Installing Vertica on AWS EC2

The following document describes how to install Vertica 10 manually on a cluster with 3 nodes hosted on AWS EC2 Centos 7.

The procedure is the same for installing on physical machines or VM’s.

The installation uses the script install_vertica which sets up all the cluster nodes. It creates a system Linux user called dbadmin and a group called verticadba which installs all the required components. This user is created with Passwordless SSH in all nodes.

Prerequisites

To have a smooth installation the following prerequisite should be met:One XFS system used for Vertica data and catalog.

• Disk block size of 4K.
• Swap size of 2GB. 
• Kernel parameters are set by the install_vertica script, so no need to set them manually.
• SeLinux – Disabled
• RPM Packages:
  sudo yum -y install dialog

sudo yum -y install openssh

sudo yum -y install which

sudo yum -y install gdb

sudo yum -y install mcelog

sudo yum -y install sysstat

sudo yum -y install mcelog

• Linux user with Passwordless sudo privileges on root to run the install_vertica script.
• Firewall rules and ports to open:

• Environment variables for /home/dbadmin :
  export TZ=”UTC”   ( or other time zone that you choose)

export LANG=en_US.UTF-8

For full details read here

2. Download and Install Vertical 10 Community Edition
Download the software on to one of the nodes and install the rpm.
rpm -Uvh
The install_vertica script will copy it to the other nodes and install the rpm as well.
You can copy the RPM to all nodes in the same location in case you want to save time .

3. Install Vertica on all cluster nodes

run :
sudo /opt/vertica/sbin/install_vertica –hosts vertica-01,vertica-02,vertica-03             –rpm /home/alon/vertica-10.0.0-0.x86_64.RHEL6.rpm             –dba-user dbadmin –failure-threshold FAIL

Vertica Analytic Database 10.0.0-0 Installation Tool

AWS Detected. Using AWS defaults.

    AWS Default: –data-dir was not specified, using default: /vertica/data

    AWS Default: –dba-user-password-disabled was not specified,  disabling dba password by default while on AWS

    AWS Default: –point-to-point was not specified,  enabling point-to-point spread communication by default while on AWS

>> Validating options…

Mapping hostnames in –hosts (-s) to addresses…

        vertica-01                     => 172.31.61.17

        vertica-02                     => 172.31.55.76

        vertica-03                     => 172.31.51.152

>> Starting installation tasks.

>> Getting system information for cluster (this may take a while)…

Enter password for alon@172.31.55.76 (3 attempts left):

Default shell on nodes:

172.31.61.17 /bin/bash

172.31.55.76 /bin/bash

172.31.51.152 /bin/bash

>> Validating software versions (rpm or deb)…

>> Beginning new cluster creation…

successfully backed up admintools.conf on 172.31.61.17

>> Creating or validating DB Admin user/group…

Successful on hosts (3): 172.31.61.17 172.31.55.76 172.31.51.152

    Provided DB Admin account details: user = dbadmin, group = verticadba, home = /home/dbadmin

    Creating group… Group already exists

    Validating group… Okay

    Creating user… User already exists

    Validating user… Okay

>> Validating node and cluster prerequisites…

Prerequisites not fully met during local (OS) configuration for

verify-172.31.61.17.xml:

    WARN (S0112): https://www.vertica.com/docs/10.0.x/HTML/index.htm#cshid=S0112

        WARN(eS0112): vm.swappiness is higher than recommended: your 30 > 1

Prerequisites not fully met during local (OS) configuration for

verify-172.31.55.76.xml:

    WARN (S0112): https://www.vertica.com/docs/10.0.x/HTML/index.htm#cshid=S0112

        WARN(eS0112): vm.swappiness is higher than recommended: your 30 > 1

Prerequisites not fully met during local (OS) configuration for

verify-172.31.51.152.xml:

    WARN (S0112): https://www.vertica.com/docs/10.0.x/HTML/index.htm#cshid=S0112

        WARN(eS0112): vm.swappiness is higher than recommended: your 30 > 1

System prerequisites passed.  Threshold = FAIL

>> Establishing DB Admin SSH connectivity…

Installing/Repairing SSH keys for dbadmin

>> Setting up each node and modifying cluster…

Creating Vertica Data Directory…

Updating agent…

Creating node node0001 definition for host 172.31.61.17

… Done

Creating node node0002 definition for host 172.31.55.76

… Done

Creating node node0003 definition for host 172.31.51.152

… Done

>> Sending new cluster configuration to all nodes…

Starting or restarting agent…

>> Completing installation…

Running upgrade logic

Installation complete.

Please evaluate your hardware using Vertica’s validation tools:

    https://www.vertica.com/docs/10.0.x/HTML/index.htm#cshid=VALSCRIPT

To create a database:

1. Logout and login as dbadmin. (see note below)
2. Run /opt/vertica/bin/adminTools as dbadmin
3. Select Create Database from the Configuration Menu

  Note: Installation may have made configuration changes to dbadmin

  that do not take effect until the next session (logout and login).

To add or remove hosts, select Cluster Management from the Advanced Menu. the above warnings/errors and re-run installation.

****

You can run the tool to ignore the less serious  warnings (like having slight bigger swap size than required) using the flag:

–failure-threshold FAIL

4. Cluster Installation Done

5. Create the Database

• Connect as dbadmin to the Linux machine
  It should present a UI like this :