animesh kumar

Download

Go to Apache Cassandra download page, and get yourself a latest copy.
Link: http://cassandra.apache.org/download/

Once downloaded, extract the zip file to some directory, say, D:\iLabs\apache-cassandra-0.6.1

Minimal Setup

Cassandra keeps all important information in storage-conf.xml. We will talk about this in details later, for now, let’s just tell Cassandra where to store Logs and Data?

1. Let’s create a directory,

   D:\iLabs\cassanra-data

2. Create 2 subdirectories, one for Logs and another for Data.

   D:\iLabs\cassanra-data\commitlog
   D:\iLabs\cassanra-data\data

3. Modify D:/Lab/Cassandra/conf/storage-conf.xml for following information:

   <CommitLogDirectory>D:\iLabs\cassanra-data\commitlog</CommitLogDirectory>
   <DataFileDirectories>
   <DataFileDirectory>D:\iLabs\cassanra-data\data</DataFileDirectory>
   </DataFileDirectories>
   

Ignite the engine

1. Make sure that you have JAVA_HOME set correctly.
2. Also, make sure that port 8080 and 9160 is available. Generally, 9160 remains free, and Tomcat or Jboss might be running on 8080. Please shut down, Tomcat/Jboss or whatever server you have on 8080.
3. Open command prompt, and go to Cassandra directory: D:\iLabs\apache-cassandra-0.6.1
4. Run:

   D:\iLabs\apache-cassandra-0.6.1>bin\cassandra.bat -f
   Starting Cassandra Server
   Listening for transport dt_socket at address: 8888
   INFO 13:09:00,234 Auto DiskAccessMode determined to be standard
   INFO 13:09:00,531 Sampling index for D:\iLabs\cassanra-data\data\
   Keyspace1\Standard1-1-Data.db
   INFO 13:09:00,559 Sampling index for D:\iLabs\cassanra-data\data\
   system\LocationInfo-1-Data.db
   INFO 13:09:00,567 Replaying D:\iLabs\cassanra-data\commitlog\
   CommitLog-1274081403711.log
   INFO 13:09:00,607 Creating new commitlog segment D:/iLabs/cassanra-data/
   commitlog\CommitLog-1274081940607.log
   INFO 13:09:00,748 LocationInfo has reached its threshold; switching in a
   freshMemtable at CommitLogContext(file='D:/iLabs/cassanra-data/commitlog\
   CommitLog-1274081940607.log', position=133)
   INFO 13:09:00,752 Enqueuing flush of Memtable(LocationInfo)@20827431
   INFO 13:09:00,756 Writing Memtable(LocationInfo)@20827431
   INFO 13:09:00,948 Completed flushing D:\iLabs\cassanra-data\data\system\
   LocationInfo-2-Data.db
   INFO 13:09:00,996 Log replay complete
   INFO 13:09:01,046 Saved Token found: 23289801966927000784786040626191443480
   INFO 13:09:01,047 Saved ClusterName found: Test Cluster
   INFO 13:09:01,061 Starting up server gossip
   INFO 13:09:01,128 Binding thrift service to localhost/127.0.0.1:9160
   INFO 13:09:01,136 Cassandra starting up...
   

Hallelujah! Engine is revved up.

Note: it’s listening to localhost/port:9160.

Let’s prance!

Cassandra distribution comes with Cassandra CLI, which is interactive command line tool. We will use this tool to test our server.

1. Open another command prompt, and go to Cassandra directory: D:\iLabs\apache-cassandra-0.6.1
2. Run:

   D:\iLabs\apache-cassandra-0.6.1>bin\cassandra-cli.bat
   Starting Cassandra Client
   Welcome to cassandra CLI.
   Type 'help' or '?' for help. Type 'quit' or 'exit' to quit.
   cassandra>

3. Now, connect with the server:

   cassandra> connect localhost/9160
   Connected to: "Test Cluster" on localhost/9160

4. Insert a key/value:

   cassandra> set Keyspace1.Standard1['0']['msg'] = 'Hello World!'
   Value inserted.

5. Query it back:

   cassandra> get Keyspace1.Standard1['0']['msg']
   => (column=6d7367, value=Hello World!, timestamp=1274086005825000)

We have successfully connected to Cassandra server, inserted a value, and fetched it back. But, few things might have been overwhelming, right? Let’s try to understand that.
Let’s have a quick look at the schema. Remember, it is defined in the same file we modified earlier in the setup step: D:/Lab/Cassandra/conf/storage-conf.xml
You will notice below entry there:

<Keyspace Name="Keyspace1">
<ColumnFamily Name="Standard1" CompareWith="BytesType" />

...
</Keyspace>

Keyspace1 is the name of the schema, Standard1 is a collection of rows, and each row has an ordered set of key-value pairs. We will learn more about Keyspaces and Data Schemas in the next blog.