How To Install Apache Cassandra on AlmaLinux 8

In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Apache Cassandra on AlmaLinux 8. For those of you who didn’t know, Apache Cassandra is a free and open-source distributed NoSQL database management system. Generally, it is used as a real-time data store for transactional applications and as a read-intensive database. It supports relational databases including MySQL, PostgreSQL, and Microsoft SQL.

This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of Apache Cassandra on an AlmaLinux 8. You can follow the same instructions for CentOS and Rocky Linux.

Prerequisites

• A server running one of the following operating systems: AlmaLinux 8.
• It’s recommended that you use a fresh OS install to prevent any potential issues.
• SSH access to the server (or just open Terminal if you’re on a desktop).
• A non-root sudo user or access to the root user. We recommend acting as a non-root sudo user, however, as you can harm your system if you’re not careful when acting as the root.

Install Apache Cassandra on AlmaLinux 8

Step 1. First, let’s start by ensuring your system is up-to-date.

sudo dnf update
sudo dnf install epel-release
sudo install dnf-plugins-core

Step 2. Installing Java.

Apache Cassandra requires Java 8 to function. Run the following command below to install Java 8 to your AlmaLinux system:

sudo dnf install java-1.8.0-openjdk java-1.8.0-openjdk-devel

Confirm the installation of Java:

java -version

You will also need to install cqlsh utility to your AlmaLinux system. You can install it using the following command:

pip2 install cqlsh

Confirm the installation of cqlsh:

cqlsh --version

Step 3. Installing Apache Cassandra on AlmaLinux 8.

By default, Apache Cassandra is not available on AlmaLinux 8 base repository. Now run the following command to add the Apache Cassandra repository:

nano /etc/yum.repos.d/cassandra.repo

Add the following lines:

[cassandra]
name=Apache Cassandra
baseurl=https://www.apache.org/dist/cassandra/redhat/40x/
gpgcheck=1
repo_gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=https://www.apache.org/dist/cassandra/KEYS

Save and close the file then, install Apache Cassandra with the command below:

sudo dnf update
sudo dnf install cassandra

Step 4. Create a Systemd Unit file for Cassandra.

Now we create a systemd service file to manage the Apache Cassandra service:

nano /etc/systemd/system/cassandra.service

Add the following lines:

[Unit]
Description=Apache Cassandra
After=network.target

[Service]
PIDFile=/var/run/cassandra/cassandra.pid
User=cassandra
Group=cassandra
ExecStart=/usr/sbin/cassandra -f -p /var/run/cassandra/cassandra.pid
Restart=always

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Save and close the file, then start and enable the service to start at boot:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl start cassandra
sudo systemctl enable cassandra

You can also verify that Cassandra is running with the command below:

nodetool status

Output:

Datacenter: datacenter1
=======================
Status=Up/Down
|/ State=Normal/Leaving/Joining/Moving
--  Address    Load       Tokens  Owns (effective)  Host ID                               Rack
UN  127.0.0.1  46.36 KiB  16      100.0%            4fGDTe-2af9-4841-98hdp-bff03m0dc5     rack1

You can also connect to Cassandra with the following command:

cqlsh

Step 5. Change Cassandra Cluster Name.

Finally, in order to change the Cassandra cluster name, connect to Cassandra with the following command:

cqlsh

Replace the [clustername] with your new cluster name in the command below:

cqlsh> UPDATE system.local SET cluster_name = 'idroot cluster' WHERE KEY = 'local';

Next, exit from the Cassandra shell:

cqlsh> exit

After that, edit the Apache Cassandra main configuration file:

sudo nano /etc/cassandra/conf/cassandra.yaml

Replace the value of the variable cluster_name with the name of your choosing:

cluster_name: 'idroot cluster'

Save and close the file, then restart Apache Cassandra to apply the changes:

sudo systemctl restart cassandra

Congratulations! You have successfully installed Apache Cassandra. Thanks for using this tutorial for installing Apache Cassandra on your AlmaLinux 8 system. For additional help or useful information, we recommend you check the official Apache website.