+++ date = "2017-03-20T22:25:17+11:00" title = "Deploy" +++

This page talks about running Dgraph in various deployment modes, in a distributed fashion and involves running multiple instances of Dgraph, over multiple servers in a cluster.

{{% notice "tip" %}} For a single server setup, recommended for new users, please see Get Started page. {{% /notice %}}

Install Dgraph

Docker

docker pull dgraph/dgraph:latest

# You can test that it worked fine, by running:
docker run -it dgraph/dgraph:latest dgraph

Automatic download

Running

curl https://get.dgraph.io -sSf | bash

# Test that it worked fine, by running:
dgraph

would install the dgraph binary into your system.

Manual download [optional]

If you don't want to follow the automatic installation method, you could manually download the appropriate tar for your platform from Dgraph releases. After downloading the tar for your platform from Github, extract the binary to /usr/local/bin like so.

# For Linux
$ sudo tar -C /usr/local/bin -xzf dgraph-linux-amd64-VERSION.tar.gz

# For Mac
$ sudo tar -C /usr/local/bin -xzf dgraph-darwin-amd64-VERSION.tar.gz

# Test that it worked fine, by running:
dgraph

Building from Source

{{% notice "note" %}} Ratel UI is closed source right now, so you cannot build it from source. But you can connect to your Dgraph instance through Ratel UI installed using any of the methods listed above. {{% /notice %}}

Make sure you have Go (version >= 1.8) installed.

After installing Go, run

# This should install dgraph binary in your $GOPATH/bin.

go get -u -v github.com/dgraph-io/dgraph/dgraph

If you get errors related to grpc while building them, your go-grpc version might be outdated. We don't vendor in go-grpc(because it causes issues while using the Go client). Update your go-grpc by running.

go get -u -v google.golang.org/grpc

Config

The full set of dgraph's configuration options (along with brief descriptions) can be viewed by invoking dgraph with the --help flag. For example, to see the options available for dgraph alpha, run dgraph alpha --help.

The options can be configured in multiple ways (from highest precedence to lowest precedence):

Using command line flags (as described in the help output).
Using environment variables.
Using a configuration file.

If no configuration for an option is used, then the default value as described in the --help output applies.

Multiple configuration methods can be used all at the same time. E.g. a core set of options could be set in a config file, and instance specific options could be set using environment vars or flags.

The environment variable names mirror the flag names as seen in the --help output. They are the concatenation of DGRAPH, the subcommand invoked (SERVER, ZERO, LIVE, or BULK), and then the name of the flag (in uppercase). For example, instead of using dgraph alpha --lru_mb=8096, you could use DGRAPH_SERVER_LRU_MB=8096 dgraph alpha.

Configuration file formats supported are JSON, TOML, YAML, HCL, and Java properties (detected via file extension).

A configuration file can be specified using the --config flag, or an environment variable. E.g. dgraph zero --config my_config.json or DGRAPH_ZERO_CONFIG=my_config.json dgraph zero.

The config file structure is just simple key/value pairs (mirroring the flag names). E.g. a JSON config file that sets --idx, --peer, and --replicas:

{
  "idx": 42,
  "peer": 192.168.0.55:9080,
  "replicas": 2
}

Cluster Setup

Understanding Dgraph cluster

Dgraph is a truly distributed graph database - not a master-slave replication of universal dataset. It shards by predicate and replicates predicates across the cluster, queries can be run on any node and joins are handled over the distributed data. A query is resolved locally for predicates the node stores, and via distributed joins for predicates stored on other nodes.

For effectively running a Dgraph cluster, it's important to understand how sharding, replication and rebalancing works.

Sharding

Dgraph colocates data per predicate (* P *, in RDF terminology), thus the smallest unit of data is one predicate. To shard the graph, one or many predicates are assigned to a group. Each server node in the cluster serves a single group. Dgraph zero assigns a group to each server node.

Shard rebalancing

Dgraph zero tries to rebalance the cluster based on the disk usage in each group. If Zero detects an imbalance, it would try to move a predicate along with index and reverse edges to a group that has minimum disk usage. This can make the predicate unavailable temporarily.

Zero would continuously try to keep the amount of data on each server even, typically running this check on a 10-min frequency. Thus, each additional Dgraph alpha instance would allow Zero to further split the predicates from groups and move them to the new node.

Consistent Replication

If --replicas flag is set to something greater than one, Zero would assign the same group to multiple nodes. These nodes would then form a Raft group aka quorum. Every write would be consistently replicated to the quorum. To achieve consensus, its important that the size of quorum be an odd number. Therefore, we recommend setting --replicas to 1, 3 or 5 (not 2 or 4). This allows 0, 1, or 2 nodes serving the same group to be down, respectively without affecting the overall health of that group.

Ports Usage

Dgraph cluster nodes use different ports to communicate over gRPC and http. User has to pay attention while choosing these ports based on their topology and deployment-mode as each port needs different access security rules or firewall.

Types of ports

gRPC-internal: Port that is used between the cluster nodes for internal communication and message exchange.
gRPC-external: Port that is used by Dgraph clients, live-loader & bulk-loader to access APIs over gRPC.
http-external: Port that is used by clients to access APIs over http and other monitoring & administrative tasks.

Ports used by different nodes

Dgraph Node Type	gRPC-internal	gRPC-external	http-external

   zero       |  --Not Used--  |     5080      |     6080
   server     |      7080      |     9080      |     8080
   ratel      |  --Not Used--  | --Not Used--  |     8000

Users have to modify security rules or open firewall depending up on their underlying network to allow communication between cluster nodes and between a server and a client. During development a general rule could be wide open *-external (gRPC/HTTP) ports to public and gRPC-internal to be open within the cluster nodes.

Ratel UI accesses Dgraph alpha on http-external port (default localhost:8080) and can be configured to talk to remote Dgraph cluster. This way you can run Ratel on your local machine and point to a remote cluster. But if you are deploying Ratel along with Dgraph cluster, then you may have to expose 8000 to the public.

Port Offset To make it easier for user to setup the cluster, Dgraph defaults the ports used by Dgraph nodes and let user to provide an offset (through command option --port_offset) to define actual ports used by the node. Offset can also be used when starting multiple zero nodes in a HA setup.

Eg: When user runs a Dgraph alpha by setting --port_offset 2, then the server node binds to 7082 (grpc-internal), 8082 (http-external) & 9092 (grpc-external) respectively.

Ratel UI by default listens on port 8000. You can use the -port flag to configure to listen on any other port.

{{% notice "tip" %}} For Dgraph v1.0.2 (or older)

Zero's default ports are 7080 and 8080. When following instructions for the different setup guides below, override the Zero ports using --port_offset to match the current default ports.

# Run Zero with ports 5080 and 6080
dgraph zero --idx=1 --port_offset -2000
# Run Zero with ports 5081 and 6081
dgraph zero --idx=2 --port_offset -1999

Likewise, Ratel's default port is 8081, so override it using --port to the current default port.

dgraph-ratel --port 8080

HA Cluster Setup

In a high-availability setup, we need to run 3 or 5 replicas for Zero, and similarly, 3 or 5 replicas for the server. {{% notice "note" %}} If number of replicas is 2K + 1, up to K servers can be down without any impact on reads or writes.

Avoid keeping replicas to 2K (even number). If K servers go down, this would block reads and writes, due to lack of consensus. {{% /notice %}}

Dgraph Zero Run three Zero instances, assigning a unique ID(Integer) to each via --idx flag, and passing the address of any healthy Zero instance via --peer flag.

To run three replicas for server, set --replicas=3. Every time a new Dgraph server is added, Zero would check the existing groups and assign them to one, which doesn't have three replicas.

