Node-specific settings

Table of contents

Basics

cluster.name

Default: crate

Runtime: no

The name of the CrateDB cluster the node should join to.

node.name

Runtime: no

The name of the node. If no name is configured a random one will be generated.

Note

Node names must be unique in a CrateDB cluster.

node.max_local_storage_nodes

Default: 1

Runtime: no

Defines how many nodes are allowed to be started on the same machine using the same configured data path defined via path.data.

This setting is deprecated and will be removed with CrateDB 5.0. You should instead set different path.data values if you intend to run multiple CrateDB processes on the same machine.

node.store.allow_mmap

Default: true

Runtime: no

The setting indicates whether or not memory-mapping is allowed.

Node types

CrateDB supports different types of nodes.

The following settings can be used to differentiate nodes upon startup:

node.master

Default: true

Runtime: no

Whether or not this node is able to get elected as master node in the cluster.

node.data

Default: true

Runtime: no

Whether or not this node will store data.

Using different combinations of these two settings, you can create four different types of node. Each type of node is differentiated by what types of load it will handle.

Tabulating the truth values for node.master and node.data produces a truth table outlining the four different types of node:

	Master	No master
Data	Handle all loads.	Handles client requests and query execution.
No data	Handles cluster management.	Handles client requests.

Nodes marked as node.master will only handle cluster management if they are elected as the cluster master. All other loads are shared equally.

Read-only node

node.sql.read_only

Default: false

Runtime: no

If set to true, the node will only allow SQL statements which are resulting in read operations.

Hosts

network.host

Default: _local_

Runtime: no

The IP address CrateDB will bind itself to. This setting sets both the network.bind_host and network.publish_host values.

network.bind_host

Default: _local_

Runtime: no

This setting determines to which address CrateDB should bind itself to.

network.publish_host

Default: _local_

Runtime: no

This setting is used by a CrateDB node to publish its own address to the rest of the cluster.

Tip

Apart from IPv4 and IPv6 addresses there are some special values that can be used for all above settings:

_local_	Any loopback addresses on the system, for example 127.0.0.1.
_site_	Any site-local addresses on the system, for example 192.168.0.1.
_global_	Any globally-scoped addresses on the system, for example 8.8.8.8.
_[INTERFACE]_	Addresses of a network interface, for example _en0_.

Ports

http.port

Runtime: no

This defines the TCP port range to which the CrateDB HTTP service will be bound to. It defaults to 4200-4300. Always the first free port in this range is used. If this is set to an integer value it is considered as an explicit single port.

The HTTP protocol is used for the REST endpoint which is used by all clients except the Java client.

http.publish_port

Runtime: no

The port HTTP clients should use to communicate with the node. It is necessary to define this setting if the bound HTTP port (http.port) of the node is not directly reachable from outside, e.g. running it behind a firewall or inside a Docker container.

transport.tcp.port

Runtime: no

This defines the TCP port range to which the CrateDB transport service will be bound to. It defaults to 4300-4400. Always the first free port in this range is used. If this is set to an integer value it is considered as an explicit single port.

The transport protocol is used for internal node-to-node communication.

transport.publish_port

Runtime: no

The port that the node publishes to the cluster for its own discovery. It is necessary to define this setting when the bound tranport port (transport.tcp.port) of the node is not directly reachable from outside, e.g. running it behind a firewall or inside a Docker container.

psql.port

Runtime: no

This defines the TCP port range to which the CrateDB Postgres service will be bound to. It defaults to 5432-5532. Always the first free port in this range is used. If this is set to an integer value it is considered as an explicit single port.

Paths

Note

Relative paths are relative to CRATE_HOME. Absolute paths override this behavior.

path.conf

Default: config

Runtime: no

Filesystem path to the directory containing the configuration files crate.yml and log4j2.properties.

path.data

Default: data

Runtime: no

Filesystem path to the directory where this CrateDB node stores its data (table data and cluster metadata).

Multiple paths can be set by using a comma separated list and each of these paths will hold full shards (instead of striping data across them). For example:

path.data: /path/to/data1,/path/to/data2

When CrateDB finds striped shards at the provided locations (from CrateDB <0.55.0), these shards will be migrated automatically on startup.

path.logs

Default: logs

Runtime: no

Filesystem path to a directory where log files should be stored.

Can be used as a variable inside log4j2.properties.

For example:

appender:
  file:
    file: ${path.logs}/${cluster.name}.log

path.repo

Runtime: no

A list of filesystem or UNC paths where repositories of type fs may be stored.

Without this setting a CrateDB user could write snapshot files to any directory that is writable by the CrateDB process. To safeguard against this security issue, the possible paths have to be whitelisted here.

See also location setting of repository type fs.

