Configuring gossip settings
Using the cassandra.yaml file to configure gossip.
When a node first starts up, it looks at its cassandra.yaml configuration file to determine the name of the Cassandra cluster it belongs to; which nodes (called seeds) to contact to obtain information about the other nodes in the cluster; and other parameters for determining port and range information.
The location of the cassandra.yaml file depends on the type of
installation:
| Package installations | /etc/cassandra/cassandra.yaml |
| Tarball installations | install_location/resources/cassandra/conf/cassandra.yaml |
Procedure
In the cassandra.yaml file, set the following
parameters:
| Property | Description |
|---|---|
| cluster_name | Name of the cluster that this node is joining. Must be the same for every node in the cluster. |
| listen_address | The IP address or hostname that Cassandra binds to for connecting to other Cassandra nodes. |
| (Optional) broadcast_address | The IP address a node tells other nodes in the cluster to contact it by. It allows public and private address to be different. For example, use the broadcast_address parameter in topologies where not all nodes have access to other nodes by their private IP addresses. The default is the listen_address. |
| seed_provider | A -seeds list is comma-delimited list of hosts (IP addresses) that gossip uses to learn the topology of the ring. Every node should have the same list of seeds. In multiple data-center clusters, the seed list should include at least one node from each datacenter (replication group). More than a single seed node per datacenter is recommended for fault tolerance. Otherwise, gossip has to communicate with another datacenter when bootstrapping a node. Making every node a seed node is not recommended because of increased maintenance and reduced gossip performance. Gossip optimization is not critical, but it is recommended to use a small seed list (approximately three nodes per datacenter). |
| storage_port | The inter-node communication port (default is 7000). Must be the same for every node in the cluster. |
| initial_token | For legacy clusters. Used in the single-node-per-token architecture, where a node owns exactly one contiguous range in the ring space. |
| num_tokens | For new clusters. Defines the number of tokens randomly assigned to this node on the ring when using virtual nodes (vnodes). |