Use a remote database for Scylla Manager

When you install Scylla Manager, it installs a local instance of Scylla to use as it’s a database. You are not required to use the local instance and can use Scylla Manager with a remote database.

Requirements

  • Scylla cluster to be used as Scylla Manager data store.

  • Package scylla-manager installed.

Remove local Scylla instance

The scylla-manager package is a meta package that pulls both Scylla and Scylla Manager packages. If you do not intend to use the local Scylla instance, you may remove it.

Procedure

  1. Remove scylla-enterprise package.

sudo yum remove scylla-enterprise -y

  1. Remove related packages. This would also remove the Scylla Manager.

sudo yum autoremove -y

  1. Install the Scylla Manager client and server packages.

sudo yum install scylla-manager-client scylla-manager-server -y

Edit Scylla Manager configuration

Scylla Manager configuration file /etc/scylla-manager/scylla-manager.yaml contains a database configuration section.

# Scylla Manager database, used to store management data.
database:
  hosts:
    - 127.0.0.1
# Enable or disable client/server encryption.
#  ssl: false
#
# Database credentials.
#  user: user
#  password: password
#
# Local datacenter name, specify if using a remote, multi-dc cluster.
#  local_dc:
#
# Database connection timeout.
#  timeout: 600ms
#
# Keyspace for management data, for create statement see /etc/scylla-manager/create_keyspace.cql.tpl.
#  keyspace: scylla_manager
#  replication_factor: 1

Using an editor, open the file and change relevant parameters.

Procedure

  1. Edit the hosts parameter, change the IP address to the IP address or addresses of the remote cluster.

  2. If client/server encryption is enabled, uncomment and set the ssl parameter to true. Additional SSL configuration options can be set in the ssl configuration section.

    # Optional custom client/server encryption options.
#ssl:
# CA certificate used to validate server cert. If not set will use he host's root CA set.
#  cert_file:
#
# Verify the hostname and server cert.
#  validate: true
#
# Client certificate and key in PEM format. It has to be provided when
# client_encryption_options.require_client_auth=true is set on server.
#  user_cert_file:
#  user_key_file

  3. If authentication is needed, uncomment and edit the user and password parameters.

  4. If the remote cluster contains more than one node:

    • If it’s a single DC deployment, uncomment and edit the replication_factor parameter to match the required replication factor.

      Note that this would use a simple replication strategy (SimpleStrategy). If you want to use a different replication strategy, create scylla_manager keyspace (or another matching the keyspace parameter) yourself. Refer to Scylla Architecture - Fault Tolerance for more information on replication.

    • If it’s a multi DC deployment, create scylla_manager keyspace (or other matching the keyspace parameter) yourself.

      Uncomment and edit the local_dc parameter to specify the local datacenter.

Sample configuration of Scylla Manager working with a remote cluster with authentication and replication factor 3 could look like this.

database:
  hosts:
    - 198.100.51.11
    - 198.100.51.12
  user: user
  password: password
  replication_factor: 3