Prepare the Hosts

Before you can install a Vertica cluster using the MC, you must prepare each host that will become a node in the cluster. The cluster creation process runs validation tests against each host before it attempts to install the Vertica software. These tests ensure that the host is correctly configured to run Vertica.

Install Perl

The MC cluster installer uses Perl to perform the installation. Install Perl 5 on the target hosts before performing the cluster installation. Perl is available for download from www.perl.org.

Validate the Hosts

The validation tests provide:

• Warnings and error messages when they detect a configuration setting that conflicts with the Vertica requirements or any performance issue
• Suggestions for configuration changes when they detect an issue

All hosts must pass validation before the cluster can be created.

If you accepted the default configuration options when installing the OS on your host, then the validation tests will likely return errors, since some of the default options used on Linux systems conflict with Vertica requirements. See Installing Vertica for details on OS settings. To speed up the validation process you can perform the following steps on the prospective hosts before you attempt to validate the hosts. These steps are based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and CentOS systems, but other supported platforms have similar settings.

On each host you want to include in the Vertica cluster, you must stage the host according to Before You Install Vertica.