A distributed Apache HBase installation depends on a running ZooKeeper cluster. All participating nodes and clients need to be able to access the running ZooKeeper ensemble. Apache HBase by default manages a ZooKeeper "cluster" for you. It will start and stop the ZooKeeper ensemble as part of the HBase start/stop process. You can also manage the ZooKeeper ensemble independent of HBase and just point HBase at the cluster it should use. To toggle HBase management of ZooKeeper, use the HBASE_MANAGES_ZK variable in conf/hbase-env.sh. This variable, which defaults to true, tells HBase whether to start/stop the ZooKeeper ensemble servers as part of HBase start/stop. When HBase manages the ZooKeeper ensemble, you can specify ZooKeeper configuration using its native zoo.cfg file, or, the easier option is to just specify ZooKeeper options directly in conf/hbase-site.xml. A ZooKeeper configuration option can be set as a property in the HBase hbase-site.xml XML configuration file by prefacing the ZooKeeper option name with hbase.zookeeper.property. For example, the clientPort setting in ZooKeeper can be changed by setting the hbase.zookeeper.property.clientPort property. For all default values used by HBase, including ZooKeeper configuration, see . Look for the hbase.zookeeper.property prefix For the full list of ZooKeeper configurations, see ZooKeeper's zoo.cfg. HBase does not ship with a zoo.cfg so you will need to browse the conf directory in an appropriate ZooKeeper download. You must at least list the ensemble servers in hbase-site.xml using the hbase.zookeeper.quorum property. This property defaults to a single ensemble member at localhost which is not suitable for a fully distributed HBase. (It binds to the local machine only and remote clients will not be able to connect). You can run a ZooKeeper ensemble that comprises 1 node only but in production it is recommended that you run a ZooKeeper ensemble of 3, 5 or 7 machines; the more members an ensemble has, the more tolerant the ensemble is of host failures. Also, run an odd number of machines. In ZooKeeper, an even number of peers is supported, but it is normally not used because an even sized ensemble requires, proportionally, more peers to form a quorum than an odd sized ensemble requires. For example, an ensemble with 4 peers requires 3 to form a quorum, while an ensemble with 5 also requires 3 to form a quorum. Thus, an ensemble of 5 allows 2 peers to fail, and thus is more fault tolerant than the ensemble of 4, which allows only 1 down peer. Give each ZooKeeper server around 1GB of RAM, and if possible, its own dedicated disk (A dedicated disk is the best thing you can do to ensure a performant ZooKeeper ensemble). For very heavily loaded clusters, run ZooKeeper servers on separate machines from RegionServers (DataNodes and TaskTrackers). For example, to have HBase manage a ZooKeeper quorum on nodes rs{1,2,3,4,5}.example.com, bound to port 2222 (the default is 2181) ensure HBASE_MANAGE_ZK is commented out or set to true in conf/hbase-env.sh and then edit conf/hbase-site.xml and set hbase.zookeeper.property.clientPort and hbase.zookeeper.quorum. You should also set hbase.zookeeper.property.dataDir to other than the default as the default has ZooKeeper persist data under /tmp which is often cleared on system restart. In the example below we have ZooKeeper persist to /user/local/zookeeper. <configuration> ... <property> <name>hbase.zookeeper.property.clientPort</name> <value>2222</value> <description>Property from ZooKeeper's config zoo.cfg. The port at which the clients will connect. </description> </property> <property> <name>hbase.zookeeper.quorum</name> <value>rs1.example.com,rs2.example.com,rs3.example.com,rs4.example.com,rs5.example.com</value> <description>Comma separated list of servers in the ZooKeeper Quorum. For example, "host1.mydomain.com,host2.mydomain.com,host3.mydomain.com". By default this is set to localhost for local and pseudo-distributed modes of operation. For a fully-distributed setup, this should be set to a full list of ZooKeeper quorum servers. If HBASE_MANAGES_ZK is set in hbase-env.sh this is the list of servers which we will start/stop ZooKeeper on. </description> </property> <property> <name>hbase.zookeeper.property.dataDir</name> <value>/usr/local/zookeeper</value> <description>Property from ZooKeeper's config zoo.cfg. The directory where the snapshot is stored. </description> </property> ... </configuration> The newer version, the better. For example, some folks have been bitten by ZOOKEEPER-1277. If running zookeeper 3.5+, you can ask hbase to make use of the new multi operation by enabling " in your hbase-site.xml. Be sure to set up the data dir cleaner described under Zookeeper Maintenance else you could have 'interesting' problems a couple of months in; i.e. zookeeper could start dropping sessions if it has to run through a directory of hundreds of thousands of logs which is wont to do around leader reelection time -- a process rare but run on occasion whether because a machine is dropped or happens to hiccup.

