# Deploy CockroachDB On-Premises (Insecure)

This tutorial shows you how to manually deploy an insecure multi-node CockroachDB cluster on multiple machines, using HAProxy load balancers to distribute client traffic.

If you plan to use CockroachDB in production, we strongly recommend using a secure cluster instead. Select Secure above for instructions.

Tip:

To try CockroachDB Cloud instead of running CockroachDB yourself, refer to the Cloud Quickstart.

## Before you begin

### Requirements

- You must have SSH access to each machine. This is necessary for distributing and starting CockroachDB binaries.

- Your network configuration must allow TCP communication on the following ports:

  - `26257` for intra-cluster and client-cluster communication
  - `8080` to expose your Admin UI

- Carefully review the Production Checklist and recommended Topology Patterns.

- Run each node on a separate machine. Since CockroachDB replicates across nodes, running more than one node per machine increases the risk of data loss if a machine fails. Likewise, if a machine has multiple disks or SSDs, run one node with multiple `--store` flags and not one node per disk. For more details about stores, see Start a Node.

- When starting each node, use the `--locality` flag to describe the node's location, for example, `--locality=region=west,zone=us-west-1`. The key-value pairs should be ordered from most to least inclusive, and the keys and order of key-value pairs must be the same on all nodes.

- When deploying in a single availability zone:

  - To be able to tolerate the failure of any 1 node, use at least 3 nodes with the `default` 3-way replication factor. In this case, if 1 node fails, each range retains 2 of its 3 replicas, a majority.
  - To be able to tolerate 2 simultaneous node failures, use at least 5 nodes and increase the `default` replication factor for user data to 5. The replication factor for important internal data is 5 by default, so no adjustments are needed for internal data. In this case, if 2 nodes fail at the same time, each range retains 3 of its 5 replicas, a majority.

- When deploying across multiple availability zones:

  - To be able to tolerate the failure of 1 entire AZ in a region, use at least 3 AZs per region and set `--locality` on each node to spread data evenly across regions and AZs. In this case, if 1 AZ goes offline, the 2 remaining AZs retain a majority of replicas.
  - To be able to tolerate the failure of 1 entire region, use at least 3 regions.

### Recommendations

- Consider using a secure cluster instead. Using an insecure cluster comes with risks:

  - Your cluster is open to any client that can access any node's IP addresses.
  - Any user, even `root`, can log in without providing a password.
  - Any user, connecting as `root`, can read or write any data in your cluster.
  - There is no network encryption or authentication, and thus no confidentiality.

- Decide how you want to access your Admin UI:

  Access Level | Description
  --- | ---
  Partially open | Set a firewall rule to allow only specific IP addresses to communicate on port `8080`.
  Completely open | Set a firewall rule to allow all IP addresses to communicate on port `8080`.
  Completely closed | Set a firewall rule to disallow all communication on port `8080`. In this case, a machine with SSH access to a node could use an SSH tunnel to access the Admin UI.

## Step 1. Synchronize clocks

CockroachDB requires moderate levels of clock synchronization to preserve data consistency. For this reason, when a node detects that its clock is out of sync with at least half of the other nodes in the cluster by 80% of the maximum offset allowed (500ms by default), it spontaneously shuts down. This avoids the risk of consistency anomalies, but it's best to prevent clocks from drifting too far in the first place by running clock synchronization software on each node.

`ntpd` should keep offsets in the single-digit milliseconds, so that software is featured here, but other methods of clock synchronization are suitable as well.

1. SSH to the first machine.

2. Disable `timesyncd`, which tends to be active by default on some Linux distributions:

       $ sudo timedatectl set-ntp no

   Verify that `timesyncd` is off:

       $ timedatectl

   Look for `Network time on: no` or `NTP enabled: no` in the output.

3. Install the `ntp` package:

       $ sudo apt-get install ntp

4. Stop the NTP daemon:

       $ sudo service ntp stop

5. Sync the machine's clock with Google's NTP service:

       $ sudo ntpd -b time.google.com

   To make this change permanent, in the `/etc/ntp.conf` file, remove or comment out any lines starting with `server` or `pool` and add the following lines:

       server time1.google.com iburst
       server time2.google.com iburst
       server time3.google.com iburst
       server time4.google.com iburst

   Restart the NTP daemon:

       $ sudo service ntp start

   Note:

   We recommend Google's NTP service because it handles "smearing" the leap second. If you use a different NTP service that doesn't smear the leap second, be sure to configure client-side smearing in the same way on each machine. See the Production Checklist for details.

