Install DataStax Enterprise (DSE) 6.8 on RHEL-based systems with Yum

Use these instructions to install DataStax Enterprise (DSE) 6.8 on RHEL-based systems using Yum. This process also installs the DataStax Agent for use with DSE OpsCenter 6.8. It doesn’t install DSE OpsCenter, DataStax Studio, or DataStax Bulk Loader (DSBulk).

For new deployments, DataStax recommends the latest patch release. If you are scaling an existing deployment, install the same patch release as the existing nodes. For a summary of features and changes in each release, see the DSE 6.8 release notes.

When installed from a package, DSE runs as a service. The service initialization script is located in /etc/init.d/dse. Run levels aren’t set by the package.

When you install DSE, it automatically creates a cassandra user that runs the DSE process. For security reasons, don’t use the default cassandra user in production. After installation, create a new superuser, and then disable the cassandra user.

To install DataStax Enterprise (DSE) on SUSE, use the binary tarball installation. For other installation options, see Choose an installation method.

Prerequisites

  • Prepare an environment where you want to install DSE, including sufficient hardware, a supported platform, and root or sudo access.

  • Install Yum package manager.

  • For RHEL-compatible platforms, enable Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux (EPEL).

  • Install a supported Java runtime: OpenJDK (recommended) or Oracle Java SE (JDK).

    Java 11 can be used for core (transactional) workloads in DSE 6.8.22 and later. Java 8 is required for advanced workloads in all 6.8 patch releases.

    If you install both Java 8 and Java 11, set your $JAVA_HOME environment variable to Java 11. Otherwise, set $JAVA_HOME to Java 8.

  • To run the CQL shell (cqlsh), install a supported Python version.

    To verify your Python version, run python -V.

    If you require Python 2.7, install it from the Software Collections (SCL) Repository:

    1. Run the following commands:

      sudo yum update
      sudo yum install scl-utils
      sudo yum install centos-release-scl-rh
      sudo yum install python27
      sudo scl enable python27 bash

    2. Check your Python version again to confirm that it is 2.7.

    3. Restart the system or log out and log back in, and then enable python 2.7:

      sudo scl enable python27 bash

      Enabling Python 2.7 in .bash_profile or .bashrc causes the machine to hang because CentOS 6 relies on Python 2.6 for Yum.

  • For production installations and simulated production test environments, review the recommended settings.

    Some settings can be applied before installing DSE. For settings that require a running DSE instance, plan to apply them after the installation.

  • If you plan to use DSE OpsCenter:

    • DSE 6.8 requires DSE OpsCenter 6.8. DSE 6.8 doesn’t support earlier versions.

    • To use DSE OpsCenter Lifecycle Manager (LCM) to automatically manage the Java runtime for DSE clusters, see Manage Java installs and Choose a Java vendor in LCM.

Procedure

  1. Install the libaio package:

    sudo yum install libaio

  2. Find DSE 6.8 on IBM Fix Central:

    1. Go to Fix Central.

    2. In the Product selector field, begin typing IBM DataStax Enterprise, and then select that option from the menu.

    3. In the Release field, select the version that you want to install.

    4. Click Continue.

    5. On the Identify fixes page, click Continue to use the default Browse for fixes option.

    6. On the Select fixes page, select the fix pack (DSE version) you want to install, and then click Continue.

      Depending on the product and version, more fix packs might be available if you set the Platform filter to All, and then click Submit.

    7. If prompted, sign in with your IBMid.

      An IBMid account with MFA enabled is required. If you don’t have one, create an IBMid account. If your organization uses Enterprise Federation (EF) for authentication with corporate credentials, see the IBMid EF documentation.

    8. On the Download options page, select Download using your browser (HTTPS), and then click Continue.

    9. Review the terms and conditions, and then click I agree to activate the download links.

  3. Click the DSE RPM package link to download the file, for example, dse-6.8.60-rpm.zip.

  4. Extract the RPM files from the .zip file:

    sudo unzip dse-6.8.60-rpm.zip

    You can use the package signing public key (dse-rpm-signing.pub.key) in the file to set up and verify the RPM packages.

  5. Import the package signing public key:

    sudo rpm --import dse-rpm-signing.pub.key

  6. Set up a local Yum repository to host the downloaded RPM files:

    Apache

    See Apache in the Red Hat documentation for more information.

    nginx

    See nginx in the Red Hat documentation for more information.

    Red Hat Satellite

    See Uploading content to custom RPM repositories in the Red Hat Satellite documentation for more information.

  7. Add the local DataStax Yum repository to a file called /etc/yum.repos.d/datastax.repo:

    [datastax]
name={company} Repo for DSE
baseurl=file://**REPOSITORY_DIRECTORY_PATH**
enabled=1
gpgcheck=0

  8. Install the DSE packages:

    Specify all packages; otherwise, the installation fails.

    • Install the latest version (6.8.x):

      sudo yum install dse-full

    • Install an earlier 6.8.x version:

      sudo yum install dse-6.8.version_number-1 \
    dse-full-6.8.version_number-1 \
    dse-libgraph-6.8.version_number-1 \
    dse-libcassandra-6.8.version_number-1 \
    dse-libhadoop2-client-6.8.version_number-1 \
    dse-libsolr-6.8.version_number-1 \
    dse-libtomcat-6.8.version_number-1 \
    dse-liblog4j-6.8.version_number-1 \
    dse-libspark-6.8.version_number-1

      For example:

      sudo yum install dse-6.8.0-1 \
    dse-full-6.8.0-1 \
    dse-libgraph-6.8.0-1 \
    dse-libcassandra-6.8.0-1 \
    dse-libhadoop2-client-6.8.0-1 \
    dse-libsolr-6.8.0-1 \
    dse-libtomcat-6.8.0-1 \
    dse-liblog4j-6.8.0-1 \
    dse-libspark-6.8.0-1

    • Optional: Install the demos:

      Installing the DSE demos is not recommended for production. Only install the demos in development environments to run tutorials.

      		 
      sudo yum install dse-demos-version_number-1

  9. Optional: Configure systemd units in Red Hat systemd configuration.

DSE is ready for additional configuration:

  • For production, be sure to change the cassandra user. Failing to do so is a security risk. See Adding a superuser login.

  • DSE provides several types of workloads (default is transactional). See startup options for service or stand-alone installations.

  • The Next steps section provides links to related tasks and information.

Start DSE

For single-node cluster installations only:

  1. Start DSE:

    sudo service dse start

  2. Verify that DSE is running:

    nodetool status
    Result
    Datacenter: Cassandra
=====================
Status=Up/Down
|/ State=Normal/Leaving/Joining/Moving
--  Address    Load       Tokens  Owns    Host ID                               Rack
UN  127.0.0.1  82.43 KB   128     ?       40725dc8-7843-43ae-9c98-7c532b1f517e  rack1

Next steps

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