Startup files and minimum requirements

The Vertica server package RPM and the vertica_install installation script include files that are not required to run a Vertica instance (e.g. an example database). The following sections provide information about the minimum requirements to manually configure Vertica on your machine.

System User Requirements

Vertica has a number of user-level requirements, including username and group requirements. For detailed information, see System User Requirements.

Operating System Configurations

To install Vertica on your machine, you must configure your operating system with the required packages, settings, and tools. The following links provide information about distribution-specific prerequisites needed to run Vertica:

Configuration requirements might vary depending on your environment. If your operating system is not properly configured during installation, the installation process stops and the installer displays an error message and an identifier that indicates why the installation failed. See General Operating System Configuration - Manual Configuration in the Vertica documentation for additional information about configuring your operating system.

Vertica Directory Structure

The /vertica directory is the top-level directory that stores subdirectories containing important utilities, binaries, and files that are required to run Vertica on your system. Create the /vertica directory in the /opt directory:

mkdir /opt/vertica

The following table contains the minimum files, libraries, and binaries that are required to run Vertica. Each directory is a subdirectory of the /vertica folder.

DirectoryContents
/sbin
  • ssh_config
  • vconf
  • verify_libraries_test
  • verticad
  • verticad.service
/bin
  • vertica
  • vsql
  • bootstrap-catalog (symbolic link to vertica)
  • vertica-download-file (symbolic link to vertica)
  • check-auth-config (symbolic link to vertica)
  • extract-snapshot (symbolic link to vertica)
  • check-extra-sal-files (symbolic link to vertica)
/lib
  • libAutopassCrypto64.so
  • libcom_err.so.3.0
  • liblmx64.so
  • libvmalloc.so
/configContains the /share directory.
/config/share
  • agent.cert
  • agent.key
  • agent.pem
  • license.key
/logContains the all /all-local-verify-<timestamp> and /local-coerce-<timestamp> log directories.
/log/all-local-verify-<timestamp>
  • verify-<host-address>.xml
/log/local-coerce-<timestamp>
  • verify-latest.xml
/spreadContains the /lib and /sbin directories.
/spread/lib
  • libspread-core-so.3.0.0 shared object
/spread/sbin
  • spread

Creating the man Files (Optional)

Add the man files to access man pages that provide information for Vertica commands and functions.

  1. Navigate into the /usr/share/man/man1 directory:
    $ cd /usr/share/man/man1
  2. In the man1 folder, add the vsql.1 file.

Setting the PATH

Add the /vertica/bin directory to your path so that you can access Vertica binaries from any directory.

Open the .bashrc file with a text editor, and then add the export statement to the bottom of the file:

export PATH=$PATH:/opt/vertica/bin