Configuration

Pilosa can be configured through command line flags, environment variables, and/or a configuration file; configured options take precedence in that order. So if an option is specified in a command line flag, it will take precedence over the same option specified in the environment, which will take precedence over that same option specified in the configuration file.

All options are available in all three configuration types with the exception of the --config option which specifies the location of the config file, and therefore will not be used if it is present in the config file.

The syntax for each option is slightly different between each of the configuration types, but follows a simple formula. See the following three sections for an explanation of each configuration type.

Command line flags

Pilosa uses GNU/POSIX style flags. Most flags you specify as --flagname=value although some have a short form that is a single character and can be specified with a single dash like -f value. Running pilosa server --help will give an overview of the available flags as well as their short forms (if applicable).

Environment variables

Every command line flag has a corresponding environment variable. The environment variable is the flag name in all caps, prefixed by PILOSA_, and with dots and dashes replaced by underscores. For example: --scope.flag-name becomes PILOSA_SCOPE_FLAG_NAME.

Config file

The config file is in the toml format and has exactly the same options available as the flags and environment variables. Any flag which contains a dot (“.”) denotes nesting within the config file, so the two flags --cluster.coordinator and --cluster.replicas=1 look like this in the config file:

[cluster]
  coordinator = true
  replicas = 1

All Options

Anti Entropy Interval

• Description: Interval at which the cluster will run its anti-entropy routine which ensures that all replicas of each fragment are in sync.
• Flag: --anti-entropy.interval="10m0s"
• Env: PILOSA_ANTI_ENTROPY_INTERVAL="10m0s"

• Config:

  [anti-entropy]
  interval = "10m0s"
  

Bind

• Description: host:port on which the Pilosa server will listen for requests. Host defaults to localhost and port to 10101.
• Flag: --bind="localhost:10101"
• Env: PILOSA_BIND="localhost:10101"

• Config:

  bind = localhost:10101
  

CORS (Cross-Origin Resource Sharing) Allowed Origins

• Description: List of allowed origin URIs for CORS
• Flag: --handler.allowed-origins="https://myapp.com,https://myapp.org"
• Env: PILOSA_HANDLER_ALLOWED_ORIGINS="https://myapp.com,https://myapp.org"

• Config:

  [handler]
  allowed-origins = ["https://myapp.com", "https://myapp.org"]
  

Data Dir

• Description: Directory to store Pilosa data files.
• Flag: --data-dir="~/.pilosa"
• Env: PILOSA_DATA_DIR="~/.pilosa"

• Config:

  data-dir = "~/.pilosa"
  

Log Path

• Description: Path of log file.
• Flag: --log-path="/path/to/logfile"
• Env: PILOSA_LOG_PATH="/path/to/logfile"

• Config:

  log-path = "/path/to/logfile"
  

Verbose

• Description: Enable verbose logging.
• Flag: --verbose
• Env: PILOSA_VERBOSE

• Config:

  verbose = true
  

Max Writes Per Request

• Description: Maximum number of mutating commands allowed per request. This includes Set, Clear, SetRowAttrs, and SetColumnAttrs.
• Flag: --max-writes-per-request=5000
• Env: PILOSA_MAX_WRITES_PER_REQUEST=5000

• Config:

  max-writes-per-request = 5000
  

Gossip Port

• Description: Port to which Pilosa should bind for internal communication. If more than one Pilosa server is running on the same host, the gossip port for each server must be unique.
• Flag: --gossip.port=11101
• Env: PILOSA_GOSSIP_PORT=11101

• Config:

  [gossip]
    port = 11101
  

Gossip Seeds

• Description: This specifies which internal host(s) should be used to initialize membership in the cluster. Typically this can be the address of any available host in the cluster. For example, when starting a three-node cluster made up of node0, node1, and node2, the gossip.seeds for all three nodes can be configured to be the address of node0. Multiple seeds should be comma-separated in the flag and env forms.
• Flag: --gossip.seeds="localhost:11101,localhost:11110"
• Env: PILOSA_GOSSIP_SEEDS="localhost:11101,localhost:11110"

• Config:

  [gossip]
    seeds = ["localhost:11101", "localhost:11110"]
  

