Configuration Guide

Whirr is configured using a properties file, and optionally using command line arguments when using the CLI. Command line arguments take precedence over properties specified in a properties file.

For example working configurations, please see the recipes in the recipes directory of the distribution.

General Options

Name Command line option Default Description
whirr.config --config none A filename of a properties file containing properties in this table. Note that Whirr properties specified in this file all have a whirr. prefix.
whirr.service-name --service-name The default service for launching clusters The name of the service to use. You only need to set this if you want to use a non-standard service launcher.
whirr.cluster-name --cluster-name none The name of the cluster to operate on. E.g. hadoopcluster. The cluster name is used to tag the instances in some cloud-specific way. For example, in Amazon it is used to form the security group name.

Instance Templates Options

Name Command line option Default Description
whirr.instance-templates --instance-templates none The number of instances to launch for each set of roles in a service. E.g. 1 nn+jt,10 dn+tt means one instance with the roles nn (namenode) and jt (jobtracker), and ten instances each with the roles dn (datanode) and tt (tasktracker). Note that currently a role may only be specified in a single group.
whirr.instance-templates-max-percent-failures --instance-templates-max-percent-failures none The percentage of successfully started instances for each set of roles. E.g. 100 nn+jt,60 dn+tt means all instances with the roles nn (namenode) and jt (jobtracker) has to be successfully started, and 60% of instances has to be successfully started each with the roles dn (datanode) and tt (tasktracker), otherwise a retry step is initiated with the number of nodes equal with the missing nodes per role compared to instance-templates value. If after the retry the percentage of successfully started instances is still behind the limit, then the cluster startup is considered invalid. In a valid cluster startup, with or without retry mechanism, all the failed nodes will be cleaned up immediately. Only the completely failed cluster may leave unterminated failed nodes. Default value is 100 for each roles, in that case we don't need to use this parameter at all. In case we would like to lower the limit from 100% to 60% for only the dd (datanode) and tt (tasktracker), then we can specify 60 dn+tt for the parameter and we may left the 100 nn+jt, from the beginning of the value.
whirr.instance-templates-minimum-number-of-instances --instance-templates-minimum-number-of-instances none The minimum number of successfully started instances for each set of roles. E.g. 1 nn+jt,6 dn+tt means 1 instance with the roles nn (namenode) and jt (jobtracker) has to be successfully started, and 6 instances has to be successfully started each with the roles dn (datanode) and tt (tasktracker), otherwise a retry step is initiated with the number of nodes equal with the missing nodes per role compared to instance-templates value. If after the retry the number of successfully started instances i still behind the limit, then the cluster startup is considered invalid. In a valid cluster startup, with or without retry mechanism, all the failed nodes will be cleaned up immediately. Only the completely failed cluster may leave unterminated failed nodes. Note that we may specify only 6 dd+tt, in that case the limit will be applied only to the specified role. Default value is 100 for each roles, in that case we don't need to use this parameter at all. In case we would like to lower the limit for only the dd (datanode) and tt (tasktracker), then we can specify 60 dn+tt for the parameter, skipping the 100 nn+jt.
whirr.max-startup-retries --max-startup-retries 1 The number of retries in case of insufficient successfully started instances.

Cloud Provider Options

Name Command line option Default Description
whirr.provider --provider aws-ec2 The name of the cloud provider. See the table below for possible provider names.
whirr.location-id --location-id none The location to launch instances in. If not specified then an arbitrary location will be chosen.
whirr.identity --identity none The cloud identity. See the table below for how this maps to the credentials for your provider.
whirr.credential --credential none The cloud credential. See the table below for how this maps to the credentials for your provider.
whirr.login-user --login-user none Override the default login user used to bootstrap whirr. E.g. ubuntu or myuser:mypass

BlobStore Provider Options

Name Command line option Default Description
whirr.blobstore-provider --blobstore-provider Computed from whirr.provider The name of the blobstore provider. All jclouds blobstore providers are supported
whirr.blobstore-identity --blobstore-identity whirr.identity The blobstore identity. See the table below for how this maps to the credentials for your provider.
whirr.blobstore-credential --blobstore-credential whirr.credential The blobstore credential. See the table below for how this maps to the credentials for your provider.
whirr.blobstore-location-id --blobstore-location-id As close as possible to the compute nodes The blobstore location ID

Cluster State Store Options

Name Command line option Default Description
whirr.state-store --state-store local What kind of store to use for cluster state (local, blob or none).
whirr.state-store-container --state-store-container none Container where to store state. Valid only for the blob state store.
whirr.state-store-blob --state-store-blob whirr-<whirr.cluster-name> Blob name for state storage. Valid only for the blob state store.

Instance Login Options

Name Command line option Default Description
whirr.cluster-user --cluster-user Current local user The name of the user that Whirr will create on all instances. This is the user you should use to access the cluster.
whirr.private-key-file --private-key-file ~/.ssh/id_rsa The filename of the private RSA SSH key used to connect to instances. Note: the public/private key must be set together, and must be passwordless.
whirr.public-key-file --public-key-file ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub The filename of the public RSA SSH key used to connect to instances. Note: the public/private key must be set together, and must be passwordless.

Image and Hardware Selection Options

Name Command line option Default Description
whirr.image-id --image-id none The ID of the image to use for instances. If not specified then a vanilla Linux image is chosen.
whirr.hardware-id --hardware-id none The type of hardware to use for the instance. This must be compatible with the image ID.
whirr.hardware-min-ram --hardware-min-ram 1024 The minimum amount of RAM each instance should have

Firewall Options

Name Command line option Default Description
whirr.client-cidrs --client-cidrs none A comma-separated list of CIDR blocks. E.g. 208.128.0.0/11,108.128.0.0/11

Cloud provider specific configuration

Compute Service Provider whirr.provider whirr.identity whirr.credential Notes
Amazon EC2 aws-ec2 Access Key ID Secret Access Key Used to form security Group (via jclouds tag)
Rackspace Cloud Servers cloudservers-us Username API Key Warning: clusters do not run behind a firewall.

Comparison with Python

See Using Command Line Options.

Python Java Notes
config-dir whirr.config
service whirr.service-name
none whirr.cluster-name Specified as a positional argument on the Python CLI.
none whirr.instance-templates Specified as a positional arguments on the Python CLI.
cloud-provider whirr.provider
none whirr.identity Specified using environment variables for Python. E.g. AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID, RACKSPACE_KEY
none whirr.credential Specified using environment variables for Python. E.g. AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID, RACKSPACE_SECRET
private-key whirr.private-key-file
public-key whirr.public-key-file
client-cidr whirr.client-cidrs Python's client-cidr option may be repeated multiple times, whereas Java's whirr.client-cidrs contains comma-separated CIDRs.
none whirr.run-url-base Specified using user-data-file in Python.
image-id whirr.image-id
instance-type whirr.hardware-id
availability-zone whirr.location-id Location is more general than availability zone.
security-group none Amazon-specific. However, Amazon users may wish to start a cluster in additional security groups, which isn't currently supported in Java.
env none May not be needed in Java with runurls.
user-data-file none Amazon-specific. Use runurls.
key-name none Amazon-specific. Jclouds generates a new key for clusters.
user-packages none Implement by allowing arbitrary runurls.
auto-shutdown none Implement by allowing arbitrary runurls.
ssh-options none Jclouds handles SSH, so not needed in Java.