System keyspaces and tables
The database uses a set of internal keyspaces to store metadata about the cluster, its schema, security, and operational state. The tables in these keyspaces are managed by the database; do not modify them directly.
The system keyspace
Tables in the system keyspace store metadata about the local node.
| Table name | Column names | Comment |
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Information on materialized views. |
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Information on compaction history. |
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Information on indexes. |
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Information that a node has about itself and a superset of gossip. Gossip is a peer-to-peer communication protocol for exchanging location and state information between nodes. |
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Information on lightweight Paxos transactions. |
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Each node records what other nodes tell it about themselves over the gossip. |
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Prepared statements used by drivers for queries. |
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Information on partitions. |
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The system_schema keyspace
Use CQL to query system_schema tables to view keyspace, table, and column information.
The same information is also available using the CQL shell DESCRIBE commands, which is the preferred method.
The system_schema tables does not show search index or row-level access control settings.
Enable system_keyspaces_filtering to restrict schema visibility.
Users will only see schema information for objects they have been granted permission to access.
| Table name | Column names | Comment |
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Information about user-defined aggregates. |
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Information about table columns. |
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Information about dropped columns. |
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Information on user-defined functions. |
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Information about indexes. |
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Information on keyspace durable writes and replication. |
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Information on columns and column indexes. Used internally for compound primary keys. |
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Information about user-defined types. |
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Information about materialized views. |
The system_distributed keyspace
Tables in system_distributed keyspace store metadata that is shared across nodes.
| Table name | Column names | Comment |
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Contains detailed information on keyspace nodetool repair history. |
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Contains NodeSync status for segments on the local system. See NodeSync Validation process and status. |
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Contains details of NodeSyncs operations that were manually started. |
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The system_auth keyspace
Tables in the system_auth keyspace store role-based access control data, including role definitions, memberships, and resource permissions.
| Table | Columns | Description |
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Stores the role, resource (for example keyspace_name/table_name), and the permission that the role has to access the resource. |
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Stores the roles and role members. |
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Stores the role name, whether the role can be used for login, whether the role is a superuser, what other roles the role may be a member of, and a bcrypt salted hash password for the role. |
The dse_security keyspace
Tables in the dse_security` keyspace stores DSE-specific security data for role options, Kerberos digest authentication, and Spark shared secrets.
| Table | Columns | Description |
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Role options. |
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Kerberos digest tokens when enabled. |
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Shared secret for Spark. |