gpinitsystem

gpinitsystem

Initializes a Greenplum Database system using configuration parameters specified in the gpinitsystem_config file.

Synopsis

gpinitsystem -c gpinitsystem_config

[-h hostfile_gpinitsystem]

[-B parallel_processes]

[-p postgresql_conf_param_file]

[-s standby_master_host]

[--max_connections=number] [--shared_buffers=size]

[--locale=locale] [--lc-collate=locale]

[--lc-ctype=locale] [--lc-messages=locale]

[--lc-monetary=locale] [--lc-numeric=locale]

[--lc-time=locale] [--su_password=password]

[-S] [-a] [-q] [-l logfile_directory] [-D]

gpinitsystem -?

gpinitsystem -v

Description

The gpinitsystem utility will create a Greenplum Database instance using the values defined in a configuration file. See “Initialization Configuration File Format” on page 69 for more information about this configuration file. Before running this utility, make sure that you have installed the Greenplum Database software on all the hosts in the array.

In a Greenplum Database DBMS, each database instance (the master and all segments) must be initialized across all of the hosts in the system in such a way that they can all work together as a unified DBMS. The gpinitsystem utility takes care of initializing the Greenplum master and each segment instance, and configuring the system as a whole.

Before running gpinitsystem, you must set the $GPHOME environment variable to point to the location of your Greenplum Database installation on the master host and exchange SSH keys between all host addresses in the array using gpssh-exkeys.

This utility performs the following tasks:

•Verifies that the parameters in the configuration file are correct.

•Ensures that a connection can be established to each host address. If a host address cannot be reached, the utility will exit.

•Verifies the locale settings.

•Displays the configuration that will be used and prompts the user for confirmation.

•Initializes the master instance.

•Initializes the standby master instance (if specified).

•Initializes the primary segment instances.

•Initializes the mirror segment instances (if mirroring is configured).

•Configures the Greenplum Database system and checks for errors.

•Starts the Greenplum Database system.

Options

-a (do not prompt)

Do not prompt the user for confirmation.

-B parallel_processes

The number of segments to create in parallel. If not specified, the utility will start up to 4 parallel processes at a time.

-c gpinitsystem_config

Required. The full path and filename of the configuration file, which contains all of the defined parameters to configure and initialize a new Greenplum system. See “Initialization Configuration File Format” on page 69 for a description of this file.

-D (debug)

Sets log output level to debug.

-h hostfile_gpinitsystem

Optional. The full path and filename of a file that contains the host addresses of your segment hosts. If not specified on the command line, you can specify the host file using the MACHINE_LIST_FILE parameter in the gpinitsystem_config file.

--locale=locale | -n locale

Sets the default locale used by Greenplum Database. If not specified, the LC_ALL, LC_COLLATE, or LANG environment variable of the master host determines the locale. If these are not set, the default locale is C (POSIX). A locale identifier consists of a language identifier and a region identifier, and optionally a character set encoding. For example, sv_SE is Swedish as spoken in Sweden, en_US is U.S. English, and fr_CA is French Canadian. If more than one character set can be useful for a locale, then the specifications look like this: en_US.UTF-8 (locale specification and character set encoding). On most systems, the command locale will show the locale environment settings and locale -a will show a list of all available locales.

--lc-collate=locale

Similar to --locale, but sets the locale used for collation (sorting data). The sort order cannot be changed after Greenplum Database is initialized, so it is important to choose a collation locale that is compatible with the character set encodings that you plan to use for your data. There is a special collation name of C or POSIX (byte-order sorting as opposed to dictionary-order sorting). The C collation can be used with any character encoding.

--lc-ctype=locale

Similar to --locale, but sets the locale used for character classification (what character sequences are valid and how they are interpreted). This cannot be changed after Greenplum Database is initialized, so it is important to choose a character classification locale that is compatible with the data you plan to store in Greenplum Database.

--lc-messages=locale

Similar to --locale, but sets the locale used for messages output by Greenplum Database. The current version of Greenplum Database does not support multiple locales for output messages (all messages are in English), so changing this setting will not have any effect.

--lc-monetary=locale

Similar to --locale, but sets the locale used for formatting currency amounts.

--lc-numeric=locale

Similar to --locale, but sets the locale used for formatting numbers.

--lc-time=locale

Similar to --locale, but sets the locale used for formatting dates and times.

-l logfile_directory

The directory to write the log file. Defaults to ~/gpAdminLogs.

--max_connections=number | -m number

Sets the maximum number of client connections allowed to the master. The default is 25.

-p postgresql_conf_param_file

Optional. The name of a file that contains postgresql.conf parameter settings that you want to set for Greenplum Database. These settings will be used when the individual master and segment instances are initialized. You can also set parameters after initialization using the gpconfig utility.

-q (no screen output)

Run in quiet mode. Command output is not displayed on the screen, but is still written to the log file.

--shared_buffers=size | -b size

Sets the amount of memory a Greenplum server instance uses for shared memory buffers. You can specify sizing in kilobytes (kB), megabytes (MB) or gigabytes (GB). The default is 125MB.

-s standby_master_host

Optional. If you wish to configure a backup master host, specify the host name using this option. The Greenplum Database software must already be installed and configured on this host.

--su_password=superuser_password | -e superuser_password

Use this option to specify the password to set for the Greenplum Database superuser account (such as gpadmin). If this option is not specified, the default password gparray is assigned to the superuser account. You can use the ALTER ROLE command to change the password at a later time.

Recommended security best practices:

•Do not use the default password option for production environments.

•Change the password immediately after installation.

