Cassandra's server starting error on OS X

Question

I'm trying to set up apache cassandra on my OS X macbook. I'm trying to test NoSql databases, I've already set up memcached and redis. But with cassandra I'm having I'm using jdk 1.7.0_09 from oracle I've followed the installation instructions, but when I'm trying to start the server, I get this the issue from the console:

MacBook-Air-Urij:bin urijvoskresenskij$ ./cassandra -f
xss =  -ea -javaagent:./../lib/jamm-0.2.5.jar -XX:+UseThreadPriorities -XX:ThreadPriorityPolicy=42 -Xms1024M -Xmx1024M -Xmn200M -XX:+HeapDumpOnOutOfMemoryError
log4j:ERROR setFile(null,true) call failed.
java.io.FileNotFoundException: /var/log/cassandra/system.log (Permission denied)
    at java.io.FileOutputStream.open(Native Method)
    at java.io.FileOutputStream.<init>(FileOutputStream.java:212)
    at java.io.FileOutputStream.<init>(FileOutputStream.java:136)
    at org.apache.log4j.FileAppender.setFile(FileAppender.java:294)
    at org.apache.log4j.RollingFileAppender.setFile(RollingFileAppender.java:207)
    at org.apache.log4j.FileAppender.activateOptions(FileAppender.java:165)
    at org.apache.log4j.config.PropertySetter.activate(PropertySetter.java:307)
    at org.apache.log4j.config.PropertySetter.setProperties(PropertySetter.java:172)
    at org.apache.log4j.config.PropertySetter.setProperties(PropertySetter.java:104)
    at org.apache.log4j.PropertyConfigurator.parseAppender(PropertyConfigurator.java:809)
    at org.apache.log4j.PropertyConfigurator.parseCategory(PropertyConfigurator.java:735)
    at org.apache.log4j.PropertyConfigurator.configureRootCategory(PropertyConfigurator.java:615)
    at org.apache.log4j.PropertyConfigurator.doConfigure(PropertyConfigurator.java:502)
    at org.apache.log4j.PropertyConfigurator.doConfigure(PropertyConfigurator.java:395)
    at org.apache.log4j.PropertyWatchdog.doOnChange(PropertyConfigurator.java:922)
    at org.apache.log4j.helpers.FileWatchdog.checkAndConfigure(FileWatchdog.java:89)
    at org.apache.log4j.helpers.FileWatchdog.<init>(FileWatchdog.java:58)
    at org.apache.log4j.PropertyWatchdog.<init>(PropertyConfigurator.java:914)
    at org.apache.log4j.PropertyConfigurator.configureAndWatch(PropertyConfigurator.java:461)
    at org.apache.cassandra.service.AbstractCassandraDaemon.initLog4j(AbstractCassandraDaemon.java:100)
    at org.apache.cassandra.thrift.CassandraDaemon.<clinit>(CassandraDaemon.java:61)
 INFO 17:40:17,717 Logging initialized
 INFO 17:40:17,720 JVM vendor/version: Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM/1.7.0_09
 INFO 17:40:17,720 Heap size: 1052770304/1052770304
 INFO 17:40:17,721 Classpath: ./../conf:./../build/classes/main:./../build/classes/thrift:./../lib/antlr-3.2.jar:./../lib/apache-cassandra-1.1.7.jar:./../lib/apache-cassandra-clientutil-1.1.7.jar:./../lib/apache-cassandra-thrift-1.1.7.jar:./../lib/avro-1.4.0-fixes.jar:./../lib/avro-1.4.0-sources-fixes.jar:./../lib/commons-cli-1.1.jar:./../lib/commons-codec-1.2.jar:./../lib/commons-lang-2.4.jar:./../lib/compress-lzf-0.8.4.jar:./../lib/concurrentlinkedhashmap-lru-1.3.jar:./../lib/guava-r08.jar:./../lib/high-scale-lib-1.1.2.jar:./../lib/jackson-core-asl-1.9.2.jar:./../lib/jackson-mapper-asl-1.9.2.jar:./../lib/jamm-0.2.5.jar:./../lib/jline-0.9.94.jar:./../lib/json-simple-1.1.jar:./../lib/libthrift-0.7.0.jar:./../lib/log4j-1.2.16.jar:./../lib/metrics-core-2.0.3.jar:./../lib/servlet-api-2.5-20081211.jar:./../lib/slf4j-api-1.6.1.jar:./../lib/slf4j-log4j12-1.6.1.jar:./../lib/snakeyaml-1.6.jar:./../lib/snappy-java-1.0.4.1.jar:./../lib/snaptree-0.1.jar:./../lib/jamm-0.2.5.jar
 INFO 17:40:17,722 JNA not found. Native methods will be disabled.
