Starting and Stopping the Terracotta Server

The command line script to start the Terracotta Server is located in the server/bin/ directory of the server kit. UNIX users use start-tc-server.sh while Windows users use start-tc-server.bat. All arguments are the same for both.

Public host name for this node. Needs to be set on all the nodes in the cluster. See Terracotta in Network Environments with Subnets for more details about this feature.

Public node port for this node. Needs to be set on all the nodes in the cluster. See Terracotta in Network Environments with Subnets for more details about this feature.

Directory containing configuration bookkeeping information generated by the node. Default: %H/terracotta/config.

Directory to be used to contain cluster backups. Needs to be set on all nodes in the cluster. See the section The "backup" Command of the cluster tool for more details about performing backups.

Directory to be used to contain server persistence data. Default: %H/terracotta/metadata. See the section Server Persistence for more details about this setting.

Lease duration for the client connections. Default: 150s. Needs to be the same throughout the cluster. See Connection Leasing for more details about this property.

Time window for clients to reconnect to a new Active server after failover. Default: 120s. Needs to be the same throughout the cluster.

Name to assign to the cluster this node will become a part of. Needs to be the same throughout the cluster.

Config file to start the node with. See the section The TerracottaConfiguration File for more details about this property.

The failover priority setting to be used. Valid values are availability and consistency. Needs to be the same throughout the cluster. This is the only mandatory option if the node is started using console parameters. See Failover Tuning for more details about this property.

Directory to contain client data. Default: main:%H/terracotta/user-data/main. Data directory names needs to be the same throughout the cluster - the disk locations could vary. See Configuring the Terracotta Server for more details about this property.

Offheap resources to be used. Default: main:512MB. Needs to be the same throughout the cluster. See Configuring the Terracotta Server for more details about this property. Offheap resources is the only property which is validated against the license. The total offheap-resources for the cluster (i.e. offheap-resources for all stripes summed up) should be within the license limit. See Licensing for more details about licensing.

Directory containing the node's security audit logs. Needs to be set on all the nodes. Needs some form of security to be enabled.

Security authentication setting to be used. Valid values are file,ldap and certificate. Needs to be the same throughout the cluster.

The server startup script can be used in different ways, depending on the needs and convenience of the server admin:

A server can be started in unconfigured node, with console parameters alone (i.e. without the need of having any config files).

./start-tc-server.sh -config-dir /data/tc/node1
-port 9410 -group-port 9430 -name node1 -failover-priority consistency
-offheap-resources primary:250GB,caching:100GB

Note: the config-dir in question must be empty, as it only makes sense to use the command with these parameters to load a new server with its initial set of configuration properties.

After startup, it will then be necessary to execute the config tool attach and activate commands respectively to define the cluster topology and to make the cluster ready for client operations. Before activating, the config tool could also be used to set various other configuration options on the node.

An unconfigured server can be also be started with a parameter specifying a config file which was exported from an existing cluster, or constructed by hand. See the section Export for related information.

In this case it is not necessary to execute the config tool attach command since the cluster topology is already defined in the config file. The execution of the activate command, however, would still be required to make the cluster ready for client operations.

Note:
The config-dir in question must be empty, as it only makes sense to use the command with these parameters to load a new server with its initial set of configuration properties.

Note:
It is important to understand that the configuration file used in this command is not what will be used by the server each time it starts. Rather, it is simply a convenience for passing the initial configuration properties to the server, instead of specifying each config property on the command line and/or setting it via config tool. Once the config file is read, the server's internal configuration is stored in its config-dir. The config-dir contains the configuration that will be used on subsequent restarts.

A previously configured server can be started with the specification of a configuration directory (config-dir), in activated mode directly.

This is used when the server was restarted after having been activated previously, but can also be used on a fresh server startup after completing the migration process from an older Terracotta cluster. See the sections Migrating from older Terracotta versions to 10.7 or Migrating from 10.7 to a newer 10.7 version for related details

Note that when you start a server this way (which will be the most common way, over time), any other parameters passed will be effectively ignored, because the server will use its internal configuration.

After starting a node this way, it is not necessary to run the config tool attach or activate commands since the cluster topology and configuration are ready.

JAVA_HOME - Points to the JRE installation which the server should use (the Java launcher in this JRE will be used to start the server).

JAVA_OPTS - Any additional options which should be passed to the underlying JVM can be passed via this environment variable and they will be added to the Java command line.

If your server is not running in a Terracotta cluster, you can use the standard procedure offered by your operating system to terminate the server process.

If you are running the server as part of a Terracotta cluster, you can safely shut down all servers in the cluster using the cluster tool. See the section Safe Cluster Shutdown of the cluster tool for details.