6. Verify that the machine is using a Google NTP server:

       $ sudo ntpq -p

   The active NTP server will be marked with an asterisk.

7. Repeat these steps for each machine where a CockroachDB node will run.

## Step 2. Start nodes

You can start the nodes manually or automate the process using systemd.

For each initial node of your cluster, complete the following steps:

Note:

After completing these steps, nodes will not yet be live. They will complete the startup process and join together to form a cluster as soon as the cluster is initialized in the next step.

1. SSH to the machine where you want the node to run.

2. Download the CockroachDB archive for Linux, and extract the binary:

       $ curl https://binaries.cockroachdb.com/cockroach-v20.1.17.linux-amd64.tgz \
       | tar -xz

3. Copy the binary into the `PATH`:

       $ cp -i cockroach-v20.1.17.linux-amd64/cockroach /usr/local/bin/

   If you get a permissions error, prefix the command with `sudo`.

4. Run the `cockroach start` command:

       $ cockroach start \
       --insecure \
       --advertise-addr=<node1 address> \
       --join=<node1 address>,<node2 address>,<node3 address> \
       --cache=.25 \
       --max-sql-memory=.25 \
       --background

   This command primes the node to start, using the following flags:

   Flag | Description
   --- | ---
   `--insecure` | Indicates that the cluster is insecure, with no network encryption or authentication.
   `--advertise-addr` | Specifies the IP address/hostname and port to tell other nodes to use. The port number can be omitted, in which case it defaults to `26257`. This value must route to an IP address the node is listening on (with `--listen-addr` unspecified, the node listens on all IP addresses). In some networking scenarios, you may need to use `--advertise-addr` and/or `--listen-addr` differently. For more details, see Networking.
   `--join` | Identifies the address of 3-5 of the initial nodes of the cluster. These addresses should match the addresses that the target nodes are advertising.
   `--cache` `--max-sql-memory` | Increases the node's cache size to 25% of available system memory to improve read performance. The capacity for in-memory SQL processing defaults to 25% of system memory but can be raised, if necessary, to increase the number of simultaneous client connections allowed by the node as well as the node's capacity for in-memory processing of rows when using `ORDER BY`, `GROUP BY`, `DISTINCT`, joins, and window functions. For more details, see Cache and SQL Memory Size.
   `--background` | Starts the node in the background so you gain control of the terminal to issue more commands.

   When deploying across multiple datacenters, or when there is otherwise high latency between nodes, it is recommended to set `--locality` as well. It is also required to use certain enterprise features. For more details, see Locality.

   For other flags not explicitly set, the command uses default values. For example, the node stores data in `--store=cockroach-data` and binds Admin UI HTTP requests to `--http-addr=localhost:8080`. To set these options manually, see Start a Node.

5. Repeat these steps for each additional node that you want in your cluster.

For each initial node of your cluster, complete the following steps:

Note:
After completing these steps, nodes will not yet be live. They will complete the startup process and join together to form a cluster as soon as the cluster is initialized in the next step.

1. SSH to the machine where you want the node to run. Ensure you are logged in as the `root` user.

2. Download the CockroachDB archive for Linux, and extract the binary:

       $ curl https://binaries.cockroachdb.com/cockroach-v20.1.17.linux-amd64.tgz \
       | tar -xz

3. Copy the binary into the `PATH`:

       $ cp -i cockroach-v20.1.17.linux-amd64/cockroach /usr/local/bin/

   If you get a permissions error, prefix the command with `sudo`.

4. Create the Cockroach directory:

       $ mkdir /var/lib/cockroach

5. Create a Unix user named `cockroach`:

       $ useradd cockroach

6. Change the ownership of the `cockroach` directory to the user `cockroach`:

       $ chown cockroach /var/lib/cockroach

7. Download the sample configuration template and save the file in the `/etc/systemd/system/` directory:

       $ wget -qO- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cockroachdb/docs/master/_includes/v20.1/prod-deployment/insecurecockroachdb.service

   Alternatively, you can create the file yourself and copy the script into it:

       [Unit]
       Description=Cockroach Database cluster node
       Requires=network.target
       [Service]
       Type=notify
       WorkingDirectory=/var/lib/cockroach
       ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/cockroach start --insecure --advertise-addr=<node1 address> --join=<node1 address>,<node2 address>,<node3 address> --cache=.25 --max-sql-memory=.25
       TimeoutStopSec=60
       Restart=always
       RestartSec=10
       StandardOutput=syslog
       StandardError=syslog
       SyslogIdentifier=cockroach
       User=cockroach
       [Install]
       WantedBy=default.target