To point HBase at an existing ZooKeeper cluster, one that is not managed by HBase, set HBASE_MANAGES_ZK in conf/hbase-env.sh to false ... # Tell HBase whether it should manage its own instance of Zookeeper or not. export HBASE_MANAGES_ZK=false Next set ensemble locations and client port, if non-standard, in hbase-site.xml, or add a suitably configured zoo.cfg to HBase's CLASSPATH. HBase will prefer the configuration found in zoo.cfg over any settings in hbase-site.xml. When HBase manages ZooKeeper, it will start/stop the ZooKeeper servers as a part of the regular start/stop scripts. If you would like to run ZooKeeper yourself, independent of HBase start/stop, you would do the following ${HBASE_HOME}/bin/hbase-daemons.sh {start,stop} zookeeper Note that you can use HBase in this manner to spin up a ZooKeeper cluster, unrelated to HBase. Just make sure to set HBASE_MANAGES_ZK to false if you want it to stay up across HBase restarts so that when HBase shuts down, it doesn't take ZooKeeper down with it. For more information about running a distinct ZooKeeper cluster, see the ZooKeeper Getting Started Guide. Additionally, see the ZooKeeper Wiki or the ZooKeeper documentation for more information on ZooKeeper sizing.

Newer releases of Apache HBase (>= 0.92) will support connecting to a ZooKeeper Quorum that supports SASL authentication (which is available in Zookeeper versions 3.4.0 or later). This describes how to set up HBase to mutually authenticate with a ZooKeeper Quorum. ZooKeeper/HBase mutual authentication (HBASE-2418) is required as part of a complete secure HBase configuration (HBASE-3025). For simplicity of explication, this section ignores additional configuration required (Secure HDFS and Coprocessor configuration). It's recommended to begin with an HBase-managed Zookeeper configuration (as opposed to a standalone Zookeeper quorum) for ease of learning.

You need to have a working Kerberos KDC setup. For each $HOST that will run a ZooKeeper server, you should have a principle zookeeper/$HOST. For each such host, add a service key (using the kadmin or kadmin.local tool's ktadd command) for zookeeper/$HOST and copy this file to $HOST, and make it readable only to the user that will run zookeeper on $HOST. Note the location of this file, which we will use below as $PATH_TO_ZOOKEEPER_KEYTAB. Similarly, for each $HOST that will run an HBase server (master or regionserver), you should have a principle: hbase/$HOST. For each host, add a keytab file called hbase.keytab containing a service key for hbase/$HOST, copy this file to $HOST, and make it readable only to the user that will run an HBase service on $HOST. Note the location of this file, which we will use below as $PATH_TO_HBASE_KEYTAB. Each user who will be an HBase client should also be given a Kerberos principal. This principal should usually have a password assigned to it (as opposed to, as with the HBase servers, a keytab file) which only this user knows. The client's principal's maxrenewlife should be set so that it can be renewed enough so that the user can complete their HBase client processes. For example, if a user runs a long-running HBase client process that takes at most 3 days, we might create this user's principal within kadmin with: addprinc -maxrenewlife 3days. The Zookeeper client and server libraries manage their own ticket refreshment by running threads that wake up periodically to do the refreshment. On each host that will run an HBase client (e.g. hbase shell), add the following file to the HBase home directory's conf directory: Client { com.sun.security.auth.module.Krb5LoginModule required useKeyTab=false useTicketCache=true; }; We'll refer to this JAAS configuration file as $CLIENT_CONF below.

