Vagrant Cassandra

This project contains templates for learning how to install and configure Cassandra/DataStax on a local dev machine. It uses Vagrant to configure and run virtual machines (VMs) running in VirtualBox. Vagrant enables quickly building environments in a way that is repeatable and isolated from your host system. This makes it perfect for experimenting with different configurations of Cassandra/DataStax.

Why create yet another Cassandra on Vagrant system? Many scripts and Vagrant projects are already fully assembled and configured. Instead, I like to learn from the ground up so I can better understand each step. In the templates below I've also tried to minimize external dependencies, and the number of tools which need to be installed. (For example, I don't use Chef or Puppet here.)

Related Projects

Here are a few related projects I learned from while assembling my Vagrant setup:

• calebgroom/vagrant-cassandra - uses Chef to quickly create a 3-node cluster
• dholbrook/vagrant-cassandra - another Chef
• oeelvik/vagrant-puppet-hadoop-datastax - using Puppet for provisioning
• cjohannsen81/dse-vagrant - similar to my approach, just using script provisioning

You may also find bcantoni/vagrant-deb-proxy helpful for speeding up Ubuntu package installs. See Package Caching below for details.

Posts from my blog related to this project:

• Using Vagrant for Local Cassandra Development
• DataStax Installer with Vagrant

Cassandra vs DataStax

In this project I tend to use the terms "Cassandra" and "DataStax" interchangeably. Here's the distinction:

• Cassandra is the Apache open source database project. Their releases include binary .tar and packages for Debian
• DataStax provides the Cassandra database combined with other tools in two flavors:
  • DataStax Community - includes Cassandra, OpsCenter, demos, and installers for Linux, Windows, and Mac. This is free for everyone to use.
  • DataStax Enterprise - a commercial integrated product which includes Analytics (Hadoop) and Search (Solr) modules, on top of the basic Community edition. This build can be run for free in development (after registration). Using in production requires a paid license agreement which would then include support, training, and so on.

Screencasts

Here are some quick screencasts which walk through the three different templates in this project:

1. Base

2. MultiNode

3. MultiDC

Installation

Note: These scripts were created on a Mac OS X 10.9.5 host with Vagrant v1.6.5 and VirtualBox v4.3.20. Everything should work for Linux or Windows hosts as well, but I have not tested it yet. Shell scripts which are meant to run on the host (like up-parallel.sh or down.sh) would need to have Windows equivalents created.

1. Edit your local Hosts file to include the private network addresses (this makes it much easier to refer to the VMs by hostname):

    # vagrant-cassandra private network hosts
    10.211.54.10    cassandra
    10.10.10.10     dse0
    10.10.10.11     dse1
    10.10.10.12     dse2
    10.10.10.13     dse3
    10.10.10.14     dse4
    10.10.11.10     dse10
    10.10.11.11     dse11
    10.10.11.12     dse12
    10.10.11.13     dse13
    10.10.11.14     dse14
    10.211.55.100   node0
    10.211.55.101   node1
    10.211.55.102   node2
    10.211.55.103   node3
    10.211.55.110   node10
    10.211.55.111   node11
    10.211.55.112   node12
    10.211.55.113   node13
    10.211.55.114   node14
    10.211.55.115   node15
    10.211.55.116   node16
   

   Alternatively, try the vagrant-hostsupdater plugin which should do the same thing automatically. (I have not tried it.)

2. Install VirtualBox

3. Install Vagrant

4. Check that both are installed and reachable from a command line:

    $ vagrant --version
    Vagrant 1.6.5
    $ VBoxManage --version
    4.3.20r96996
   

5. Clone this repository

    $ git clone https://github.com/bcantoni/vagrant-cassandra.git
    $ cd vagrant-cassandra
   

6. Try each of the templates listed below, for example:

    $ cd 1.Base
    $ vagrant up
    $ vagrant ssh
   

Package Caching

These Vagrant files are configured to use a Debian/Ubuntu APT cache if configured. This can make the provisioning step faster and less susceptible to Ubuntu repository connection speeds.

If you want to run your own locally (through Vagrant), take a look at bcantoni/vagrant-deb-proxy.

To enable package caching, set the DEB_CACHE_HOST environment variable before creating the Vagrant VMs, for example:

$ export DEB_CACHE_HOST="http://10.211.54.100:8000"
$ vagrant up

Using Vagrant

The Vagrant documentation is very good and I recommend going through the Getting Started section.

These are the most common commands you'll need with this project:

• vagrant up - Create and configure VM
• vagrant ssh - SSH into the VM
• vagrant halt - Halt the VM (power off)
• vagrant suspend - Suspend the VM (save state)
• vagrant provision - Run (or re-run) the provisioner script
• vagrant destroy - Destroy the VM

Templates

These are the starting templates which go through increasing levels of complexity for a Cassandra installation. Each of these is located in its own subdirectory with its own Vagrantfile (the definition file used by Vagrant) and a README with instructions and more details.

1. Base

This is a base template with only Java pre-installed. It's a good getting started point to explore installing Cassandra and DataStax packages.

2. MultiNode

This template creates 4 VMs: one for OpsCenter and 3 for Cassandra nodes. OpsCenter is preinstalled, and you can use that to finish building the cluster.

3. MultiDC

This template builds and configures a multi-datacenter cluster (one OpsCenter VM and 6 Cassandra nodes in 2 logical datacenters).

4. DSE

This template focuses on DataStax Enterprise (DSE) and can build a variable number of nodes in a cluster.

5. Installer

This template is structurally the same as 4.DSE, but instead uses the Standalone Installer which first came out with DSE 4.5.

Notes

• All templates are currently based off the hashicorp/precise64 box which is running 64-bit Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. You can change the vm.box value if you want to try different guest operating system versions (e.g. use ubuntu/trusty64 for Ubuntu 14.04).