-S (spread mirror configuration)

If mirroring parameters are specified, spreads the mirror segments across the available hosts. The default is to group the set of mirror segments together on an alternate host from their primary segment set. Mirror spreading will place each mirror on a different host within the Greenplum Database array. Spreading is only allowed if there is a sufficient number of hosts in the array (number of hosts is greater than the number of segment instances).

-v (show utility version)

Displays the version of this utility.

-? (help)

Displays the online help.

Initialization Configuration File Format

gpinitsystem requires a configuration file with the following parameters defined. An example initialization configuration file can be found in $GPHOME/docs/cli_help/gpconfigs/gpinitsystem_config.

ARRAY_NAME

Required. A name for the array you are configuring. You can use any name you like. Enclose the name in quotes if the name contains spaces.

MACHINE_LIST_FILE

Optional. Can be used in place of the -h option. This specifies the file that contains the list of segment host address names that comprise the Greenplum system. The master host is assumed to be the host from which you are running the utility and should not be included in this file. If your segment hosts have multiple network interfaces, then this file would include all addresses for the host. Give the absolute path to the file.

SEG_PREFIX

Required. This specifies a prefix that will be used to name the data directories on the master and segment instances. The naming convention for data directories in a Greenplum Database system is SEG_PREFIXnumber where number starts with 0 for segment instances (the master is always -1). So for example, if you choose the prefix gpseg, your master instance data directory would be named gpseg-1, and the segment instances would be named gpseg0, gpseg1, gpseg2, gpseg3, and so on.

PORT_BASE

Required. This specifies the base number by which primary segment port numbers are calculated. The first primary segment port on a host is set as PORT_BASE, and then incremented by one for each additional primary segment on that host. Valid values range from 1 through 65535.

DATA_DIRECTORY

Required. This specifies the data storage location(s) where the utility will create the primary segment data directories. The number of locations in the list dictate the number of primary segments that will get created per physical host (if multiple addresses for a host are listed in the host file, the number of segments will be spread evenly across the specified interface addresses). It is OK to list the same data storage area multiple times if you want your data directories created in the same location. The user who runs gpinitsystem (for example, the gpadmin user) must have permission to write to these directories. For example, this will create six primary segments per host:

declare -a DATA_DIRECTORY=(/data1/primary /data1/primary /data1/primary /data2/primary /data2/primary /data2/primary)

MASTER_HOSTNAME

Required. The host name of the master instance. This host name must exactly match the configured host name of the machine (run the hostname command to determine the correct hostname).

MASTER_DIRECTORY

Required. This specifies the location where the data directory will be created on the master host. You must make sure that the user who runs gpinitsystem (for example, the gpadmin user) has permissions to write to this directory.

MASTER_PORT

Required. The port number for the master instance. This is the port number that users and client connections will use when accessing the Greenplum Database system.

TRUSTED_SHELL

Required. The shell the gpinitsystem utility uses to execute commands on remote hosts. Allowed values are ssh. You must set up your trusted host environment before running the gpinitsystem utility (you can use gpssh-exkeys to do this).

CHECK_POINT_SEGMENTS

Required. Maximum distance between automatic write ahead log (WAL) checkpoints, in log file segments (each segment is normally 16 megabytes). This will set the checkpoint_segments parameter in the postgresql.conf file for each segment instance in the Greenplum Database system.

ENCODING

Required. The character set encoding to use. This character set must be compatible with the --locale settings used, especially --lc-collate and --lc-ctype. Greenplum Database supports the same character sets as PostgreSQL.

DATABASE_NAME

Optional. The name of a Greenplum Database database to create after the system is initialized. You can always create a database later using the CREATE DATABASE command or the createdb utility.

MIRROR_PORT_BASE

Optional. This specifies the base number by which mirror segment port numbers are calculated. The first mirror segment port on a host is set as MIRROR_PORT_BASE, and then incremented by one for each additional mirror segment on that host. Valid values range from 1 through 65535 and cannot conflict with the ports calculated by PORT_BASE.

REPLICATION_PORT_BASE

Optional. This specifies the base number by which the port numbers for the primary file replication process are calculated. The first replication port on a host is set as REPLICATION_PORT_BASE, and then incremented by one for each additional primary segment on that host. Valid values range from 1 through 65535 and cannot conflict with the ports calculated by PORT_BASE or MIRROR_PORT_BASE.

MIRROR_REPLICATION_PORT_BASE

Optional. This specifies the base number by which the port numbers for the mirror file replication process are calculated. The first mirror replication port on a host is set as MIRROR_REPLICATION_PORT_BASE, and then incremented by one for each additional mirror segment on that host. Valid values range from 1 through 65535 and cannot conflict with the ports calculated by PORT_BASE, MIRROR_PORT_BASE, or REPLICATION_PORT_BASE.

MIRROR_DATA_DIRECTORY

Optional. This specifies the data storage location(s) where the utility will create the mirror segment data directories. There must be the same number of data directories declared for mirror segment instances as for primary segment instances (see the DATA_DIRECTORY parameter). The user who runs gpinitsystem (for example, the gpadmin user) must have permission to write to these directories. For example:

declare -a MIRROR_DATA_DIRECTORY=(/data1/mirror /data1/mirror /data1/mirror /data2/mirror /data2/mirror /data2/mirror)

Examples

Initialize a Greenplum Database array by supplying a configuration file and a segment host address file, and set up a spread mirroring (-S) configuration:

$ gpinitsystem -c gpinitsystem_config -h hostfile_gpinitsystem -S

Initialize a Greenplum Database array and set the superuser remote password:

$ gpinitsystem -c gpinitsystem_config -h hostfile_gpinitsystem --su-password=mypassword

Initialize a Greenplum Database array with an optional standby master host:

$ gpinitsystem -c gpinitsystem_config -h hostfile_gpinitsystem -s host09