Cassandra on docker

Create a docker file to pull the official docker image. For directory tree refer the screenshot below.

$ cat ~/docker-app/cassandra/Dockerfile

FROM cassandra:3.11.3

RUN apt-get update -y

COPY . /app

WORKDIR /app

VOLUME /var/lib/cassandra/data

CMD ["cassandra", "-f"]

Note, that we have a VOLUME property that tells the container has a mount point that refers to a host directory. When running the container, we provide the mapping between the host directory and this volume path. Purpose of creating such mount point is to persist data if the container is terminated and also also share a directory among the containers.

Cassandra cql statements to create a keyspace, a table and a few sample records.

$ cat ~/docker-app/cassandra/init.cql

create KEYSPACE IF NOT EXISTS demo WITH replication = {'class': 'SimpleStrategy', 'replication_factor': 1};

create TABLE IF NOT EXISTS demo.customer(id int primary key, name text);

insert into demo.customer(id, name) values (1, 'Elon');

insert into demo.customer(id, name) values (2, 'Jeff');

insert into demo.customer(id, name) values (3, 'Satya');

insert into demo.customer(id, name) values (4, 'Sundar');

Directory tree

$ tree ~/docker-app/

/home/training/docker-app/

├── cassandra

├── Dockerfile

└── init.cql


Build local image

$ sudo docker build -t cassandra-db:3.3.1 .


Start a container

$ sudo docker run -p 9042:9042 -v /data:/var/lib/cassandra/data cassandra-db:3.3.1

Note, /data is mapped to the mount point inside the container.

Run the init.cql to create keyspace, table and sample records in cassandra.

$ sudo docker exec -it db20f8307642 cqlsh -f init.cql

$ sudo docker exec -it db20f8307642 cqlsh -e "select * from demo.customer"


id | name

----+--------

1 | Elon

2 | Jeff

4 | Sundar

3 | Satya



Force flush to persist the data on disk.

$ sudo docker exec -it 583dcea04e8b nodetool flush


Terminate the container

$ sudo docker container rm -f 583dcea04e8b


Create a new container for Cassandra node.

$ sudo docker run -p 9042:9042 -v /data:/var/lib/cassandra/data cassandra-db:3.3.1

Check if the records that were inserted earlier are visible

$ sudo docker exec -it db20f8307642 cqlsh -e "select * from demo.customer"

id | name

----+--------

1 | Elon

2 | Jeff

4 | Sundar

3 | Satya

Note: at any point run $ sudo docker ps -a command to find the container id.