CLI tools

CrateDB ships with command-line interface (CLI) tools (also referred to as executables) in the bin directory.

If your working directory is CRATE_HOME, you can run an executable like this:

sh$ bin/crate

Otherwise, you can run:

sh$ <PATH_TO_CRATE_HOME>/bin/crate

Here, replace <PATH_TO_CRATE_HOME> with a path to CRATE_HOME.

Alternatively, if the CrateDB bin directory is on your PATH, you can run an executable directly:

sh$ crate

Table of contents

crate

The crate executable runs the CrateDB daemon.

See also

This section is a low-level command reference. For help installing CrateDB for the first time, check out the CrateDB installation tutorial. Alternatively, consult the deployment guide for help running CrateDB in production.

Synopsis

sh$ bin/crate [-dhvCDX] [-p <PID_FILE>]

Options

Option	Description
-d	Start the daemon in the background
-h	Print usage information
-p <PID_FILE>	Log the PID to a file
-v	Print version information
-C	Set a CrateDB configuration value (overrides configuration file)
-D	Set a Java system property value
-X	Set a nonstandard java option

Signal handling

The CrateDB process can handle the following signals.

Signal	Description
TERM	Terminates the process
INT	Terminates the process

Tip

The TERM signal stops CrateDB immediately. As a result, pending requests may fail. To ensure that CrateDB finishes handling pending requests before the node is stopped, you can, instead, perform a graceful stop with the DECOMMISSION statement.

Example

The simplest way to start a CrateDB instance is to invoke crate without parameters:

sh$ bin/crate

This command starts the process in the foreground.

You can also start CrateDB in the background with the -d option. When doing this, it’s helpful to write the process ID (PID) to a PID file with the -p option. So, in combination:

sh$ bin/crate -d -p crate.pid

To stop the process, send a TERM signal using the PID file, like so:

sh$ kill -TERM `cat crate.pid`

crate-node

The crate-node executable is a tool that can help you:

• Repurpose a node

• Perform an unsafe cluster bootstrap

• Detach a node from its cluster

See also

This section is a low-level command reference. For help using crate-node, consult the troubleshooting guide.

Synopsis

sh$ bin/crate-node repurpose|unsafe-bootstrap|detach-cluster
[--ordinal <INT>] [-E <KV_PAIR>]
[-h, --help] ([-s, --silent] | [-v, --verbose])

Commands

Command	Description
repurpose	Clean up any unnecessary data on disk after changing the role of a node.
unsafe-bootstrap	Force the election of a master and create a new cluster in the event of losing the majority of master-eligible nodes.
detach-cluster	Detach a node from a cluster so that it can join a new one.
remove-settings	Remove persistent settings from the cluster state in case where it contains incompatible settings that prevent the cluster from forming.
override-version	Override the version number stored in the data path to be able to force a node to startup even when the node version is not compatible with the meta data.

Options

Option	Description
--ordinal <INT>	Specify which node to target if there is more than one node sharing a data path
-E <KV_PAIR>	Configures a setting using a key-value (KV) pair
-h, --help	Return all of the command parameters
-s, --silent	Show minimal output
-v, --verbose	Shows verbose output