Dgraph Alpha Run as many Dgraph alphas as you want. You can manually set --idx flag, or you can leave that flag empty, and Zero would auto-assign an id to the server. This id would get persisted in the write-ahead log, so be careful not to delete it.

The new servers will automatically detect each other by communicating with Dgraph zero and establish connections to each other.

Typically, Zero would first attempt to replicate a group, by assigning a new Dgraph alpha to run the same group as assigned to another. Once the group has been replicated as per the --replicas flag, Zero would create a new group.

Over time, the data would be evenly split across all the groups. So, it's important to ensure that the number of Dgraph alphas is a multiple of the replication setting. For e.g., if you set --replicas=3 in Zero, then run three Dgraph alphas for no sharding, but 3x replication. Run six Dgraph alphas, for sharding the data into two groups, with 3x replication.

Single Host Setup

Run directly on the host

Run dgraph zero

dgraph zero --my=IPADDR:5080

The --my flag is the connection that Dgraph alphas would dial to talk to zero. So, the port 5080 and the IP address must be visible to all the Dgraph alphas.

For all other various flags, run dgraph zero --help.

Run dgraph alpha

dgraph alpha --lru_mb=<typically one-third the RAM> --my=IPADDR:7080 --zero=localhost:5080
dgraph alpha --lru_mb=<typically one-third the RAM> --my=IPADDR:7081 --zero=localhost:5080 -o=1

Notice the use of -o for the second server to add offset to the default ports used by server. Zero automatically assigns an unique ID to each Dgraph alpha, which is persisted in the write ahead log (wal) directory, users can specify the index using --idx option. Dgraph alphas use two location to persist data and wal logs and have to be different for each server if they are running on the same host. User can use -p and -w to change the location of data and WAL. For all other flags, run

dgraph alpha --help.

Run dgraph UI

dgraph-ratel

Run using Docker

Dgraph cluster can be setup running as containers on a single host. First, you'd want to figure out the host IP address. You can typically do that via

ip addr  # On Arch Linux
ifconfig # On Ubuntu/Mac

We'll refer to the host IP address via HOSTIPADDR.

Run dgraph zero

mkdir ~/zero # Or any other directory where data should be stored.

docker run -it -p 5080:5080 -p 6080:6080 -v ~/zero:/dgraph dgraph/dgraph:latest dgraph zero --my=HOSTIPADDR:5080

Run dgraph alpha

mkdir ~/server1 # Or any other directory where data should be stored.

docker run -it -p 7080:7080 -p 8080:8080 -p 9080:9080 -v ~/server1:/dgraph dgraph/dgraph:latest dgraph alpha --lru_mb=<typically one-third the RAM> --zero=HOSTIPADDR:5080 --my=HOSTIPADDR:7080

mkdir ~/server2 # Or any other directory where data should be stored.

docker run -it -p 7081:7081 -p 8081:8081 -p 9081:9081 -v ~/server2:/dgraph dgraph/dgraph:latest dgraph alpha --lru_mb=<typically one-third the RAM> --zero=HOSTIPADDR:5080 --my=HOSTIPADDR:7081  -o=1

Notice the use of -o for server2 to override the default ports for server2.

Run dgraph UI

docker run -it -p 8000:8000 dgraph/dgraph:latest dgraph-ratel

Run using Docker Compose (On single AWS instance)

We will use Docker Machine. It is a tool that lets you install Docker Engine on virtual machines and easily deploy applications.

Install Docker Machine on your machine.

{{% notice "note" %}}These instructions are for running Dgraph Alpha without TLS config. Instructions for running with TLS refer TLS instructions.{{% /notice %}}

Here we'll go through an example of deploying Dgraph zero, server and ratel on an AWS instance.

Make sure you have Docker Machine installed by following instructions, provisioning an instance on AWS is just one step away. You'll have to configure your AWS credentials for programmatic access to the Amazon API.
Create a new docker machine.

docker-machine create --driver amazonec2 aws01

Your output should look like

Running pre-create checks...
Creating machine...
(aws01) Launching instance...
...
...
Docker is up and running!
To see how to connect your Docker Client to the Docker Engine running on this virtual machine, run: docker-machine env aws01

The command would provision a t2-micro instance with a security group called docker-machine (allowing inbound access on 2376 and 22). You can either edit the security group to allow inbound access to '5080, 8080, 9080` (default ports for Dgraph zero & server) or you can provide your own security group which allows inbound access on port 22, 2376 (required by Docker Machine), 5080, 8080 and 9080. Remember port 5080 is only required if you are running Dgraph live or bulk loader from outside.

Here is a list of full options for the amazonec2 driver which allows you choose the instance type, security group, AMI among many other things.

{{% notice "tip" %}}Docker machine supports other drivers like GCE, Azure etc.{{% /notice %}}

Install and run Dgraph using docker-compose

Docker Compose is a tool for running multi-container Docker applications. You can follow the instructions here to install it.

Copy the file below in a directory on your machine and name it docker-compose.yml.

version: "3.2"
services:
  zero:
    image: dgraph/dgraph:latest
    volumes:
      - /data:/dgraph
    ports:
      - 5080:5080
      - 6080:6080
    restart: on-failure
    command: dgraph zero --my=zero:5080
  server:
    image: dgraph/dgraph:latest
    volumes:
      - /data:/dgraph
    ports:
      - 8080:8080
      - 9080:9080
    restart: on-failure
    command: dgraph alpha --my=server:7080 --lru_mb=2048 --zero=zero:5080
  ratel:
    image: dgraph/dgraph:latest
    ports:
      - 8000:8000
    command: dgraph-ratel

{{% notice "note" %}}The config mounts /data(you could mount something else) on the instance to /dgraph within the container for persistence.{{% /notice %}}

Connect to the Docker Engine running on the machine.

Running docker-machine env aws01 tells us to run the command below to configure our shell.

eval $(docker-machine env aws01)

This configures our Docker client to talk to the Docker engine running on the AWS Machine.

Finally run the command below to start the Server and Zero.

docker-compose up -d

This would start 3 Docker containers running Dgraph Zero, Server and Ratel on the same machine. Docker would restart the containers in case there is any error. You can look at the logs using docker-compose logs.

Multi Host Setup

Using Docker Swarm

Cluster Setup Using Docker Swarm

{{% notice "note" %}}These instructions are for running Dgraph Alpha without TLS config. Instructions for running with TLS refer TLS instructions.{{% /notice %}}

Here we'll go through an example of deploying 3 Dgraph Alpha nodes and 1 Zero on three different AWS instances using Docker Swarm with a replication factor of 3.

Make sure you have Docker Machine installed by following instructions.

docker-machine --version

Create 3 instances on AWS and install Docker Engine on them. This can be done manually or by using docker-machine. You'll have to configure your AWS credentials to create the instances using Docker Machine.

Considering that you have AWS credentials setup, you can use the below commands to start 3 AWS t2-micro instances with Docker Engine installed on them.

docker-machine create --driver amazonec2 aws01
docker-machine create --driver amazonec2 aws02
docker-machine create --driver amazonec2 aws03

Your output should look like

Running pre-create checks...
Creating machine...
(aws01) Launching instance...
...
...
Docker is up and running!
To see how to connect your Docker Client to the Docker Engine running on this virtual machine, run: docker-machine env aws01

The command would provision a t2-micro instance with a security group called docker-machine (allowing inbound access on 2376 and 22).

You would need to edit the docker-machine security group to open inbound traffic on the following ports.

Allow all inbound traffic on all ports with Source being docker-machine security ports so that docker related communication can happen easily.
Also open inbound TCP traffic on the following ports required by Dgraph: 5080, 6080, 8000, 808[0-2], 908[0-2]. Remember port 5080 is only required if you are running Dgraph live or bulk loader from outside. You need to open 7080 to enable Dgraph alpha to server communication in case you have not opened all ports in #1.