8. In the sample configuration template, specify values for the following flags:

   Flag | Description
   --- | ---
   `--advertise-addr` | Specifies the IP address/hostname and port to tell other nodes to use. The port number can be omitted, in which case it defaults to `26257`. This value must route to an IP address the node is listening on (with `--listen-addr` unspecified, the node listens on all IP addresses). In some networking scenarios, you may need to use `--advertise-addr` and/or `--listen-addr` differently. For more details, see Networking.
   `--join` | Identifies the address of 3-5 of the initial nodes of the cluster. These addresses should match the addresses that the target nodes are advertising.

   When deploying across multiple datacenters, or when there is otherwise high latency between nodes, it is recommended to set `--locality` as well. It is also required to use certain enterprise features. For more details, see Locality.

   For other flags not explicitly set, the command uses default values. For example, the node stores data in `--store=cockroach-data` and binds Admin UI HTTP requests to `--http-port=8080`. To set these options manually, see Start a Node.

9. Start the CockroachDB cluster:

       $ systemctl start insecurecockroachdb

10. Repeat these steps for each additional node that you want in your cluster.

Note:

`systemd` handles node restarts in case of node failure. To stop a node without `systemd` restarting it, run `systemctl stop insecurecockroachdb`

## Step 3. Initialize the cluster

On your local machine, complete the node startup process and have them join together as a cluster:

1. Install CockroachDB on your local machine, if you haven't already.

2. Run the `cockroach init` command, with the `--host` flag set to the address of any node:

       $ cockroach init --insecure --host=<address of any node>

   Each node then prints helpful details to the standard output, such as the CockroachDB version, the URL for the admin UI, and the SQL URL for clients.

## Step 4. Test the cluster

CockroachDB replicates and distributes data behind-the-scenes and uses a Gossip protocol to enable each node to locate data across the cluster. Once a cluster is live, any node can be used as a SQL gateway.

When using a load balancer, you should issue commands directly to the load balancer, which then routes traffic to the nodes.

Use the built-in SQL client locally as follows:

1. On your local machine, launch the built-in SQL client, with the `--host` flag set to the address of the load balancer:

       $ cockroach sql --insecure --host=<address of load balancer>

2. Create an `insecurenodetest` database:

       > CREATE DATABASE insecurenodetest;

3. View the cluster's databases, which will include `insecurenodetest`:

       > SHOW DATABASES;

       +--------------------+
       |      Database      |
       +--------------------+
       | crdb_internal      |
       | information_schema |
       | insecurenodetest   |
       | pg_catalog         |
       | system             |
       +--------------------+
       (5 rows)

4. Use `\q` to exit the SQL shell.

## Step 5. Set up load balancing

Each CockroachDB node is an equally suitable SQL gateway to your cluster, but to ensure client performance and reliability, it's important to use load balancing:

- Performance: Load balancers spread client traffic across nodes. This prevents any one node from being overwhelmed by requests and improves overall cluster performance (queries per second).

- Reliability: Load balancers decouple client health from the health of a single CockroachDB node. In cases where a node fails, the load balancer redirects client traffic to available nodes.

  Tip:
  With a single load balancer, client connections are resilient to node failure, but the load balancer itself is a point of failure. It's therefore best to make load balancing resilient as well by using multiple load balancing instances, with a mechanism like floating IPs or DNS to select load balancers for clients.

HAProxy is one of the most popular open-source TCP load balancers, and CockroachDB includes a built-in command for generating a configuration file that is preset to work with your running cluster, so we feature that tool here.

1. SSH to the machine where you want to run HAProxy.

2. Install HAProxy:

      $ apt-get install haproxy

1. Download the CockroachDB archive for Linux, and extract the binary:

       $ curl https://binaries.cockroachdb.com/cockroach-v20.1.17.linux-amd64.tgz \
       | tar -xz

2. Copy the binary into the `PATH`:

       $ cp -i cockroach-v20.1.17.linux-amd64/cockroach /usr/local/bin/

If you get a permissions error, prefix the command with `sudo`.

