--- title: Adaptive clustering description: Adaptive clustering automatically distributes session-state information to multiple nodes. Administrators do not have to modify individual configuration files to specify which nodes should participate in tracking user sessions. component: pingfederate version: 13.1 page_id: pingfederate:server_clustering_guide:pf_adaptiv_cluster canonical_url: https://docs.pingidentity.com/pingfederate/13.1/server_clustering_guide/pf_adaptiv_cluster.html llms_txt: https://docs.pingidentity.com/pingfederate/llms.txt docs_for_agents: https://developer.pingidentity.com/build-with-ai/docs-for-agents.md revdate: April 18, 2025 section_ids: other-advanced-settings: Other advanced settings related-links: Related links --- # Adaptive clustering Adaptive clustering automatically distributes session-state information to multiple nodes. Administrators do not have to modify individual configuration files to specify which nodes should participate in tracking user sessions. In essence, each session receives an address from within an internally-defined range. For redundancy, multiple nodes store each session. These nodes form a replica set. Any node that receives a request and must look up or store session-state information can do so by calculating the address of the session and reaching out to the corresponding replica set. As individual nodes join and leave the cluster, adaptive clustering redistributes session-state information to maintain the replica set throughout the cluster. The default size of a replica set is three, which provides redundancy in case two nodes fail and ensures that a single node's slow response time doesn't delay requests. The `replication.factor` setting is in the `/pingfederate/server/default/conf/cluster-adaptive.conf` file. Enable adaptive clustering by setting the `pf.cluster.adaptive` property in the `run.properties` file to `true`. This is the default state in new installations. For upgrades, if such property is not found or is set to `false`, the system disables adaptive clustering and enables directed clustering instead. To enable or disable adaptive clustering, set the `pf.cluster.adaptive` property to `true` or `false` on each node and then restart PingFederate. The `run.properties` file is in the `/pingfederate/bin` directory. | | | | - | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | After making changes to the `cluster-adaptive.conf` and the `run.properties` files, you must manually repeat the changes to all nodes in the cluster. The configuration replication process does not push these files across the cluster. When you are finished, restart PingFederate to apply the changes. | | | | | - | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | Adaptive clustering doesn't support the SAML 2.0 single logout (SLO) profile using the SOAP binding. If you've configured one or more SAML 2.0 connections to support SLO using SOAP, you must either share all nodes or designate state servers deployment strategies in directed clustering. Learn more in [Directed clustering](pf_directed_cluster.html). | ## Other advanced settings Fine-tune each runtime state-management service implementation separately by modifying a configuration file located in the `/pingfederate/server/default/conf` directory. After making changes in these files, you must apply the changes to all nodes in the cluster manually. | | | | - | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | | The adaptive clustering concept isn't applicable to the Artifact-Message Persistence and Retrieval Service, which shares messages with any node that requests the message. As needed, you can modify other applicable properties, such as the `rpc.timeout` property. Learn more in [Artifact-Message Persistence and Retrieval Service](pf_artif_mess_persis_retriev_service.html). | The following tables indicate the configuration file that applies to each implementation and the applicable properties. See the indicated sections for detailed information about each implementation. **Configuration file and service implementation** | Configuration file | RPC-based service implementation | | ------------------------------------------ | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | `cluster-account-locking.conf` | [Account Locking Service](pf_acc_lock_service.html) | | `cluster-artifact.conf` | [Artifact-Message Persistence and Retrieval Service](pf_artif_mess_persis_retriev_service.html) | | `cluster-assertion-replay-prevention.conf` | [Assertion Replay Prevention Service](pf_assertion_replay_prevention_service.html) | | `cluster-idp-session-registry.conf` | [IdP Session Registry Service](pf_idp_session_registry_service.html) | | `cluster-inter-request-state.conf` | [Inter-Request State-Management (IRSM) Service](pf_irsm_service.html) | | `cluster-session-revocation.conf` | [Back-Channel Session Revocation Service](pf_bac_chann_sess_revoc_service.html) | | `cluster-sp-session-registry.conf` | [SP Session Registry Service](pf_sp_sess_regist_service.html) | **Property description** | Property | Description | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | `rpc.timeout` | How long, in milliseconds, this node waits before timing out unresponsive RPC invocations. The default value is `500`, or half a second. | | `synchronous.retrieve.majority.only` | Indicates how many responses to wait for when making synchronous remote procedure calls. When set to `true`, this node waits for the majority of the local replica set to respond. When set to `false`, it waits for all recipients to respond. `true` is the default value. This property is not applicable to the Account Locking Service and not found in the cluster-account-locking.conf file. | | `bulk.revoked.sris.timeout` (found only in the `cluster-session-revocation.conf` file) | A node downloads a full revocation list from another node during startup or when it rejoins a cluster after being disconnected from it, for example due to a temporary network issue. This setting determines the amount of time in milliseconds PingFederate waits before aborting the download and reporting a timeout error.The default value is `10000`, which is 10 seconds. | | `read.local.only` (found only in the `cluster-session-revocation.conf` file) | Determines how PingFederate should process queries for revocation status.When set to `true`, PingFederate processes queries for revocation status locally. When set to `false`, the processing node pulls revocation status from other engine nodes in the cluster, subject to the **rpc.timeout** value. `true` is the default value. When adding a session to the revocation list, the processing node always propagates the information to all engine nodes in the cluster. Learn more in Back-Channel Session Revocation Service. | | | | | - | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | | When you have enabled adaptive clustering, PingFederate ignores other properties found in these configuration files—namely `preferred.node.indices` and `preferred.node.group.id`. The latter is only in the `cluster-idp-session-registry.conf` file. | ## Related links * [Deploying cluster servers](pf_deploying_cluster_servers.html)