# Dedicated voting-only master nodes and repository access

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/dedicated-voting-only-master-nodes-and-repository-access/281787>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Tags:** snapshot-and-restore\
**Created:** [August 18, 2021, 8:14am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/dedicated-voting-only-master-nodes-and-repository-access/281787 "2021-08-18T08:14:11Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/christian_dahlqvist/32/4617_2.png) [@Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Christian_Dahlqvist)\
**Post date:** [August 18, 2021, 8:14am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/dedicated-voting-only-master-nodes-and-repository-access/281787/1 "2021-08-18T08:14:12Z")

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If I am deploying an Elasticsearch cluster across 2 on-premise data centres and want to place a dedicated voting-only master node in the cloud as an arbiter, would the dedicated voting-only master node still need access to and validate snapshot repositories? Would this depend on the repository type?

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**Author:** ![DavidTurner](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/davidturner/32/22453_2.png) [@DavidTurner](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/DavidTurner)\
**Post date:** [August 18, 2021, 5:07pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/dedicated-voting-only-master-nodes-and-repository-access/281787/2 "2021-08-18T17:07:58Z")

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> [@Christian\_Dahlqvist](#):
>
> would the dedicated voting-only master node still need access to and validate snapshot repositories?

It shouldn't, but prior to 7.9.0 it did:

> <https://github.com/elastic/elasticsearch/pull/61016>
>
> Today a snapshot repository verification ensures that all master-eligible and da…ta nodes have write access to the snapshot repository (and can see each other's data) since taking a snapshot requires data nodes and the currently-elected master to write to the repository. However, a dedicated voting-only master-eligible node is not a data node and will never be the elected master so we should not require it to have write access to the repository.
> 
> Closes #59649

Also there was a bug in this area fixed in 7.12.1:

> <https://github.com/elastic/elasticsearch/pull/71358>
>
> Today we incorrectly consider a data-containing voting-only node as a
> dedicated… voting-only node if it does not have the \`data\` role, because
> we check specifically for the \`data\` role rather than using
> \`DiscoveryNodeRole::canContainData\`. This means that such nodes don't
> get involved with snapshots, but they should. This commit fixes that.
> 
> Closes #71352

> [@Christian\_Dahlqvist](#):
>
> Would this depend on the repository type?

No.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 5:08pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/dedicated-voting-only-master-nodes-and-repository-access/281787/3 "2021-09-15T17:08:33Z")

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