Install the cqlsh standalone tool

Install the Cassandra Query Language shell (cqlsh) standalone tool using a binary tarball on any Linux-based platform to use cqlsh remotely on a DataStax database cluster.

This command line shell connects remotely to a DataStax database cluster. You do not need to run cqlsh locally on a cluster node.

Prerequisites

The cqlsh utility for DataStax Enterprise 6.8 requires Python 2.7 or Python 3.6 through 3.11. DataStax recommends using Python 3.11.

cqlsh does not support Python 3.12 and later. To use cqlsh, either downgrade to a supported Python version, or run it in a virtual environment that uses a supported version.

Procedure

  1. Download the cqlsh binary tarball file for DataStax Enterprise 6.8 from the DataStax Downloads page.

  2. Change to the directory where you downloaded the cqlsh package:

    cd /DOWNLOAD_DIRECTORY

  3. Extract the files:

    tar -xzvf cqlsh-VERSION-bin.tar.gz

    Replace VERSION with the package version that you downloaded, such as 6.8.59.

    The files are downloaded and extracted into the current directory.

Next steps

Connect to a cluster by starting the standalone cqlsh tool.

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