See also

blobs.path

Plug-ins

plugin.mandatory

Runtime: no

A list of plug-ins that are required for a node to startup.

If any plug-in listed here is missing, the CrateDB node will fail to start.

CPU

processors

Runtime: no

The number of processors is used to set the size of the thread pools CrateDB is using appropriately. If not set explicitly, CrateDB will infer the number from the available processors on the system.

In environments where the CPU amount can be restricted (like Docker) or when multiple CrateDB instances are running on the same hardware, the inferred number might be too high. In such a case, it is recommended to set the value explicitly.

Memory

bootstrap.memory_lock

Default: false

Runtime: no

CrateDB performs poorly when the JVM starts swapping: you should ensure that it never swaps. If set to true, CrateDB will use the mlockall system call on startup to ensure that the memory pages of the CrateDB process are locked into RAM.

Garbage collection

CrateDB logs if JVM garbage collection on different memory pools takes too long. The following settings can be used to adjust these timeouts:

monitor.jvm.gc.collector.young.warn

Default: 1000ms

Runtime: no

CrateDB will log a warning message if it takes more than the configured timespan to collect the Eden Space (heap).

monitor.jvm.gc.collector.young.info

Default: 700ms

Runtime: no

CrateDB will log an info message if it takes more than the configured timespan to collect the Eden Space (heap).

monitor.jvm.gc.collector.young.debug

Default: 400ms

Runtime: no

CrateDB will log a debug message if it takes more than the configured timespan to collect the Eden Space (heap).

monitor.jvm.gc.collector.old.warn

Default: 10000ms

Runtime: no

CrateDB will log a warning message if it takes more than the configured timespan to collect the Old Gen / Tenured Gen (heap).

monitor.jvm.gc.collector.old.info

Default: 5000ms

Runtime: no

CrateDB will log an info message if it takes more than the configured timespan to collect the Old Gen / Tenured Gen (heap).

monitor.jvm.gc.collector.old.debug

Default: 2000ms

Runtime: no

CrateDB will log a debug message if it takes more than the configured timespan to collect the Old Gen / Tenured Gen (heap).

Authentication

Trust authentication

auth.trust.http_default_user

Default: crate

Runtime: no

The default user that should be used for authentication when clients connect to CrateDB via HTTP protocol and they do not specify a user via the Authorization request header.

Host-based authentication

Authentication settings (auth.host_based.*) are node settings, which means that their values apply only to the node where they are applied and different nodes may have different authentication settings.

auth.host_based.enabled

Default: false

Runtime: no

Setting to enable or disable Host Based Authentication (HBA). It is disabled by default.

HBA entries

The auth.host_based.config. setting is a group setting that can have zero, one or multiple groups that are defined by their group key (${order}) and their fields (user, address, method, protocol, ssl).

${order}:

An identifier that is used as a natural order key when looking up the host

based configuration entries. For example, an order key of a will be

looked up before an order key of b. This key guarantees that the entry

lookup order will remain independent from the insertion order of the

entries.

The Host-Based Authentication (HBA) setting is a list of predicates that users can specify to restrict or allow access to CrateDB.

The meaning of the fields of the are as follows:

auth.host_based.config.${order}.user

Runtime: no

Specifies an existing CrateDB username, only crate user (superuser) is

available. If no user is specified in the entry, then all existing users

can have access.

auth.host_based.config.${order}.address

Runtime: no

The client machine addresses that the client matches, and which are allowed

to authenticate. This field may contain an IPv4 address, an IPv6 address or

an IPv4 CIDR mask. For example: 127.0.0.1 or 127.0.0.1/32. It also

may contain a hostname or the special _local_ notation which will match

both IPv4 and IPv6 connections from localhost. A hostname specification

that starts with a dot (.) matches a suffix of the actual hostname.

So .crate.io would match foo.crate.io but not just crate.io. If no address

is specified in the entry, then access to CrateDB is open for all hosts.

auth.host_based.config.${order}.method

Runtime: no

The authentication method to use when a connection matches this entry.

Valid values are trust, cert, and password. If no method is

specified, the trust method is used by default.

See Trust method, Client certificate authentication method and Password authentication method for more

information about these methods.

auth.host_based.config.${order}.protocol

Runtime: no

Specifies the protocol for which the authentication entry should be used.

If no protocol is specified, then this entry will be valid for all

protocols that rely on host based authentication see Trust method).

auth.host_based.config.${order}.ssl

Default: optional

Runtime: no

Specifies whether the client must use SSL/TLS to connect to the cluster.

If set to on then the client must be connected through SSL/TLS

otherwise is not authenticated. If set to off then the client must

not be connected via SSL/TLS otherwise is not authenticated. Finally

optional, which is the value when the option is completely skipped,

means that the client can be authenticated regardless of SSL/TLS is used

or not.

