

• on a primary and replicas set up with HotKV replication, use REPLICATION.FAILOVER, or REPLICAOF NO ONE on the replica;
• in a cluster, use CLUSTER FAILOVER on the replica.

Return value

Case	Reply (RESP2 and RESP3)
Arguments include ABORT	Simple string OK
Anything else	Error ERR FAILOVER requires a running replica; replication is not configured

The error text is the same whether or not replication is configured.

Examples

127.0.0.1:6379> FAILOVER
(error) ERR FAILOVER requires a running replica; replication is not configured
127.0.0.1:6379> FAILOVER ABORT
OK

Compatibility

Redis 7 and Valkey 8 implement coordinated failover with this command. HotKV does not; see the alternatives above.

See also

REPLICATION.FAILOVER, CLUSTER FAILOVER, REPLICAOF, high availability

In a cluster: Replicas and failover