If you are on AWS, below is the security group (docker-machine) after necessary changes.

Here is a list of full options for the amazonec2 driver which allows you choose the instance type, security group, AMI among many other things.

{{% notice "tip" %}}Docker machine supports other drivers like GCE, Azure etc.{{% /notice %}}

Running docker-machine ps shows all the AWS EC2 instances that we started.

➜  ~ docker-machine ls
NAME    ACTIVE   DRIVER       STATE     URL                         SWARM   DOCKER        ERRORS
aws01   -        amazonec2    Running   tcp://34.200.239.30:2376            v17.11.0-ce
aws02   -        amazonec2    Running   tcp://54.236.58.120:2376            v17.11.0-ce
aws03   -        amazonec2    Running   tcp://34.201.22.2:2376              v17.11.0-ce

Start the Swarm

Docker Swarm has manager and worker nodes. Swarm can be started and updated on manager nodes. We will setup aws01 as swarm manager. You can first run the following commands to initialize the swarm.

We are going to use the internal IP address given by AWS. Run the following command to get the internal IP for aws01. Lets assume 172.31.64.18 is the internal IP in this case.

docker-machine ssh aws01 ifconfig eth0

Now that we have the internal IP, lets initiate the Swarm.

# This configures our Docker client to talk to the Docker engine running on the aws01 host.
eval $(docker-machine env aws01)
docker swarm init --advertise-addr 172.31.64.18

Output:

Swarm initialized: current node (w9mpjhuju7nyewmg8043ypctf) is now a manager.

To add a worker to this swarm, run the following command:

    docker swarm join \
    --token SWMTKN-1-1y7lba98i5jv9oscf10sscbvkmttccdqtkxg478g3qahy8dqvg-5r5cbsntc1aamsw3s4h3thvgk \
    172.31.64.18:2377

To add a manager to this swarm, run 'docker swarm join-token manager' and follow the instructions.

Now we will make other nodes join the swarm.

eval $(docker-machine env aws02)
docker swarm join \
    --token SWMTKN-1-1y7lba98i5jv9oscf10sscbvkmttccdqtkxg478g3qahy8dqvg-5r5cbsntc1aamsw3s4h3thvgk \
    172.31.64.18:2377

Output:

This node joined a swarm as a worker.

Similary, aws03

eval $(docker-machine env aws03)
docker swarm join \
    --token SWMTKN-1-1y7lba98i5jv9oscf10sscbvkmttccdqtkxg478g3qahy8dqvg-5r5cbsntc1aamsw3s4h3thvgk \
    172.31.64.18:2377

On the Swarm manager aws01, verify that your swarm is running.

docker node ls

Output:

ID                            HOSTNAME            STATUS              AVAILABILITY        MANAGER STATUS
ghzapjsto20c6d6l3n0m91zev     aws02               Ready               Active
rb39d5lgv66it1yi4rto0gn6a     aws03               Ready               Active
waqdyimp8llvca9i09k4202x5 *   aws01               Ready               Active              Leader

Start the Dgraph cluster

Copy the following file on your host machine and name it as docker-compose.yml

version: "3"
networks:
  dgraph:
services:
  zero:
    image: dgraph/dgraph:latest
    volumes:
      - data-volume:/dgraph
    ports:
      - 5080:5080
      - 6080:6080
    networks:
      - dgraph
    deploy:
      placement:
        constraints:
          - node.hostname == aws01
    command: dgraph zero --my=zero:5080 --replicas 3
  server_1:
    image: dgraph/dgraph:latest
    hostname: "server_1"
    volumes:
      - data-volume:/dgraph
    ports:
      - 8080:8080
      - 9080:9080
    networks:
      - dgraph
    deploy:
      placement:
        constraints:
          - node.hostname == aws01
    command: dgraph alpha --my=server_1:7080 --lru_mb=2048 --zero=zero:5080
  server_2:
    image: dgraph/dgraph:latest
    hostname: "server_2"
    volumes:
      - data-volume:/dgraph
    ports:
      - 8081:8081
      - 9081:9081
    networks:
      - dgraph
    deploy:
      placement:
        constraints:
          - node.hostname == aws02
    command: dgraph alpha --my=server_2:7081 --lru_mb=2048 --zero=zero:5080 -o 1
  server_3:
    image: dgraph/dgraph:latest
    hostname: "server_3"
    volumes:
      - data-volume:/dgraph
    ports:
      - 8082:8082
      - 9082:9082
    networks:
      - dgraph
    deploy:
      placement:
        constraints:
          - node.hostname == aws03
    command: dgraph alpha --my=server_3:7082 --lru_mb=2048 --zero=zero:5080 -o 2
  ratel:
    image: dgraph/dgraph:latest
    hostname: "ratel"
    ports:
      - 8000:8000
    networks:
      - dgraph
    command: dgraph-ratel
volumes:
  data-volume:

Run the following command on the Swarm leader to deploy the Dgraph Cluster.

eval $(docker-machine env aws01)
docker stack deploy -c docker-compose.yml dgraph

This should run three Dgraph alpha services(one on each VM because of the constraint we have), one Dgraph zero service on aws01 and one Dgraph Ratel. These placement constraints(as seen in the compose file) are important so that in case of restarting any containers, swarm places the respective Dgraph Alpha or Zero containers on the same hosts to re-use the volumes. Also if you are running fewer than three hosts, make sure you use either different volumes or run dgraph-servers with ``-p p1 -w w1` options.

This setup would create and use a local volume called dgraph_data-volume on the instances. If you plan to replace instances, you should use remote storage like cloudstore instead of local disk. {{% /notice %}}

You can verify that all services were created successfully by running:

docker service ls

Output:

ID                  NAME                MODE                REPLICAS            IMAGE                PORTS
vp5bpwzwawoe        dgraph_ratel        replicated          1/1                 dgraph/dgraph:latest   *:8000->8000/tcp
69oge03y0koz        dgraph_server_2     replicated          1/1                 dgraph/dgraph:latest   *:8081->8081/tcp,*:9081->9081/tcp
kq5yks92mnk6        dgraph_server_3     replicated          1/1                 dgraph/dgraph:latest   *:8082->8082/tcp,*:9082->9082/tcp
uild5cqp44dz        dgraph_zero         replicated          1/1                 dgraph/dgraph:latest   *:5080->5080/tcp,*:6080->6080/tcp
v9jlw00iz2gg        dgraph_server_1     replicated          1/1                 dgraph/dgraph:latest   *:8080->8080/tcp,*:9080->9080/tcp

To stop the cluster run

docker stack rm dgraph

HA Cluster setup using Docker Swarm

Here is a sample swarm config for running 6 Dgraph Alpha nodes and 3 Zero nodes on 6 different ec2 instances. Setup should be similar to [Cluster setup using Docker Swarm]({{< relref "#cluster-setup-using-docker-swarm" >}}) apart from a couple of differences. This setup would ensure replication with sharding of data. The file assumes that there are six hosts available as docker-machines. Also if you are running on fewer than six hosts, make sure you use either different volumes or run dgraph-servers with -p p1 -w w1 options.

You would need to edit the docker-machine security group to open inbound traffic on the following ports.

Allow all inbound traffic on all ports with Source being docker-machine security ports so that docker related communication can happen easily.
Also open inbound TCP traffic on the following ports required by Dgraph: 5080, 8000, 808[0-5], 908[0-5]. Remember port 5080 is only required if you are running Dgraph live or bulk loader from outside. You need to open 7080 to enable Dgraph alpha to server communication in case you have not opened all ports in #1.

