On Jun 20, 2005, at 2:21 PM, 31337 .. wrote:

> Are there any other easier ways to detect when the master node has  
> gone down?

Your first step is to define *precisely* what you consider "down".   
Try enumerating all scenarios relative to each machine that could be  
connecting to any of your db servers, and how you would notify all of  
those hosts to switch to another "master", and how you would tell the  
master it is no longer the master should it become undead.

This will be very hard.

And you will also want a general network monitoring system like  
nagios running to tell you about the failures.

Vivek Khera, Ph.D.
+1-301-869-4449 x806