It seems both allow a new node (new IP address or same) to join to cluster with dead_node_ip. Both will inherent the token rings of the dead node.
what is the difference between the two properties? Is one better than the other?
1 Answers
The replace_address_first_boot is safer option of replace_address - after the node replacement happened, this option is simply ignored by Cassandra when you restart process, while with replace_address, if you forgot to remove this option from configuration, and restart the Cassandra node, then the node will fail to start.
You can read more information about bootstraping, including these options in the following blog post from The Last Pickle.
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