Gossip Key

• Description: Path to the file which contains the key to encrypt gossip communication. The contents of the file should be either 16, 24, or 32 bytes to select AES-128, AES-192, or AES-256 encryption. You can read from /dev/random device on UNIX-like systems to create the key file; e.g., head -c 32 /dev/random > gossip.key32 creates a key file to use AES-256.
• Flag: --gossip.key="/var/secret/gossip.key32"
• Env: PILOSA_GOSSIP_KEY="/var/secret/gossip.key32"
• Config: toml [gossip] key = "/var/secret/gossip.key32"

Cluster Coordinator

• Description: Indicates whether the node should act as the coordinator for the cluster. Only one node per cluster should be the coordinator.
• Flag: cluster.coordinator
• Env: PILOSA_CLUSTER_COORDINATOR

• Config:

  [cluster]
  coordinator = true
  

Cluster Long Query Time

• Description: Duration that will trigger log and stat messages for slow queries.
• Flag: cluster.long-query-time="1m0s"
• Env: PILOSA_CLUSTER_LONG_QUERY_TIME="1m0s"

• Config:

  [cluster]
  long-query-time = "1m0s"
  

Cluster Replicas

• Description: Number of hosts each piece of data should be stored on.
• Flag: cluster.replicas=1
• Env: PILOSA_CLUSTER_REPLICAS=1

• Config:

  [cluster]
  replicas = 1
  

Cluster Type

• Description: Determine how the cluster handles membership and state sharing. Choose from [static, gossip].
  • static - Messaging between nodes is disabled. This is primarily used for testing.
  • gossip - Messages are transmitted over TCP. Cluster status and node state are kept in sync via internode gossip.
• Flag: cluster.type="gossip"
• Env: PILOSA_CLUSTER_TYPE="gossip"

• Config:

  [cluster]
  type = "gossip"
  

Profile CPU

• Description: If this is set to a path, collect a cpu profile and store it there.
• Flag: --profile.cpu="/path/to/somewhere"
• Env: PILOSA_PROFILE_CPU="/path/to/somewhere"

• Config:

  [profile]
  cpu = "/path/to/somewhere"
  

Profile CPU Time

• Description: Amount of time to collect cpu profiling data at startup if profile.cpu is set.
• Flag: --profile.cpu-time="30s"
• Env: PILOSA_PROFILE_CPU_TIME="30s"

• Config:

  [profile]
  cpu-time = "30s"
  

Metric Service

• Description: Which stats service to use for collecting metrics. Choose from [statsd, expvar, none].
• Flag: --metric.service=statsd
• Env: PILOSA_METRIC_SERVICE=statsd

• Config:

  [metric]
  service = “statsd”
  

Metric Host

• Description: Address of the StatsD service host.
• Flag: --metric.host=localhost:8125
• Env: PILOSA_METRIC_HOST=localhost:8125

• Config:

  [metric]
  host = "localhost:8125"
  

Metric Poll Interval

• Description: Rate at which runtime metrics (such as open file handles and memory usage) are collected.
• Flag: metric.poll-interval=”0m15s”
• Env: PILOSA_METRIC_POLL_INTERVAL=0m15s

• Config:

  [metric]
  poll-interval = "0m15s"
  

Metric Diagnostics

• Description: Enable reporting of limited usage statistics to Pilosa developers. To disable, set to false.
• Flag: metric.diagnostics
• Env: PILOSA_METRIC_DIAGNOSTICS

• Config:

  [metric]
  diagnostics = true
  

TLS Certificate

• Description: Path to the TLS certificate to use for serving HTTPS. Usually has one of.crt or .pem extensions.
• Flag: tls.certificate=/srv/pilosa/certs/server.crt
• Env: PILOSA_TLS_CERTIFICATE=/srv/pilosa/certs/server.crt

• Config:

  [tls]
  certificate = "/srv/pilosa/certs/server.crt"
  

TLS Certificate Key

• Description: Path to the TLS certificate key to use for serving HTTPS. Usually has the .key extension.
• Flag: tls.key=/srv/pilosa/certs/server.key
• Env: PILOSA_TLS_KEY=/srv/pilosa/certs/server.key

• Config:

  [tls]
  key = "/srv/pilosa/certs/server.key"
  

