22.2.4 Initial Configuration of NDB Cluster

In this section, we discuss manual configuration of an installed NDB Cluster by creating and editing configuration files.

NDB Cluster also provides a GUI installer which can be used to perform the configuration without the need to edit text files in a separate application. For more information, see Section 22.2.1, “The NDB Cluster Auto-Installer”.

For our four-node, four-host NDB Cluster (see Cluster nodes and host computers), it is necessary to write four configuration files, one per node host.

Configuring the data nodes and SQL nodes.  The my.cnf file needed for the data nodes is fairly simple. The configuration file should be located in the /etc directory and can be edited using any text editor. (Create the file if it does not exist.) For example:

shell> vi /etc/my.cnf

For each data node and SQL node in our example setup, my.cnf should look like this:

[mysqld]
# Options for mysqld process:
ndbcluster                      # run NDB storage engine

[mysql_cluster]
# Options for NDB Cluster processes:
ndb-connectstring=198.51.100.10  # location of management server

After entering the preceding information, save this file and exit the text editor. Do this for the machines hosting data node “A”, data node “B”, and the SQL node.

Configuring the management node.  The first step in configuring the management node is to create the directory in which the configuration file can be found and then to create the file itself. For example (running as root):

shell> mkdir /var/lib/mysql-cluster
shell> cd /var/lib/mysql-cluster
shell> vi config.ini

For our representative setup, the config.ini file should read as follows:

[ndbd default]
# Options affecting ndbd processes on all data nodes:
NoOfReplicas=2    # Number of replicas
DataMemory=98M    # How much memory to allocate for data storage

[ndb_mgmd]
# Management process options:
HostName=198.51.100.10          # Hostname or IP address of MGM node
DataDir=/var/lib/mysql-cluster  # Directory for MGM node log files

[ndbd]
# Options for data node "A":
                                # (one [ndbd] section per data node)
HostName=198.51.100.30          # Hostname or IP address
NodeId=2                        # Node ID for this data node
DataDir=/usr/local/mysql/data   # Directory for this data node's data files

[ndbd]
# Options for data node "B":
HostName=198.51.100.40          # Hostname or IP address
NodeId=3                        # Node ID for this data node
DataDir=/usr/local/mysql/data   # Directory for this data node's data files

[mysqld]
# SQL node options:
HostName=198.51.100.20          # Hostname or IP address
                                # (additional mysqld connections can be
                                # specified for this node for various
                                # purposes such as running ndb_restore)

After all the configuration files have been created and these minimal options have been specified, you are ready to proceed with starting the cluster and verifying that all processes are running. We discuss how this is done in Section 22.2.5, “Initial Startup of NDB Cluster”.

For more detailed information about the available NDB Cluster configuration parameters and their uses, see Section 22.3.3, “NDB Cluster Configuration Files”, and Section 22.3, “Configuration of NDB Cluster”. For configuration of NDB Cluster as relates to making backups, see Section 22.5.3.3, “Configuration for NDB Cluster Backups”.