If you are on AWS, below is the security group (docker-machine) after necessary changes.

Copy the following file on your host machine and name it as docker-compose.yml

version: "3"
networks:
  dgraph:
services:
  zero_1:
    image: dgraph/dgraph:latest
    volumes:
      - data-volume:/dgraph
    ports:
      - 5080:5080
      - 6080:6080
    networks:
      - dgraph
    deploy:
      placement:
        constraints:
          - node.hostname == aws01
    command: dgraph zero --my=zero_1:5080 --replicas 3 --idx 1
  zero_2:
    image: dgraph/dgraph:latest
    volumes:
      - data-volume:/dgraph
    ports:
      - 5081:5081
      - 6081:6081
    networks:
      - dgraph
    deploy:
      placement:
        constraints:
          - node.hostname == aws02
    command: dgraph zero -o 1 --my=zero_2:5081 --replicas 3 --peer zero_1:5080 --idx 2
  zero_3:
    image: dgraph/dgraph:latest
    volumes:
      - data-volume:/dgraph
    ports:
      - 5082:5082
      - 6082:6082
    networks:
      - dgraph
    deploy:
      placement:
        constraints:
          - node.hostname == aws03
    command: dgraph zero -o 2 --my=zero_3:5082 --replicas 3 --peer zero_1:5080 --idx 3
  server_1:
    image: dgraph/dgraph:latest
    hostname: "server_1"
    volumes:
      - data-volume:/dgraph
    ports:
      - 8080:8080
      - 9080:9080
    networks:
      - dgraph
    deploy:
      replicas: 1
      placement:
        constraints:
          - node.hostname == aws01
    command: dgraph alpha --my=server_1:7080 --lru_mb=2048 --zero=zero_1:5080
  server_2:
    image: dgraph/dgraph:latest
    hostname: "server_2"
    volumes:
      - data-volume:/dgraph
    ports:
      - 8081:8081
      - 9081:9081
    networks:
      - dgraph
    deploy:
      replicas: 1
      placement:
        constraints:
          - node.hostname == aws02
    command: dgraph alpha --my=server_2:7081 --lru_mb=2048 --zero=zero_1:5080 -o 1
  server_3:
    image: dgraph/dgraph:latest
    hostname: "server_3"
    volumes:
      - data-volume:/dgraph
    ports:
      - 8082:8082
      - 9082:9082
    networks:
      - dgraph
    deploy:
      replicas: 1
      placement:
        constraints:
          - node.hostname == aws03
    command: dgraph alpha --my=server_3:7082 --lru_mb=2048 --zero=zero_1:5080 -o 2
  server_4:
    image: dgraph/dgraph:latest
    hostname: "server_4"
    volumes:
      - data-volume:/dgraph
    ports:
      - 8083:8083
      - 9083:9083
    networks:
      - dgraph
    deploy:
      placement:
        constraints:
          - node.hostname == aws04
    command: dgraph alpha --my=server_4:7083 --lru_mb=2048 --zero=zero_1:5080 -o 3
  server_5:
    image: dgraph/dgraph:latest
    hostname: "server_5"
    volumes:
      - data-volume:/dgraph
    ports:
      - 8084:8084
      - 9084:9084
    networks:
      - dgraph
    deploy:
      placement:
        constraints:
          - node.hostname == aws05
    command: dgraph alpha --my=server_5:7084 --lru_mb=2048 --zero=zero_1:5080 -o 4
  server_6:
    image: dgraph/dgraph:latest
    hostname: "server_6"
    volumes:
      - data-volume:/dgraph
    ports:
      - 8085:8085
      - 9085:9085
    networks:
      - dgraph
    deploy:
      placement:
        constraints:
          - node.hostname == aws06
    command: dgraph alpha --my=server_6:7085 --lru_mb=2048 --zero=zero_1:5080 -o 5
  ratel:
    image: dgraph/dgraph:latest
    hostname: "ratel"
    ports:
      - 8000:8000
    networks:
      - dgraph
    command: dgraph-ratel
volumes:
  data-volume:

This setup assumes that you are using 6 hosts, but if you are running fewer than 6 hosts then you have to either use different volumes between Dgraph alphas or use -p & -w to configure data directories.
This setup would create and use a local volume called dgraph_data-volume on the instances. If you plan to replace instances, you should use remote storage like cloudstore instead of local disk. {{% /notice %}}

Using Kubernetes (v1.8.4)

{{% notice "note" %}}These instructions are for running Dgraph Alpha without TLS config. Instructions for running with TLS refer TLS instructions.{{% /notice %}}

Install kubectl which is used to deploy and manage applications on kubernetes.
Get the kubernetes cluster up and running on a cloud provider of your choice. You can use kops to set it up on AWS. Kops does auto-scaling by default on AWS and creates the volumes and instances for you.

Verify that you have your cluster up and running using kubectl get nodes. If you used kops with the default options, you should have a master and two worker nodes ready.

➜  kubernetes git:(master) ✗ kubectl get nodes
NAME                                          STATUS    ROLES     AGE       VERSION
ip-172-20-42-118.us-west-2.compute.internal   Ready     node      1h        v1.8.4
ip-172-20-61-179.us-west-2.compute.internal   Ready     master    2h        v1.8.4
ip-172-20-61-73.us-west-2.compute.internal    Ready     node      2h        v1.8.4

Single Server

Once your kubernetes cluster is up, you can use dgraph-single.yaml to start a Dgraph Alpha and Zero.

From your machine, run the following command to start a StatefulSet that creates a Pod with Dgraph Server and Zero running in it.

kubectl create -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/dgraph-io/dgraph/master/contrib/config/kubernetes/dgraph-single.yaml

Output:

service "dgraph-public" created
statefulset "dgraph" created

Confirm that the pod was created successfully.

kubectl get pods

Output:

NAME       READY     STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
dgraph-0   3/3       Running   0          1m

{{% notice "tip" %}}You can check the logs for the containers in the pod using kubectl logs -f dgraph-0 <container_name>. For example, try kubectl logs -f dgraph-0 server for server logs.{{% /notice %}}

Test the setup

Port forward from your local machine to the pod

kubectl port-forward dgraph-0 8080
kubectl port-forward dgraph-0 8000

Go to http://localhost:8000 and verify Dgraph is working as expected.

{{% notice "note" %}} You can also access the service on its External IP address.{{% /notice %}}

Stop the cluster

Delete all the resources

kubectl delete pods,statefulsets,services,persistentvolumeclaims,persistentvolumes -l app=dgraph

Stop the cluster. If you used kops you can run the following command.

kops delete cluster ${NAME} --yes

HA Cluster Setup Using Kubernetes

This setup allows you to run 3 Dgraph Alphas and 3 Zero Servers. We start Zero with --replicas 3 flag, so all data would be replicated on 3 Servers and form 1 server group.

{{% notice "note" %}} Ideally you should have at least three worker nodes as part of your Kubernetes cluster so that each Dgraph Alpha runs on a separate node.{{% /notice %}}

Check the nodes that are part of the Kubernetes cluster.

kubectl get nodes

Output:

NAME                                          STATUS    ROLES     AGE       VERSION
ip-172-20-34-90.us-west-2.compute.internal    Ready     master    6m        v1.8.4
ip-172-20-51-1.us-west-2.compute.internal     Ready     node      4m        v1.8.4
ip-172-20-59-116.us-west-2.compute.internal   Ready     node      4m        v1.8.4
ip-172-20-61-88.us-west-2.compute.internal    Ready     node      5m        v1.8.4

Once your Kubernetes cluster is up, you can use dgraph-ha.yaml to start the cluster.