1. Run the `cockroach gen haproxy` command, specifying the address of any CockroachDB node:

       $ cockroach gen haproxy --insecure \
       --host=<address of any node> \
       --port=26257

   By default, the generated configuration file is called `haproxy.cfg` and looks as follows, with the `server` addresses pre-populated correctly:

       global
         maxconn 4096

       defaults
           mode                tcp
           # Timeout values should be configured for your specific use.
           # See: https://cbonte.github.io/haproxy-dconv/1.8/configuration.html#4-timeout%20connect
           timeout connect     10s
           timeout client      1m
           timeout server      1m
           # TCP keep-alive on client side. Server already enables them.
           option              clitcpka

       listen psql
           bind :26257
           mode tcp
           balance roundrobin
           option httpchk GET /health?ready=1
           server cockroach1 <node1 address>:26257 check port 8080
           server cockroach2 <node2 address>:26257 check port 8080
           server cockroach3 <node3 address>:26257 check port 8080

   The file is preset with the minimal configurations needed to work with your running cluster:

   Field | Description
   --- | ---
   `timeout connect` `timeout client` `timeout server` | Timeout values that should be suitable for most deployments.
   `bind` | The port that HAProxy listens on. This is the port clients will connect to and thus needs to be allowed by your network configuration. This tutorial assumes HAProxy is running on a separate machine from CockroachDB nodes. If you run HAProxy on the same machine as a node (not recommended), you'll need to change this port, as `26257` is likely already being used by the CockroachDB node.
   `balance` | The balancing algorithm. This is set to `roundrobin` to ensure that connections get rotated amongst nodes (connection 1 on node 1, connection 2 on node 2, etc.). Check the HAProxy Configuration Manual for details about this and other balancing algorithms.
   `option httpchk` | The HTTP endpoint that HAProxy uses to check node health. `/health?ready=1` ensures that HAProxy doesn't direct traffic to nodes that are live but not ready to receive requests.
   `server` | For each included node, this field specifies the address the node advertises to other nodes in the cluster, i.e., the addressed pass in the `--advertise-addr` flag on node startup. Make sure hostnames are resolvable and IP addresses are routable from HAProxy.

   Note:

   For full details on these and other configuration settings, see the HAProxy Configuration Manual.

2. Start HAProxy, with the `-f` flag pointing to the `haproxy.cfg` file:

      $ haproxy -f haproxy.cfg

1. Repeat these steps for each additional instance of HAProxy you want to run.

## Step 6. Run a sample workload

CockroachDB offers a pre-built `workload` binary for Linux that includes several load generators for simulating client traffic against your cluster. This step features CockroachDB's version of the TPC-C workload.

Note:

Be sure that you have set up an inbound rule that allows traffic from the application to the load balancer. In this case, you will run the sample workload on one of your instances. The traffic source for your inbound rule should therefore be the internal (private) IP address of that instance. To find this, open the Instances section of the Amazon EC2 console and click on the instance.

Tip:
For comprehensive guidance on benchmarking CockroachDB with TPC-C, see our Performance Benchmarking white paper.

1. SSH to the machine where you want to run the sample TPC-C workload.

   This should be a machine that is not running a CockroachDB node.

2. Download `workload` and make it executable:

       $ wget https://edge-binaries.cockroachdb.com/cockroach/workload.LATEST ; chmod 755 workload.LATEST

3. Rename and copy `workload` into the `PATH`:

       $ cp -i workload.LATEST /usr/local/bin/workload

4. Start the TPC-C workload, pointing it at the IP address of the load balancer:

       $ workload run tpcc \
       --drop \
       --init \
       --duration=20m \
       --tolerate-errors \
       "postgresql://root@<IP ADDRESS OF LOAD BALANCER>:26257/tpcc?sslmode=disable"

   This command runs the TPC-C workload against the cluster for 20 minutes, loading 1 "warehouse" of data initially and then issuing about 12 queries per minute via 10 "worker" threads. These workers share SQL connections since individual workers are idle for long periods of time between queries.

   Tip:
   For more `tpcc` options, use `workload run tpcc --help`. For details about other load generators included in `workload`, use `workload run --help`.

5. To monitor the load generator's progress, open the Admin UI by pointing a browser to the address in the `admin` field in the standard output of any node on startup.

   Since the load generator is pointed at the load balancer, the connections will be evenly distributed across nodes. To verify this, click Metrics on the left, select the SQL dashboard, and then check the SQL Connections graph. You can use the Graph menu to filter the graph for specific nodes.

