Create Configuration

Create a configuration file

Exasol Deployment Tool (c4) has a large number of parameters that can be configured using a local configuration file. Parameters that are not included in the configuration file will use default values that are internally stored in the application.

The default location for the configuration file is ~/.ccc/config

For more information about configuration parameters, see Configuration parameters.

Do not change configuration parameters that are not described in this documentation without consulting Exasol Support.

The configuration examples use Linux shell syntax. Configuration parameters can also be defined in YAML or JSON format. For more information about configuration formats, see Configuration parameters.

Mandatory parameters

The following parameters are required and must be defined in the configuration file.

Always replace the default passwords by setting unique, secure passwords in your configuration file. Never use the passwords that are used in the examples in this documentation.

Optional parameters

1. In your home directory, create the directory ~/.ccc and an empty file ~/.ccc/config (using a text editor such as vim or nano).

   mkdir ~/.ccc
   nano ~/.ccc/config

2. Define the parameters in the configuration file ~/.ccc/config. For example:

   CCC_USER_EMAIL=user@example.com
   CCC_PLAY_ADMIN_PASSWORD=sdf87934kh&8_yg7
   CCC_PLAY_DB_PASSWORD=R_&hkjgKjgnvP9x
   CCC_PLAY_ACCESS_NODE=true
   CCC_PLAY_RESERVE_NODES=1

Configure AWS parameters

To create a native cloud deployment on AWS, a number of AWS specific parameters are required. Add the following parameters to the c4 configuration file ~/.ccc/config:

Configure AWS CLI

If the AWS CLI is not yet configured on your machine you must set it up with your AWS Access Key ID and Access Key. To configure the AWS CLI, use the command aws configure and proceed through the wizard.

For more information about configuring the AWS CLI, see AWS CLI Configuration Basics.

EC2 key pair

To be able to access your instances over SSH you must have an active EC2 key pair in your AWS account. The key pair that you specify will be associated with the EC2 instances and is used for authentication. For more information about authentication using EC2 keys, see Amazon EC2 key pairs.

You can create a new key pair or import an existing public key using either the AWS Console, the AWS CLI, or Windows PowerShell. The following examples use the AWS CLI method. For more details about how to create or import keys and about which key formats are supported, see Create key pairs.

Example 1: Create a new EC2 key pair using AWS CLI

In this example, the private key is saved in my-key-pair.pem

aws --profile default-mfa ec2 create-key-pair \
    --key-name my-key-pair \
    --query "KeyMaterial" \
    --output text > ~/.ssh/my-key-pair.pem

Example 2: Import an existing SSH public key using AWS CLI

In this example, the existing public key my-key.pub is imported to Amazon EC2.

aws --profile default-mfa ec2 import-key-pair \
    --key-name my-imported-key \
    --public-key-material fileb://~/.ssh/my-key.pub

If you use multi-factor authentication (MFA) and the parameter CCC_AWS_NO_MFA is set to false or omitted from the configuration, the profile name must be appended with -mfa in this command. For example: aws --profile default-mfa ec2 create-key-pair .... The -mfa suffix is added internally to the profile name defined in the c4 configuration when MFA is enabled, which means that if CCC_AWS_PROFILE is set to default, the actual profile name will be default-mfa.

Do not add -mfa to the profile name in the c4 configuration parameter, as this will cause the deployment to fail.

Private key permissions

The following requirements apply for SSH private keys:

• The file containing the private key must be located in the ~/.ssh/ folder.

• The owner of the private key file must be the user that will run c4 commands.

• The private key must be protected with owner read-only permissions (0400).

  chmod 400 ~/.ssh/MyKeyPair.pem

The SSH key allows you to access the host system and the COS container of the deployment with the highest privileges. To maintain data security, make sure that the private key is generated with a passphrase and that the key file has adequate access restrictions.

Validation

To verify that all required configuration parameters have been set, use c4 config. For example:

./c4 config
CCC_USER_EMAIL=user@example.com
CCC_PLAY_ACCESS_NODE=true
CCC_PLAY_ADMIN_PASSWORD=sdf87934kh&8_yg7
CCC_PLAY_DB_PASSWORD=R_&hkjgKjgnvP9x
CCC_USER_PASSWORD=98f*7jhgdf_Yfe
CCC_PLAY_RESERVE_NODES=1
CCC_AWS_PROFILE=default
CCC_AWS_REGION=eu-west-1
CCC_AWS_KEY_PAIR=ic-pair1
CCC_AWS_KEY_PAIR_FILE=ic-pair1.pem

Next steps

When you have configured the necessary network settings, installed c4, and created a valid configuration file, you are ready to create your first deployment. The following section explains how to use c4 to create a basic deployment of Exasol 8 on AWS:

Create AWS Deployment