From your machine, run the following command to start the cluster.

kubectl create -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/dgraph-io/dgraph/master/contrib/config/kubernetes/dgraph-ha.yaml

Output:

service "dgraph-zero-public" created
service "dgraph-server-public" created
service "dgraph-server-0-http-public" created
service "dgraph-ratel-public" created
service "dgraph-zero" created
service "dgraph-server" created
statefulset "dgraph-zero" created
statefulset "dgraph-server" created
deployment "dgraph-ratel" created

Confirm that the pods were created successfully.

kubectl get pods

Output:

NAME                   READY     STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
dgraph-ratel-<pod-id>  1/1       Running   0          9s
dgraph-server-0        1/1       Running   0          2m
dgraph-server-1        1/1       Running   0          2m
dgraph-server-2        1/1       Running   0          2m
dgraph-zero-0          1/1       Running   0          2m
dgraph-zero-1          1/1       Running   0          2m
dgraph-zero-2          1/1       Running   0          2m

{{% notice "tip" %}}You can check the logs for the containers in the pod using kubectl logs -f dgraph-server-0 and kubectl logs -f dgraph-zero-0.{{% /notice %}}

Test the setup

Port forward from your local machine to the pod

kubectl port-forward dgraph-server-0 8080
kubectl port-forward dgraph-ratel-<pod-id> 8000

Go to http://localhost:8000 and verify Dgraph is working as expected.

{{% notice "note" %}} You can also access the service on its External IP address.{{% /notice %}}

Stop the cluster

Delete all the resources

kubectl delete pods,statefulsets,services,persistentvolumeclaims,persistentvolumes -l app=dgraph-zero
kubectl delete pods,statefulsets,services,persistentvolumeclaims,persistentvolumes -l app=dgraph-server
kubectl delete pods,replicasets,services,persistentvolumeclaims,persistentvolumes -l app=dgraph-ratel

Stop the cluster. If you used kops you can run the following command.

kops delete cluster ${NAME} --yes

More about Dgraph

On its http port, a running Dgraph instance exposes a number of admin endpoints.

/ Browser UI and query visualization.
/health HTTP status code 200 and "OK" message if worker is running, HTTP 503 otherwise.
/admin/shutdown [shutdown]({{< relref "#shutdown">}}) a node.
/admin/export take a running [export]({{< relref "#export">}}).

By default the server listens on localhost (the loopback address only accessible from the same machine). The --bindall=true option binds to 0.0.0.0 and thus allows external connections.

{{% notice "tip" %}}Set max file descriptors to a high value like 10000 if you are going to load a lot of data.{{% /notice %}}

More about Dgraph Zero

Dgraph Zero controls the Dgraph cluster. It automatically moves data between different Dgraph alpha instances based on the size of the data served by each server instance.

It is mandatory to run atleast one dgraph zero node before running any dgraph alpha. Options present for dgraph zero can be seen by running dgraph zero --help.

Zero stores information about the cluster.
--replicas is the option that controls the replication factor. (i.e. number of replicas per data shard, including the original shard)
Whenever a new machine is brought up it is assigned a group based on replication factor. If replication factor is 1 then each server node will serve different group. If replication factor is 2 and you launch 4 machines then first two machines would server group 1 and next two machines would server group 2.
Zero also monitors the space occupied by predicates in each group and moves them around to rebalance the cluster.

Like Dgraph, Zero also exposes HTTP on 6080 (+ any --port_offset). You can query it to see useful information, like the following:

/state Information about the nodes that are part of the cluster. Also contains information about size of predicates and groups they belong to.
/assignIds?num=100 This would allocate num ids and return a JSON map containing startId and endId, both inclusive. This id range can be safely assigned externally to new nodes, during data ingestion.
/removeNode?id=3&group=2 If a replica goes down and can't be recovered, you can remove it and add a new node to the quorum. This endpoint can be used to remove a dead Zero or Dgraph alpha node. To remove dead Zero nodes, just pass group=0 and the id of the Zero node. {{% notice "note" %}} Before using the api ensure that the node is down and ensure that it doesn't come back up ever again.

You should not use the same idx as that of a node that was removed earlier. {{% /notice %}}

/moveTablet?tablet=name&group=2 This endpoint can be used to move a tablet to a group. Zero already does shard rebalancing every 8 mins, this endpoint can be used to force move a tablet.

TLS configuration

{{% notice "note" %}} This section refers to the dgraph cert command which was introduced in v1.0.9. For previous releases, see the previous TLS configuration documentation. {{% /notice %}}

Connections between client and server can be secured with TLS. Password protected private keys are not supported.

{{% notice "tip" %}}If you're generating encrypted private keys with openssl, be sure to specify encryption algorithm explicitly (like -aes256). This will force openssl to include DEK-Info header in private key, which is required to decrypt the key by Dgraph. When default encryption is used, openssl doesn't write that header and key can't be decrypted.{{% /notice %}}

Self-signed certificates

The dgraph cert program creates and manages self-signed certificates using a generated Dgraph Root CA. The cert command simplifies certificate management for you.

# To see the available flags.
$ dgraph cert --help

# Create Dgraph Root CA, used to sign all other certificates.
$ dgraph cert

# Create node certificate (needed for Dgraph live loader using TLS)
$ dgraph cert -n live

# Create client certificate
$ dgraph cert -c dgraphuser

# Combine all in one command
$ dgraph cert -n live -c dgraphuser

# List all your certificates and keys
$ dgraph cert ls

File naming conventions

To enable TLS you must specify the directory path to find certificates and keys. The default location where the cert command stores certificates (and keys) is tls under the Dgraph working directory; where the data files are found. The default dir path can be overridden using the --dir option.

$ dgraph cert --dir ~/mycerts

The following file naming conventions are used by Dgraph for proper TLS setup.

File name	Description	Use
ca.crt	Dgraph Root CA certificate	Verify all certificates
ca.key	Dgraph CA private key	Validate CA certificate
node.crt	Dgraph node certificate	Shared by all nodes for accepting TLS connections
node.key	Dgraph node private key	Validate node certificate
client.name.crt	Dgraph client certificate	Authenticate a client name
client.name.key	Dgraph client private key	Validate name client certificate

The Root CA certificate is used for verifying node and client certificates, if changed you must regenerate all certificates.

For client authentication, each client must have their own certificate and key. These are then used to connect to the Dgraph node(s).

The node certificate node.crt can support multiple node names using multiple host names and/or IP address. Just separate the names with commas when generating the certificate.

$ dgraph cert -n localhost,104.25.165.23,dgraph.io,2400:cb00:2048:1::6819:a417

{{% notice "tip" %}}You must delete the old node cert and key before you can generate a new pair.{{% /notice %}}

{{% notice "note" %}}When using host names for node certificates, including localhost, your clients must connect to the matching host name -- such as localhost not 127.0.0.1. If you need to use IP addresses, then add them to the node certificate.{{% /notice %}}

Certificate inspection

The command dgraph cert ls lists all certificates and keys in the --dir directory (default 'tls'), along with details to inspect and validate cert/key pairs.