## Step 7. Monitor the cluster

Despite CockroachDB's various built-in safeguards against failure, it is critical to actively monitor the overall health and performance of a cluster running in production and to create alerting rules that promptly send notifications when there are events that require investigation or intervention.

For details about available monitoring options and the most important events and metrics to alert on, see Monitoring and Alerting.

## Step 8. Scale the cluster

You can start the nodes manually or automate the process using systemd.

For each additional node you want to add to the cluster, complete the following steps:

1. SSH to the machine where you want the node to run.

2. Download the CockroachDB archive for Linux, and extract the binary:

       $ curl https://binaries.cockroachdb.com/cockroach-v20.1.17.linux-amd64.tgz \
       | tar -xz

3. Copy the binary into the `PATH`:

       $ cp -i cockroach-v20.1.17.linux-amd64/cockroach /usr/local/bin/

   If you get a permissions error, prefix the command with `sudo`.

4. Run the `cockroach start` command, passing the new node's address as the `--advertise-addr` flag and pointing `--join` to the three existing nodes (also include `--locality` if you set it earlier).

       $ cockroach start \
       --insecure \
       --advertise-addr=<node4 address> \
       --join=<node1 address>,<node2 address>,<node3 address> \
       --cache=.25 \
       --max-sql-memory=.25 \
       --background

5. Update your load balancer to recognize the new node.

For each additional node you want to add to the cluster, complete the following steps:

1. SSH to the machine where you want the node to run. Ensure you are logged in as the `root` user.

2. Download the CockroachDB archive for Linux, and extract the binary:

       $ curl https://binaries.cockroachdb.com/cockroach-v20.1.17.linux-amd64.tgz \
       | tar -xz

3. Copy the binary into the `PATH`:

       $ cp -i cockroach-v20.1.17.linux-amd64/cockroach /usr/local/bin/

   If you get a permissions error, prefix the command with `sudo`.

4. Create the Cockroach directory:

       $ mkdir /var/lib/cockroach

5. Create a Unix user named `cockroach`:

       $ useradd cockroach

6. Change the ownership of the `cockroach` directory to the user `cockroach`:

       $ chown cockroach /var/lib/cockroach

7. Download the sample configuration template:

       $ wget -qO- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cockroachdb/docs/master/_includes/v20.1/prod-deployment/insecurecockroachdb.service

   Alternatively, you can create the file yourself and copy the script into it:

       [Unit]
       Description=Cockroach Database cluster node
       Requires=network.target
       [Service]
       Type=notify
       WorkingDirectory=/var/lib/cockroach
       ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/cockroach start --insecure --advertise-addr=<node1 address> --join=<node1 address>,<node2 address>,<node3 address> --cache=.25 --max-sql-memory=.25
       TimeoutStopSec=60
       Restart=always
       RestartSec=10
       StandardOutput=syslog
       StandardError=syslog
       SyslogIdentifier=cockroach
       User=cockroach
       [Install]
       WantedBy=default.target

   Save the file in the `/etc/systemd/system/` directory

8. Customize the sample configuration template for your deployment:

   Specify values for the following flags in the sample configuration template:

   Flag | Description
   --- | ---
   `--advertise-addr` | Specifies the IP address/hostname and port to tell other nodes to use. The port number can be omitted, in which case it defaults to `26257`. This value must route to an IP address the node is listening on (with `--listen-addr` unspecified, the node listens on all IP addresses). In some networking scenarios, you may need to use `--advertise-addr` and/or `--listen-addr` differently. For more details, see Networking.
   `--join` | Identifies the address of 3-5 of the initial nodes of the cluster. These addresses should match the addresses that the target nodes are advertising.

9. Repeat these steps for each additional node that you want in your cluster.

## Step 9. Use the cluster

Now that your deployment is working, you can:

1. Implement your data model.
2. Create users and grant them privileges.
3. Connect your application. Be sure to connect your application to the load balancer, not to a CockroachDB node.

You may also want to adjust the way the cluster replicates data. For example, by default, a multi-node cluster replicates all data 3 times; you can change this replication factor or create additional rules for replicating individual databases and tables differently. For more information, see Configure Replication Zones.

Warning:

When running a cluster of 5 nodes or more, it's safest to increase the replication factor for important internal data to 5, even if you do not do so for user data. For the cluster as a whole to remain available, the ranges for this internal data must always retain a majority of their replicas.

## See also

- Production Checklist
- Manual Deployment
- Orchestrated Deployment
- Monitoring and Alerting
- Performance Benchmarking
- Performance Tuning
- Local Deployment