Example of config groups:

auth.host_based.config:
  entry_a:
    user: crate
    address: 127.16.0.0/16
  entry_b:
    method: trust
  entry_3:
    user: crate
    address: 172.16.0.0/16
    method: trust
    protocol: pg
    ssl: on

Secured communications (SSL/TLS)

Secured communications via SSL allows you to encrypt traffic between CrateDB nodes and clients connecting to them. Connections are secured using Transport Layer Security (TLS).

ssl.http.enabled

Default: false

Runtime: no

Set this to true to enable secure communication between the CrateDB node and the client through SSL via the HTTPS protocol.

ssl.psql.enabled

Default: false

Runtime: no

Set this to true to enable secure communication between the CrateDB node and the client through SSL via the PostgreSQL wire protocol.

ssl.transport.mode

Default: legacy

Runtime: no

For communication between nodes, choose:

off

SSL cannot be used

legacy

SSL is not used. If HBA is enabled, transport connections won’t be verified Any reachable host can establish a connection.

on

SSL must be used

ssl.keystore_filepath

Runtime: no

The full path to the node keystore file.

ssl.keystore_password

Runtime: no

The password used to decrypt the keystore file defined with ssl.keystore_filepath.

ssl.keystore_key_password

Runtime: no

The password entered at the end of the keytool -genkey command.

Note

Optionally trusted CA certificates can be stored separately from the node’s keystore into a truststore for CA certificates.

ssl.truststore_filepath

Runtime: no

The full path to the node truststore file. If not defined, then only a keystore will be used.

ssl.truststore_password

Runtime: no

The password used to decrypt the truststore file defined with ssl.truststore_filepath.

ssl.resource_poll_interval

Default: 5m

Runtime: no

The frequency at which SSL files such as keystore and truststore are polled for changes.

Cross-origin resource sharing (CORS)

Many browsers support the same-origin policy which requires web applications to explicitly allow requests across origins. The cross-origin resource sharing settings in CrateDB allow for configuring these.

http.cors.enabled

Default: false

Runtime: no

Enable or disable cross-origin resource sharing.

http.cors.allow-origin

Default: <empty>

Runtime: no

Define allowed origins of a request. * allows any origin (which can be a substantial security risk) and by prepending a / the string will be treated as a regular expression. For example /https?:\/\/crate.io/ will allow requests from https://crate.io and https://crate.io. This setting disallows any origin by default.

http.cors.max-age

Default: 1728000 (20 days)

Runtime: no

Max cache age of a preflight request in seconds.

http.cors.allow-methods

Default: OPTIONS, HEAD, GET, POST, PUT, DELETE

Runtime: no

Allowed HTTP methods.

http.cors.allow-headers

Default: X-Requested-With, Content-Type, Content-Length

Runtime: no

Allowed HTTP headers.

http.cors.allow-credentials

Default: false

Runtime: no

Add the Access-Control-Allow-Credentials header to responses.

Blobs

blobs.path

Runtime: no

Path to a filesystem directory where to store blob data allocated for this node.

By default blobs will be stored under the same path as normal data. A relative path value is interpreted as relative to CRATE_HOME.

Repositories

Repositories are used to backup a CrateDB cluster.

repositories.url.allowed_urls

Runtime: no

This setting only applies to repositories of type url.

With this setting a list of urls can be specified which are allowed to be used if a repository of type url is created.

Wildcards are supported in the host, path, query and fragment parts.

This setting is a security measure to prevent access to arbitrary resources.

In addition, the supported protocols can be restricted using the repositories.url.supported_protocols setting.

repositories.url.supported_protocols

Default: http, https, ftp, file and jar

Runtime: no

A list of protocols that are supported by repositories of type url.

The jar protocol is used to access the contents of jar files. For more info, see the java JarURLConnection documentation.

See also the path.repo Setting.

Queries

indices.query.bool.max_clause_count

Default: 8192

Runtime: no

This setting defines the maximum number of elements an array can have so that the != ANY(), LIKE ANY(), ILIKE ANY(), NOT LIKE ANY() and the NOT ILIKE ANY() operators can be applied on it.

Note

Increasing this value to a large number (e.g. 10M) and applying those ANY operators on arrays of that length can lead to heavy memory, consumption which could cause nodes to crash with OutOfMemory exceptions.

JavaScript language

lang.js.enabled

Default: true

Runtime: no

Setting to enable or disable JavaScript UDF support.

Custom attributes

The node.attr namespace is a bag of custom attributes. Custom attributes can be used to control shard allocation.

You can create any attribute you want under this namespace, like node.attr.key: value. These attributes use the node.attr namespace to distinguish them from core node attribute like node.name.

Custom attributes are not validated by CrateDB, unlike core node attributes.