Add a cluster
Add a cluster to centrally manage installations and configurations within Lifecycle Manager (LCM) for DataStax Enterprise (DSE) clusters. By default, all datacenters within a cluster inherit the configuration profile from the cluster level, unless overridden when creating the datacenter model. By default, all nodes within a datacenter inherit the configuration profile from the datacenter level, unless overridden when creating the node models. SSH settings can also be inherited or overridden at the datacenter or node levels. Repositories are only specified at the cluster level and are inherited by datacenters and nodes.
If authentication is enabled in the configuration profile associated with a cluster, prompts recommend changing the default password of the cassandra user.
After selecting a configuration profile that includes cassandra.yaml settings to enable the internal or password authentication scheme, the Add Cluster or Edit Cluster dialog prompts for old and new passwords for the built-in CQL user named cassandra.
The cassandra user is present by default in the internal authentication scheme, and has a publicly known default password of cassandra.
LCM changes the default cassandra password using the supplied password fields.
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It is a security risk to leave the default |
Prerequisites
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Recommended: If you plan to enable node-to-node encryption, do so during initial cluster creation, as explained in Configure SSL/TLS for DSE using LCM. If you enable node-to-node encryption on an existing cluster, the cluster experiences a network partition during the transition, which leads to temporary loss of consistency.
Create the cluster
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Click Clusters from the Lifecycle Manager navigation menu, and then click
Add to create a cluster.If you have no clusters, click the Cluster link on the Getting Started page.
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Enter a unique name for the cluster. This name is assigned to the cluster in both DSE and LCM. It cannot be edited later because LCM populates the
cluster_namefield incassandra.yamlwith the given name. -
Select predefined SSH Credentials to use for accessing the machines on which nodes reside.
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Optional: Specify an SSH Management Port to override the default of 22.
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Select a predefined Repository from which to access DSE install packages. Datacenters and nodes inherit the repository from the cluster level. Defining a repository for the datacenter or node level is not necessary.
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Select a predefined Config Profile to apply at the cluster level. If configuration profiles are not defined for datacenter or node levels, those levels inherit from the cluster.
Select a configuration profile at the cluster level so that LCM can determine any authentication protocol and prompt only once for credentials instead of at the start of every job.
If authentication is enabled, the required credentials must be set prior to running the job. Not doing so causes LCM to fail registering the cluster automatically with OpsCenter monitoring. Set the credentials within the Add Cluster or Edit Cluster dialogs in the LCM UI, or set old and new passwords using the LCM API.
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If internal or password authentication are enabled, which are the default LCM security settings, provide the old and new passwords for the built-in
cassandrauser.For an initial install, set the Old Password to
cassandra.
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Optional: Enter a descriptive comment about the cluster, such as "development cluster" or "production cluster".
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Click Save.
The newly defined cluster appears in the Clusters pane. Click the cluster name to view its details on the Datacenters pane.
Next steps
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Repeat this process as many times as needed to add more clusters.
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Add datacenters to the clusters.
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Add nodes to the datacenters.
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After Lifecycle Manager successfully creates a cluster during an install job, LCM automatically adds the cluster to the OpsCenter workspace for monitoring and management.
