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:
Port | Protocol | Description |
22 | TCP | sshd |
5433 | TCP | Vertica client (vsql, ODBC, JDBC, etc) port. |
5433 | UDP | Vertica spread monitoring. |
5444 | TCP | Vertica |
5434 | TCP | Intra- and inter-cluster communication. |
5450 | TCP | Vertica |
4803 | TCP | Client connections. |
4803 | UDP | Daemon to daemon connections |
4804 | UDP | Daemon to daemon connections |
6543 | UDP | Monitor to daemon connection |
- 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:
- Logout and login as dbadmin. (see note below)
- Run /opt/vertica/bin/adminTools as dbadmin
- 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 :

- Run the admintool from /opt/vertica/bin/admintool
- Choose create database
- Choose the hosts that define the cluster
- Define the catalog and the data directory (same location should exists in all nodes)
- Give it a name and password
At the end the console output should look like :
Node Status: v_node0001: (DOWN) v_node0002: (DOWN) v_node0003: (UP)
Node Status: v_node0001: (DOWN) v_node0002: (DOWN) v_node0003: (UP)
Node Status: v_node0001: (DOWN) v_node0002: (DOWN) v_node0003: (UP)
Node Status: v_node0001: (DOWN) v_node0002: (DOWN) v_node0003: (UP)
Node Status: v_node0001: (DOWN) v_node0002: (DOWN) v_node0003: (UP)
Node Status: v_node0001: (DOWN) v_node0002: (DOWN) v_node0003: (UP)
Node Status: v_node0001: (UP) v_node0002: (UP) v_node0003: (UP)
Installing AWS package
Success: package AWS installed
Installing ComplexTypes package
Success: package ComplexTypes installed
Installing MachineLearning package
Success: package MachineLearning installed
Installing ParquetExport package
Success: package ParquetExport installed
Installing VFunctions package
Success: package VFunctions installed
Installing approximate package
Success: package approximate installed
Installing flextable package
Success: package flextable installed
Installing kafka package
Success: package kafka installed
Installing logsearch package
Success: package logsearch installed
Installing place package
Success: package place installed
Installing txtindex package
Success: package txtindex installed
Installing voltagesecure package
Success: package voltagesecure installed
Database creation SQL tasks completed successfully.
6. Create a user for remote login.
From one of the nodes connect to vsql using the password you set at the database creation.
vsql
CREATE USER test IDENTIFIED BY ‘’;
GRANT USAGE ON SCHEMA PUBLIC to test;
Done . Now you can connect to Vertica remotely using a client IDE like DBeaver