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Deploy a node

A node is a managed service for pipelines and storage.

Install a node​

Start at app.tenzir.com and click Add in the nodes pane. Then select your platform.

Docker​

We provide Docker images and a Docker Compose file for a container setup. Install a node as follows:

  1. Enter a name for your node and click the download button to obtain the docker-compose.NODE.yaml configuration file where NODE is the name you entered for your node.
  2. Run
    docker compose -f docker-compose.NODE.yaml up

Edit the Docker Compose file and change environment variables to adjust the configuration.

Linux​

We offer a native deployment on various Linux distributions. Install a node as follows:

  1. Enter a name for your node and click the download button to obtain a platform.yaml configuration file.
  2. Move the platform.yaml to <sysconfdir>/tenzir/plugin/platform.yaml so that the node can find it during startup; <sysconfdir> might be /opt/tenzir/etc or just /etc. See the configuration files documentation for more options.
  3. Run our installer to install a binary package on any Linux distribution:
    curl https://get.tenzir.app | sh

The installer script asks for confirmation before performing the installation. If you prefer a manual installation you can also perform the installer steps yourself.

Download the latest Debian package and install it via dpkg:

dpkg -i tenzir-static-amd64-linux.deb

You can uninstall the Tenzir package via apt-get remove tenzir. Use purge instead of remove if you also want to delete the state directory and leave no trace.

macOS​

Please use Docker with Rosetta until we offer a native package.

Start a node​

Implicit start with Docker

You can skip this step if you use Docker because docker compose up already starts a node for you.

Run the tenzir-node executable to start a node:

tenzir-node
      _____ _____ _   _ ________ ____
     |_   _| ____| \ | |__  /_ _|  _ \
       | | |  _| |  \| | / / | || |_) |
       | | | |___| |\  |/ /_ | ||  _ <
       |_| |_____|_| \_/____|___|_| \_\

          v4.0.0-rc6-0-gf193b51f1f
Visit https://app.tenzir.com to get started.

[16:50:26.741] node listens for node-to-node connections on tcp://127.0.0.1:5158
[16:50:26.982] node connected to platform via wss://ws.tenzir.app:443/production

This will spawn a blocking process that listens by default for node-to-node connections on the TCP endpoint 127.0.0.1:5158. Select a different endpoint via the tenzir.endpoint option, e.g., bind to an IPv6 address:

tenzir-node --endpoint=[::1]:42000

Set tenzir.endpoint to false to disable the endpoint, making the node exclusively accessible through the Tenzir Platform. This effectively prevents connections from other tenzir or tenzir-node processes.

Stop a node​

There exist two ways stop a server:

  1. Hit CTRL+C in the same TTY where you ran tenzir-node.
  2. Send the process a SIGINT or SIGTERM signal, e.g., via pkill -2 tenzir-node.

Sending the process a SIGTERM is the same as hitting CTRL+C.

Automate the deployment​

Use systemd or Ansible to automate the deployment of a node.

systemd​

The Tenzir package bundles a systemd service unit under <extraction_path>/lib/systemd/system/tenzir-node.service. The service is sandboxed and runs with limited privileges.

Prepare the host system​

Please note that all subsequent commands require root privileges. The service requires a user and group called tenzir. You can create them as follows.

useradd --system --user-group tenzir

Once the user exists, you should create the directory for Tenzir's persistent data and change the permissions such that it is owned by the new tenzir user:

mkdir -p /var/lib/tenzir
chown -R tenzir:tenzir /var/lib/tenzir

Configure the unit​

Locate the lines beginning with ExecStart= and ExecStop= at the bottom of the [Service] section in the unit file. Depending on your installation path you might need to change the location of the tenzir binary.

ExecStart=/path/to/tenzir start

In case your Tenzir deployment needs elevated privileges, e.g., to capture packets, you can provide them as follows:

CapabilityBoundingSet=CAP_NET_RAW
AmbientCapabilities=CAP_NET_RAW

Then link the unit file to your systemd search path:

systemctl link tenzir-node.service

To have the service start up automatically on system boot, enable it via systemd. Otherwise, just start it to run it immediately.

systemctl enable tenzir-node
systemctl start tenzir-node

Ansible​

The Ansible role for Tenzir allows for easy integration of Tenzir into existing Ansible setups. The role uses either the Tenzir Debian package or the tarball installation method depending on which is appropriate for the target environment. The role definition is in the ansible/roles/tenzir directory of the Tenzir repository. You need a local copy of this directory so you can use it in your playbook.

Example​

This example playbook shows how to run a Tenzir service on the machine example_tenzir_server:

- name: Deploy Tenzir
  become: true
  hosts: example_tenzir_server
  remote_user: example_ansible_user
  roles:
    - role: tenzir
      vars:
        tenzir_config_dir: ./tenzir
        tenzir_read_write_paths: [ /tmp ]
        tenzir_archive: ./tenzir.tar.gz
        tenzir_debian_package: ./tenzir.deb

Variables​

tenzir_config_dir (required)​

A path to directory containing a tenzir.yaml relative to the playbook.

tenzir_read_write_paths​

A list of paths that Tenzir shall be granted access to in addition to its own state and log directories.

tenzir_archive​

A tarball of Tenzir structured like those that can be downloaded from the GitHub Releases Page. This is used for target distributions that are not based on the apt package manager.

tenzir_debian_package​

A Debian package (.deb). This package is used for Debian and Debian based Linux distributions.