Example of command output:

-rw-r--r-- ca.crt - Dgraph Root CA certificate
    Issuer: Dgraph Labs, Inc.
       S/N: 3e468ac77ecd5017
Expiration: 23 Sep 28 19:10 UTC
  MD5 hash: 85B533D86B0DD689B9DBDAD6755B702F

-r-------- ca.key - Dgraph Root CA key
  MD5 hash: 85B533D86B0DD689B9DBDAD6755B702F

-rw-r--r-- client.srfrog.crt - Dgraph client certificate: srfrog
    Issuer: Dgraph Labs, Inc.
 CA Verify: PASSED
       S/N: 55cedf3c8606d98e
Expiration: 25 Sep 23 19:25 UTC
  MD5 hash: 445DCB276E29FA1000F79CAC376569BA

-rw------- client.srfrog.key - Dgraph Client key
  MD5 hash: 445DCB276E29FA1000F79CAC376569BA

-rw-r--r-- node.crt - Dgraph Node certificate
    Issuer: Dgraph Labs, Inc.
 CA Verify: PASSED
       S/N: 75aeb1ccd9a6f3fd
Expiration: 25 Sep 23 19:39 UTC
     Hosts: localhost
  MD5 hash: FA0FFC88F7AA654575CD48A493C3D65A

-rw------- node.key - Dgraph Node key
  MD5 hash: FA0FFC88F7AA654575CD48A493C3D65A

Important points:

The cert/key pairs should always have matching MD5 hashes. Otherwise, the cert(s) must be regenerated. If the Root CA pair differ, all cert/key must be regenerated; the flag --force can help.
All certificates must pass Dgraph CA verification.
All key files should have the least access permissions, specially the ca.key, but be readable.
Key files won't be overwritten if they have limited access, even with --force.
Node certificates are only valid for the hosts listed.
Client certificates are only valid for the named client/user.

TLS options

Following configuration options are available for the server:

--tls_dir string - TLS dir path; this enables TLS connections (usually 'tls').
--tls_use_system_ca - Include System CA with Dgraph Root CA.
--tls_client_auth string - TLS client authentication used to validate client connection. See Client authentication for details.

# Default use for enabling TLS server (after generating certificates)
$ dgraph alpha --tls_dir tls

Dgraph live loader can be configured with following options:

--tls_dir string - TLS dir path; this enables TLS connections (usually 'tls').
--tls_use_system_ca - Include System CA with Dgraph Root CA.
--tls_server_name string - Server name, used for validating the server's TLS host name.

# First, create a client certificate for live loader. This will create 'tls/client.live.crt'
$ dgraph cert -c live

# Now, connect to server using TLS
$ dgraph live --tls_dir tls -s 21million.schema -r 21million.rdf.gz

Client authentication

The server option --tls_client_auth accepts different values that change the security policty of client certificate verification.

Value	Description
REQUEST	Server accepts any certificate, invalid and unverified (least secure)
REQUIREANY	Server expects any certificate, valid and unverified
VERIFYIFGIVEN	Client certificate is verified if provided (default)
REQUIREANDVERIFY	Always require a valid certificate (most secure)

{{% notice "note" %}}REQUIREANDVERIFY is the most secure but also the most difficult to configure for remote clients. When using this value, the value of --tls_server_name is matched against the certificate SANs values and the connection host.{{% /notice %}}

Cluster Checklist

In setting up a cluster be sure the check the following.

Is atleast one Dgraph zero node running?
Is each Dgraph alpha instance in the cluster set up correctly?
Will each server instance be accessible to all peers on 7080 (+ any port offset)?
Does each node have a unique ID on startup?
Has --bindall=true been set for networked communication?

Fast Data Loading

There are two different tools that can be used for bulk data loading:

dgraph live
dgraph bulk

{{% notice "note" %}} Both tools only accepts gzipped, RDF NQuad/Triple data. Data in other formats must be converted to this.{{% /notice %}}

Live Loader

The dgraph live binary is a small helper program which reads RDF NQuads from a gzipped file, batches them up, creates mutations (using the go client) and shoots off to Dgraph.

Live loader correctly handles assigning unique IDs to blank nodes across multiple files, and can optionally persist them to disk to save memory, in case the loader was re-run.

{{% notice "note" %}} Live loader can optionally write the xid->uid mapping to a directory specified using the -x flag, which can reused given that live loader completed successfully in the previous run.{{% /notice %}}

$ dgraph live --help # To see the available flags.

# Read RDFs from the passed file, and send them to Dgraph on localhost:9080.
$ dgraph live -r <path-to-rdf-gzipped-file>

# Read RDFs and a schema file and send to Dgraph running at given address
$ dgraph live -r <path-to-rdf-gzipped-file> -s <path-to-schema-file> -d <dgraph-server-address:grpc_port> -z <dgraph-zero-address:grpc_port>

Bulk Loader

{{% notice "note" %}} It's crucial to tune the bulk loaders flags to get good performance. See the section below for details. {{% /notice %}}

Bulk loader serves a similar purpose to the live loader, but can only be used while Dgraph is offline (i.e., no Dgraph alphas are running, except a Dgraph zero) for the initial population. It cannot be run on an existing live Dgraph cluster.

{{% notice "warning" %}} Don't use bulk loader once Dgraph cluster is up and running. Use it to import your existing data into a new instance of Dgraph alpha. {{% /notice %}}

Bulk loader is considerably faster than the live loader, and is the recommended way to perform the initial import of large datasets into Dgraph.

You can read some technical details about the bulk loader on the blog.

See [Fast Data Loading]({{< relref "#fast-data-loading" >}}) for more about the expected N-Quads format.

You need to determine the number of Dgraph alpha instances you want in your cluster. You should set the number of reduce shards to this number. You will also need to set the number of map shards to at least this number (a higher number helps the bulk loader evenly distribute predicates between the reduce shards). For this example, you could use 2 reduce shards and 4 map shards.

{{% notice "note" %}} Ports in the example below may have to be adjusted depending on how other processes have been set up. If you are using Dgraph v1.0.2 (and older) the option would be --zero_addr instead of --zero. {{% /notice %}}

$ dgraph bulk -r goldendata.rdf.gz -s goldendata.schema --map_shards=4 --reduce_shards=2 --http localhost:8000 --zero=localhost:5080
{
	"RDFDir": "goldendata.rdf.gz",
	"SchemaFile": "goldendata.schema",
	"DgraphsDir": "out",
	"TmpDir": "tmp",
	"NumGoroutines": 4,
	"MapBufSize": 67108864,
	"ExpandEdges": true,
	"SkipMapPhase": false,
	"CleanupTmp": true,
	"NumShufflers": 1,
	"Version": false,
	"StoreXids": false,
	"ZeroAddr": "localhost:5080",
	"HttpAddr": "localhost:8000",
	"MapShards": 4,
	"ReduceShards": 2
}
The bulk loader needs to open many files at once. This number depends on the size of the data set loaded, the map file output size, and the level of indexing. 100,000 is adequate for most data set sizes. See `man ulimit` for details of how to change the limit.
Current max open files limit: 1024
MAP 01s rdf_count:176.0 rdf_speed:174.4/sec edge_count:564.0 edge_speed:558.8/sec
MAP 02s rdf_count:399.0 rdf_speed:198.5/sec edge_count:1.291k edge_speed:642.4/sec
MAP 03s rdf_count:666.0 rdf_speed:221.3/sec edge_count:2.164k edge_speed:718.9/sec
MAP 04s rdf_count:952.0 rdf_speed:237.4/sec edge_count:3.014k edge_speed:751.5/sec
MAP 05s rdf_count:1.327k rdf_speed:264.8/sec edge_count:4.243k edge_speed:846.7/sec
MAP 06s rdf_count:1.774k rdf_speed:295.1/sec edge_count:5.720k edge_speed:951.5/sec
MAP 07s rdf_count:2.375k rdf_speed:338.7/sec edge_count:7.607k edge_speed:1.085k/sec
MAP 08s rdf_count:3.697k rdf_speed:461.4/sec edge_count:11.89k edge_speed:1.484k/sec
MAP 09s rdf_count:71.98k rdf_speed:7.987k/sec edge_count:225.4k edge_speed:25.01k/sec
MAP 10s rdf_count:354.8k rdf_speed:35.44k/sec edge_count:1.132M edge_speed:113.1k/sec
MAP 11s rdf_count:610.5k rdf_speed:55.39k/sec edge_count:1.985M edge_speed:180.1k/sec
MAP 12s rdf_count:883.9k rdf_speed:73.52k/sec edge_count:2.907M edge_speed:241.8k/sec
MAP 13s rdf_count:1.108M rdf_speed:85.10k/sec edge_count:3.653M edge_speed:280.5k/sec
MAP 14s rdf_count:1.121M rdf_speed:79.93k/sec edge_count:3.695M edge_speed:263.5k/sec
MAP 15s rdf_count:1.121M rdf_speed:74.61k/sec edge_count:3.695M edge_speed:246.0k/sec
REDUCE 16s [1.69%] edge_count:62.61k edge_speed:62.61k/sec plist_count:29.98k plist_speed:29.98k/sec
REDUCE 17s [18.43%] edge_count:681.2k edge_speed:651.7k/sec plist_count:328.1k plist_speed:313.9k/sec
REDUCE 18s [33.28%] edge_count:1.230M edge_speed:601.1k/sec plist_count:678.9k plist_speed:331.8k/sec
REDUCE 19s [45.70%] edge_count:1.689M edge_speed:554.4k/sec plist_count:905.9k plist_speed:297.4k/sec
REDUCE 20s [60.94%] edge_count:2.252M edge_speed:556.5k/sec plist_count:1.278M plist_speed:315.9k/sec
REDUCE 21s [93.21%] edge_count:3.444M edge_speed:681.5k/sec plist_count:1.555M plist_speed:307.7k/sec
REDUCE 22s [100.00%] edge_count:3.695M edge_speed:610.4k/sec plist_count:1.778M plist_speed:293.8k/sec
REDUCE 22s [100.00%] edge_count:3.695M edge_speed:584.4k/sec plist_count:1.778M plist_speed:281.3k/sec
Total: 22s