TLS Skip Verify

• Description: Disables verification for checking TLS certificates. This configuration item is mainly useful for using self-signed certificates for a Pilosa cluster. Do not use in production since it makes man-in-the-middle attacks trivial.
• Flag: tls.skip-verify
• Env: PILOSA_TLS_SKIP_VERIFY

• Config:

  [tls]
  skip-verify = true
  

Translation Map Size

• Description: Size in bytes of mmap to allocate for key translation
• Flag: translation.map-size
• Env: PILOSA_TRANSLATION_MAP_SIZE

• Config:

  [translation]
  map-size = 10737418240
  

Example Cluster Configuration

A three node cluster running on different hosts could be minimally configured as follows:

Node 0

data-dir = "/home/pilosa/data"
bind = "node0.pilosa.com:10101"

[gossip]
  port = 12000
  seed = "node0.pilosa.com:12000"

[cluster]
  replicas = 1
  coordinator = true

Node 1

data-dir = "/home/pilosa/data"
bind = "node1.pilosa.com:10101"

[gossip]
  port = 12000
  seed = "node0.pilosa.com:12000"

[cluster]
  replicas = 1
  coordinator = false

Node 2

data-dir = "/home/pilosa/data"
bind = "node2.pilosa.com:10101"

[gossip]
  port = 12000
  seed = "node0.pilosa.com:12000"

[cluster]
  replicas = 1
  coordinator = false

Example Cluster Configuration (HTTPS)

The same cluster which uses HTTPS instead of HTTP can be configured as follows. Note that we explicitly specify https as the protocol in bind and cluster.hosts configuration. It is not required to use a gossip key but it is highly recommended:

Node 0

data-dir = "/home/pilosa/data"
bind = "https://node0.pilosa.com:10101"

[gossip]
  port = 12000
  seed = "node0.pilosa.com:12000"
  key = "/home/pilosa/private/gossip.key32"

[cluster]
  replicas = 1
  coordinator = true

[tls]
  certificate = "/home/pilosa/private/server.crt"
  key = "/home/pilosa/private/server.key"

Node 1

data-dir = "/home/pilosa/data"
bind = "https://node1.pilosa.com:10101"

[gossip]
  port = 12000
  seed = "node0.pilosa.com:12000"
  key = "/home/pilosa/private/gossip.key32"

[cluster]
  replicas = 1
  coordinator = false

[tls]
  certificate = "/home/pilosa/private/server.crt"
  key = "/home/pilosa/private/server.key"

Node 2

data-dir = "/home/pilosa/data"
bind = "https://node2.pilosa.com:10101"

[gossip]
  port = 12000
  seed = "node0.pilosa.com:12000"
  key = "/home/pilosa/private/gossip.key32"

[cluster]
  replicas = 1
  coordinator = false

[tls]
  certificate = "/home/pilosa/private/server.crt"
  key = "/home/pilosa/private/server.key"

Example Cluster Configuration (HTTPS, same host)

You can run a cluster on the same host using the configuration above with a few changes. Gossip port and bind address should be different for each node and a data directory should be accessed only by a single node.

Node 0

data-dir = "/home/pilosa/data0"
bind = "https://localhost:10100"

[gossip]
  port = 12000
  seed = "localhost:12000"
  key = "/home/pilosa/private/gossip.key32"

[cluster]
  replicas = 1
  coordinator = true

[tls]
  certificate = "/home/pilosa/private/server.crt"
  key = "/home/pilosa/private/server.key"

Node 1

data-dir = "/home/pilosa/data1"
bind = "https://localhost:10101"

[gossip]
  port = 12001
  seed = "localhost:12000"
  key = "/home/pilosa/private/gossip.key32"

[cluster]
  replicas = 1
  coordinator = false

[tls]
  certificate = "/home/pilosa/private/server.crt"
  key = "/home/pilosa/private/server.key"

Node 2

data-dir = "/home/pilosa/data2"
bind = "https://localhost:10102"

[gossip]
  port = 12002
  seed = "localhost:12000"
  key = "/home/pilosa/private/gossip.key32"

[cluster]
  replicas = 1
  coordinator = false

[tls]
  certificate = "/home/pilosa/private/server.crt"
  key = "/home/pilosa/private/server.key"

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