 INFO 17:40:17,734 Loading settings from file:/Users/urijvoskresenskij/apache-cassandra-1.1.7/conf/cassandra.yaml
 INFO 17:40:17,924 DiskAccessMode 'auto' determined to be mmap, indexAccessMode is mmap
 INFO 17:40:18,149 Global memtable threshold is enabled at 334MB
java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:57)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:601)
    at org.xerial.snappy.SnappyLoader.loadNativeLibrary(SnappyLoader.java:317)
    at org.xerial.snappy.SnappyLoader.load(SnappyLoader.java:219)
    at org.xerial.snappy.Snappy.<clinit>(Snappy.java:44)
    at org.apache.cassandra.io.compress.SnappyCompressor.create(SnappyCompressor.java:46)
    at org.apache.cassandra.io.compress.SnappyCompressor.isAvailable(SnappyCompressor.java:56)
    at org.apache.cassandra.io.compress.SnappyCompressor.<clinit>(SnappyCompressor.java:38)
    at org.apache.cassandra.config.CFMetaData.<clinit>(CFMetaData.java:76)
    at org.apache.cassandra.config.KSMetaData.systemKeyspace(KSMetaData.java:84)
    at org.apache.cassandra.config.DatabaseDescriptor.loadYaml(DatabaseDescriptor.java:438)
    at org.apache.cassandra.config.DatabaseDescriptor.<clinit>(DatabaseDescriptor.java:114)
    at org.apache.cassandra.service.AbstractCassandraDaemon.setup(AbstractCassandraDaemon.java:127)
    at org.apache.cassandra.service.AbstractCassandraDaemon.activate(AbstractCassandraDaemon.java:389)
    at org.apache.cassandra.thrift.CassandraDaemon.main(CassandraDaemon.java:106)
Caused by: java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError: no snappyjava in java.library.path
    at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadLibrary(ClassLoader.java:1860)
    at java.lang.Runtime.loadLibrary0(Runtime.java:845)
    at java.lang.System.loadLibrary(System.java:1084)
    at org.xerial.snappy.SnappyNativeLoader.loadLibrary(SnappyNativeLoader.java:52)
    ... 17 more
 WARN 17:40:18,269 Cannot initialize native Snappy library. Compression on new tables will be disabled.
ERROR 17:40:18,317 Exception encountered during startup
java.lang.AssertionError: Directory /var/lib/cassandra/data is not accessible.
    at org.apache.cassandra.service.AbstractCassandraDaemon.setup(AbstractCassandraDaemon.java:155)
    at org.apache.cassandra.service.AbstractCassandraDaemon.activate(AbstractCassandraDaemon.java:389)
    at org.apache.cassandra.thrift.CassandraDaemon.main(CassandraDaemon.java:106)
java.lang.AssertionError: Directory /var/lib/cassandra/data is not accessible.
    at org.apache.cassandra.service.AbstractCassandraDaemon.setup(AbstractCassandraDaemon.java:155)
    at org.apache.cassandra.service.AbstractCassandraDaemon.activate(AbstractCassandraDaemon.java:389)
    at org.apache.cassandra.thrift.CassandraDaemon.main(CassandraDaemon.java:106)
Exception encountered during startup: Directory /var/lib/cassandra/data is not accessible.
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I don't know how to solve the problem. Please, help me, guys :)

Answer 1

I think a potentially less intrusive solution for working on local dev machines is not to mess with root permissions at all. Just change the log locations to anywhere you want by editing the log4j properties file in the <cassandra_install_dir>/conf directory.

Answer 2

config/cassandra.yaml - contains paths to all folders required by Cassandra. Change those paths to place where your user has write access so that you do not need to run it as sudo.

Answer 3

You don't have permission to write to /var/log, which is to be expected. You'll need to run Cassandra as sudo or create the directory yourself with the proper permissions.