On each node that will run a zookeeper, a master, or a regionserver, create a JAAS configuration file in the conf directory of the node's HBASE_HOME directory that looks like the following: Server { com.sun.security.auth.module.Krb5LoginModule required useKeyTab=true keyTab="$PATH_TO_ZOOKEEPER_KEYTAB" storeKey=true useTicketCache=false principal="zookeeper/$HOST"; }; Client { com.sun.security.auth.module.Krb5LoginModule required useKeyTab=true useTicketCache=false keyTab="$PATH_TO_HBASE_KEYTAB" principal="hbase/$HOST"; }; where the $PATH_TO_HBASE_KEYTAB and $PATH_TO_ZOOKEEPER_KEYTAB files are what you created above, and $HOST is the hostname for that node. The Server section will be used by the Zookeeper quorum server, while the Client section will be used by the HBase master and regionservers. The path to this file should be substituted for the text $HBASE_SERVER_CONF in the hbase-env.sh listing below. The path to this file should be substituted for the text $CLIENT_CONF in the hbase-env.sh listing below. Modify your hbase-env.sh to include the following: export HBASE_OPTS="-Djava.security.auth.login.config=$CLIENT_CONF" export HBASE_MANAGES_ZK=true export HBASE_ZOOKEEPER_OPTS="-Djava.security.auth.login.config=$HBASE_SERVER_CONF" export HBASE_MASTER_OPTS="-Djava.security.auth.login.config=$HBASE_SERVER_CONF" export HBASE_REGIONSERVER_OPTS="-Djava.security.auth.login.config=$HBASE_SERVER_CONF" where $HBASE_SERVER_CONF and $CLIENT_CONF are the full paths to the JAAS configuration files created above. Modify your hbase-site.xml on each node that will run zookeeper, master or regionserver to contain: hbase.zookeeper.quorum $ZK_NODES hbase.cluster.distributed true hbase.zookeeper.property.authProvider.1 org.apache.zookeeper.server.auth.SASLAuthenticationProvider hbase.zookeeper.property.kerberos.removeHostFromPrincipal true hbase.zookeeper.property.kerberos.removeRealmFromPrincipal true ]]> where $ZK_NODES is the comma-separated list of hostnames of the Zookeeper Quorum hosts. Start your hbase cluster by running one or more of the following set of commands on the appropriate hosts: bin/hbase zookeeper start bin/hbase master start bin/hbase regionserver start

Add a JAAS configuration file that looks like: Client { com.sun.security.auth.module.Krb5LoginModule required useKeyTab=true useTicketCache=false keyTab="$PATH_TO_HBASE_KEYTAB" principal="hbase/$HOST"; }; where the $PATH_TO_HBASE_KEYTAB is the keytab created above for HBase services to run on this host, and $HOST is the hostname for that node. Put this in the HBase home's configuration directory. We'll refer to this file's full pathname as $HBASE_SERVER_CONF below. Modify your hbase-env.sh to include the following: export HBASE_OPTS="-Djava.security.auth.login.config=$CLIENT_CONF" export HBASE_MANAGES_ZK=false export HBASE_MASTER_OPTS="-Djava.security.auth.login.config=$HBASE_SERVER_CONF" export HBASE_REGIONSERVER_OPTS="-Djava.security.auth.login.config=$HBASE_SERVER_CONF" Modify your hbase-site.xml on each node that will run a master or regionserver to contain: hbase.zookeeper.quorum $ZK_NODES hbase.cluster.distributed true ]]> where $ZK_NODES is the comma-separated list of hostnames of the Zookeeper Quorum hosts. Add a zoo.cfg for each Zookeeper Quorum host containing: authProvider.1=org.apache.zookeeper.server.auth.SASLAuthenticationProvider kerberos.removeHostFromPrincipal=true kerberos.removeRealmFromPrincipal=true Also on each of these hosts, create a JAAS configuration file containing: Server { com.sun.security.auth.module.Krb5LoginModule required useKeyTab=true keyTab="$PATH_TO_ZOOKEEPER_KEYTAB" storeKey=true useTicketCache=false principal="zookeeper/$HOST"; }; where $HOST is the hostname of each Quorum host. We will refer to the full pathname of this file as $ZK_SERVER_CONF below. Start your Zookeepers on each Zookeeper Quorum host with: SERVER_JVMFLAGS="-Djava.security.auth.login.config=$ZK_SERVER_CONF" bin/zkServer start Start your HBase cluster by running one or more of the following set of commands on the appropriate nodes: bin/hbase master start bin/hbase regionserver start