Once the data is generated, you can start the Dgraph alphas by pointing their -p directory to the output. If running multiple Dgraph alphas, you'd need to copy over the output shards into different servers.

$ cd out/i # i = shard number.
$ dgraph alpha --zero=localhost:5080 --lru_mb=1024

Tuning & monitoring

Performance Tuning

{{% notice "tip" %}} We highly recommend disabling swap space when running Bulk Loader. It is better to fix the parameters to decrease memory usage, than to have swapping grind the loader down to a halt. {{% /notice %}}

Flags can be used to control the behaviour and performance characteristics of the bulk loader. You can see the full list by running dgraph bulk --help. In particular, the flags should be tuned so that the bulk loader doesn't use more memory than is available as RAM. If it starts swapping, it will become incredibly slow.

In the map phase, tweaking the following flags can reduce memory usage:

The --num_go_routines flag controls the number of worker threads. Lowering reduces memory consumption.
The --mapoutput_mb flag controls the size of the map output files. Lowering reduces memory consumption.

For bigger datasets and machines with many cores, gzip decoding can be a bottleneck during the map phase. Performance improvements can be obtained by first splitting the RDFs up into many .rdf.gz files (e.g. 256MB each). This has a negligible impact on memory usage.

The reduce phase is less memory heavy than the map phase, although can still use a lot. Some flags may be increased to improve performance, but only if you have large amounts of RAM:

The --reduce_shards flag controls the number of resultant Dgraph alpha instances. Increasing this increases memory consumption, but in exchange allows for higher CPU utilization.
The --map_shards flag controls the number of separate map output shards. Increasing this increases memory consumption but balances the resultant Dgraph alpha instances more evenly.
The --shufflers controls the level of parallelism in the shuffle/reduce stage. Increasing this increases memory consumption.

Monitoring

Dgraph exposes metrics via the /debug/vars endpoint in json format and the /debug/prometheus_metrics endpoint in Prometheus's text-based format. Dgraph doesn't store the metrics and only exposes the value of the metrics at that instant. You can either poll this endpoint to get the data in your monitoring systems or install Prometheus. Replace targets in the below config file with the ip of your Dgraph instances and run prometheus using the command prometheus -config.file my_config.yaml.

scrape_configs:
  - job_name: "dgraph"
    metrics_path: "/debug/prometheus_metrics"
    scrape_interval: "2s"
    static_configs:
    - targets:
      - 172.31.9.133:6080 #For Dgraph zero, 6080 is the http endpoint exposing metrics.
      - 172.31.15.230:8080
      - 172.31.0.170:8080
      - 172.31.8.118:8080

{{% notice "note" %}} Raw data exported by Prometheus is available via /debug/prometheus_metrics endpoint on Dgraph alphas. {{% /notice %}}

Install Grafana to plot the metrics. Grafana runs at port 3000 in default settings. Create a prometheus datasource by following these steps. Import grafana_dashboard.json by following this link.

Metrics

Dgraph metrics follow the metric and label conventions for Prometheus.

Disk Metrics

The disk metrics let you track the disk activity of the Dgraph process. Dgraph does not interact directly with the filesystem. Instead it relies on Badger to read from and write to disk.

Metrics	Description
`badger_disk_reads_total`	Total count of disk reads in Badger.
`badger_disk_writes_total`	Total count of disk writes in Badger.
`badger_gets_total`	Total count of calls to Badger's `get`.
`badger_memtable_gets_total`	Total count of memtable accesses to Badger's `get`.
`badger_puts_total`	Total count of calls to Badger's `put`.
`badger_read_bytes`	Total bytes read from Badger.
`badger_written_bytes`	Total bytes written to Badger.

Memory Metrics

The memory metrics let you track the memory usage of the Dgraph process. The idle and inuse metrics gives you a better sense of the active memory usage of the Dgraph process. The process memory metric shows the memory usage as measured by the operating system.

By looking at all three metrics you can see how much memory a Dgraph process is holding from the operating system and how much is actively in use.

Metrics	Description
`dgraph_memory_idle_bytes`	Estimated amount of memory that is being held idle that could be reclaimed by the OS.
`dgraph_memory_inuse_bytes`	Total memory usage in bytes (sum of heap usage and stack usage).
`dgraph_memory_proc_bytes`	Total memory usage in bytes of the Dgraph process. On Linux/macOS, this metric is equivalent to resident set size. On Windows, this metric is equivalent to Go's runtime.ReadMemStats.

LRU Cache Metrics

The LRU cache metrics let you track on how well the posting list cache is being used.

You can track dgraph_lru_capacity_bytes, dgraph_lru_evicted_total, and dgraph_max_list_bytes (see the [Data Metrics]({{< relref "#data-metrics" >}})) to determine if the cache size should be adjusted. A high number of evictions can indicate a large posting list that repeatedly is inserted and evicted from cache due to insufficient sizing. The LRU cache size can be tuned with the option --lru_mb.

Metrics	Description
`dgraph_lru_hits_total`	Total number of cache hits for posting lists in Dgraph.
`dgraph_lru_miss_total`	Total number of cache misses for posting lists in Dgraph.
`dgraph_lru_race_total`	Total number of cache races when getting posting lists in Dgraph.
`dgraph_lru_evicted_total`	Total number of posting lists evicted from LRU cache.
`dgraph_lru_capacity_bytes`	Current size of the LRU cache. The max value should be close to the size specified by `--lru_mb`.
`dgraph_lru_keys_total`	Total number of keys in the LRU cache.
`dgraph_lru_size_bytes`	Size in bytes of the LRU cache.

Data Metrics

The data metrics let you track the [posting list]({{< ref "/design-concepts/index.md#posting-list" >}}) store.

Metrics	Description
`dgraph_max_list_bytes`	Max posting list size in bytes.
`dgraph_max_list_length`	The largest number of postings stored in a posting list seen so far.
`dgraph_posting_writes_total`	Total number of posting list writes to disk.
`dgraph_read_bytes_total`	Total bytes read from Dgraph.

Activity Metrics

The activity metrics let you track the mutations, queries, and proposals of an Dgraph instance.

Metrics	Description
`dgraph_goroutines_total`	Total number of Goroutines currently running in Dgraph.
`dgraph_active_mutations_total`	Total number of mutations currently running.
`dgraph_pending_proposals_total`	Total pending Raft proposals.
`dgraph_pending_queries_total`	Total number of queries in progress.
`dgraph_num_queries_total`	Total number of queries run in Dgraph.

Health Metrics

The health metrics let you track to check the availability of an Dgraph Alpha instance.

Metrics	Description
`dgraph_alpha_health_status`	Only applicable to Dgraph Alpha. Value is 1 when the Alpha is ready to accept requests; otherwise 0.

Go Metrics

Go's built-in metrics may also be useful to measure for memory usage and garbage collection time.

Metrics	Description
`go_memstats_gc_cpu_fraction`	The fraction of this program's available CPU time used by the GC since the program started.
`go_memstats_heap_idle_bytes`	Number of heap bytes waiting to be used.
`go_memstats_heap_inuse_bytes`	Number of heap bytes that are in use.

Unused Metrics

Metrics	Description
`dgraph_dirtymap_keys_total`	Unused.
`dgraph_posting_reads_total`	Unused.

Dgraph Administration

Each Dgraph Alpha exposes administrative operations over HTTP to export data and to perform a clean shutdown.

Whitelist Admin Operations

By default, admin operations can only be initiated from the machine on which the Dgraph Alpha runs. You can use the --whitelist option to specify whitelisted IP addresses and ranges for hosts from which admin operations can be initiated.

dgraph alpha --whitelist 172.17.0.0:172.20.0.0,192.168.1.1 --lru_mb <one-third RAM> ...

This would allow admin operations from hosts with IP between 172.17.0.0 and 172.20.0.0 along with the server which has IP address as 192.168.1.1.

Secure Alter Operations

Clients can use alter operations to apply schema updates and drop particular or all predicates from the database. By default, all clients are allowed to perform alter operations. You can configure Dgraph to only allow alter operations when the client provides a specific token. This can be used to prevent clients from making unintended or accidental schema updates or predicate drops.

You can specify the auth token with the --auth_token option for each Dgraph Alpha in the cluster. Clients must include the same auth token to make alter requests.

$ dgraph alpha --lru_mb=2048 --auth_token=<authtokenstring>

$ curl -s localhost:8080/alter -d '{ "drop_all": true }'
# Permission denied. No token provided.

$ curl -s -H 'X-Dgraph-AuthToken: <wrongsecret>' localhost:8180/alter -d '{ "drop_all": true }'
# Permission denied. Incorrect token.

$ curl -H 'X-Dgraph-AuthToken: <authtokenstring>' localhost:8180/alter -d '{ "drop_all": true }'
# Success. Token matches.

{{% notice "note" %}} To fully secure alter operations in the cluster, the auth token must be set for every Alpha. {{% /notice %}}

Export Database

An export of all nodes is started by locally accessing the export endpoint of any server in the cluster.

$ curl localhost:8080/admin/export

{{% notice "warning" %}}By default, this won't work if called from outside the server where Dgraph alpha is running. You can specify a list or range of whitelisted IP addresses from which export or other admin operations can be initiated using the --whitelist flag on dgraph alpha. {{% /notice %}}

This also works from a browser, provided the HTTP GET is being run from the same server where the Dgraph alpha instance is running.

{{% notice "note" %}}An export file would be created on only the server which is the leader for a group and not on followers.{{% /notice %}}

This triggers a export of all the groups spread across the entire cluster. Each server which is a leader for a group writes output in gzipped rdf to the export directory specified on startup by --export. If any of the groups fail, the entire export process is considered failed, and an error is returned.

{{% notice "note" %}}It is up to the user to retrieve the right export files from the servers in the cluster. Dgraph does not copy files to the server that initiated the export.{{% /notice %}}

Shutdown Database

A clean exit of a single Dgraph node is initiated by running the following command on that node. {{% notice "warning" %}}This won't work if called from outside the server where Dgraph is running. {{% /notice %}}

$ curl localhost:8080/admin/shutdown

This stops the server on which the command is executed and not the entire cluster.

Delete database

Individual triples, patterns of triples and predicates can be deleted as described in the query languge docs.

To drop all data, you could send a DropAll request via /alter endpoint.

Alternatively, you could:

[stop Dgraph]({{< relref "#shutdown" >}}) and wait for all writes to complete,
delete (maybe do an export first) the p and w directories, then
restart Dgraph.

Upgrade Database

Doing periodic exports is always a good idea. This is particularly useful if you wish to upgrade Dgraph or reconfigure the sharding of a cluster. The following are the right steps safely export and restart.

Start an [export]({{< relref "#export">}})
Ensure it's successful
Bring down the cluster
Run Dgraph using new data directories.
Reload the data via [bulk loader]({{< relref "#Bulk Loader" >}}).
If all looks good, you can delete the old directories (export serves as an insurance)

These steps are necessary because Dgraph's underlying data format could have changed, and reloading the export avoids encoding incompatibilities.

Post Installation

Now that Dgraph is up and running, to understand how to add and query data to Dgraph, follow Query Language Spec. Also, have a look at Frequently asked questions.

Troubleshooting

Here are some problems that you may encounter and some solutions to try.

Running OOM (out of memory)

During bulk loading of data, Dgraph can consume more memory than usual, due to high volume of writes. That's generally when you see the OOM crashes.

The recommended minimum RAM to run on desktops and laptops is 16GB. Dgraph can take up to 7-8 GB with the default setting --lru_mb set to 4096; so having the rest 8GB for desktop applications should keep your machine humming along.

On EC2/GCE instances, the recommended minimum is 8GB. It's recommended to set --lru_mb to one-third of RAM size.

You could also decrease memory usage of Dgraph by setting --badger.vlog=disk.

Too many open files

If you see an log error messages saying too many open files, you should increase the per-process file descriptors limit.

During normal operations, Dgraph must be able to open many files. Your operating system may set by default a open file descriptor limit lower than what's needed for a database such as Dgraph.

On Linux and Mac, you can check the file descriptor limit with ulimit -n -H for the hard limit and ulimit -n -S for the soft limit. The soft limit should be set high enough for Dgraph to run properly. A soft limit of 65535 is a good lower bound for a production setup. You can adjust the limit as needed.

Files

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Install Dgraph

Docker

Automatic download

Manual download [optional]

Building from Source

Config

Cluster Setup

Understanding Dgraph cluster

Ports Usage

Types of ports

Ports used by different nodes

HA Cluster Setup

Single Host Setup

Run directly on the host

Run using Docker

Run using Docker Compose (On single AWS instance)

Multi Host Setup

Using Docker Swarm

Cluster Setup Using Docker Swarm

HA Cluster setup using Docker Swarm

Using Kubernetes (v1.8.4)

Single Server

HA Cluster Setup Using Kubernetes

More about Dgraph

More about Dgraph Zero

TLS configuration

Self-signed certificates

File naming conventions

Certificate inspection

TLS options

Client authentication

Cluster Checklist

Fast Data Loading

Live Loader

Bulk Loader

Tuning & monitoring

Performance Tuning

Monitoring

Metrics

Disk Metrics

Memory Metrics

LRU Cache Metrics

Data Metrics

Activity Metrics

Health Metrics

Go Metrics

Unused Metrics

Dgraph Administration

Whitelist Admin Operations

Secure Alter Operations

Export Database

Shutdown Database

Delete database

Upgrade Database

Post Installation

Troubleshooting

Running OOM (out of memory)

Too many open files

See Also