If the configuration above is successful, you should see something similar to the following in your Zookeeper server logs: 11/12/05 22:43:39 INFO zookeeper.Login: successfully logged in. 11/12/05 22:43:39 INFO server.NIOServerCnxnFactory: binding to port 0.0.0.0/0.0.0.0:2181 11/12/05 22:43:39 INFO zookeeper.Login: TGT refresh thread started. 11/12/05 22:43:39 INFO zookeeper.Login: TGT valid starting at: Mon Dec 05 22:43:39 UTC 2011 11/12/05 22:43:39 INFO zookeeper.Login: TGT expires: Tue Dec 06 22:43:39 UTC 2011 11/12/05 22:43:39 INFO zookeeper.Login: TGT refresh sleeping until: Tue Dec 06 18:36:42 UTC 2011 .. 11/12/05 22:43:59 INFO auth.SaslServerCallbackHandler: Successfully authenticated client: authenticationID=hbase/ip-10-166-175-249.us-west-1.compute.internal@HADOOP.LOCALDOMAIN; authorizationID=hbase/ip-10-166-175-249.us-west-1.compute.internal@HADOOP.LOCALDOMAIN. 11/12/05 22:43:59 INFO auth.SaslServerCallbackHandler: Setting authorizedID: hbase 11/12/05 22:43:59 INFO server.ZooKeeperServer: adding SASL authorization for authorizationID: hbase

On the Zookeeper client side (HBase master or regionserver), you should see something similar to the following: 11/12/05 22:43:59 INFO zookeeper.ZooKeeper: Initiating client connection, connectString=ip-10-166-175-249.us-west-1.compute.internal:2181 sessionTimeout=180000 watcher=master:60000 11/12/05 22:43:59 INFO zookeeper.ClientCnxn: Opening socket connection to server /10.166.175.249:2181 11/12/05 22:43:59 INFO zookeeper.RecoverableZooKeeper: The identifier of this process is 14851@ip-10-166-175-249 11/12/05 22:43:59 INFO zookeeper.Login: successfully logged in. 11/12/05 22:43:59 INFO client.ZooKeeperSaslClient: Client will use GSSAPI as SASL mechanism. 11/12/05 22:43:59 INFO zookeeper.Login: TGT refresh thread started. 11/12/05 22:43:59 INFO zookeeper.ClientCnxn: Socket connection established to ip-10-166-175-249.us-west-1.compute.internal/10.166.175.249:2181, initiating session 11/12/05 22:43:59 INFO zookeeper.Login: TGT valid starting at: Mon Dec 05 22:43:59 UTC 2011 11/12/05 22:43:59 INFO zookeeper.Login: TGT expires: Tue Dec 06 22:43:59 UTC 2011 11/12/05 22:43:59 INFO zookeeper.Login: TGT refresh sleeping until: Tue Dec 06 18:30:37 UTC 2011 11/12/05 22:43:59 INFO zookeeper.ClientCnxn: Session establishment complete on server ip-10-166-175-249.us-west-1.compute.internal/10.166.175.249:2181, sessionid = 0x134106594320000, negotiated timeout = 180000

This has been tested on the current standard Amazon Linux AMI. First setup KDC and principals as described above. Next checkout code and run a sanity check. git clone git://git.apache.org/hbase.git cd hbase mvn clean test -Dtest=TestZooKeeperACL Then configure HBase as described above. Manually edit target/cached_classpath.txt (see below): bin/hbase zookeeper & bin/hbase master & bin/hbase regionserver &

You must override the standard hadoop-core jar file from the target/cached_classpath.txt file with the version containing the HADOOP-7070 fix. You can use the following script to do this: echo `find ~/.m2 -name "*hadoop-core*7070*SNAPSHOT.jar"` ':' `cat target/cached_classpath.txt` | sed 's/ //g' > target/tmp.txt mv target/tmp.txt target/cached_classpath.txt

This would avoid the need for a separate Hadoop jar that fixes HADOOP-7070.