Starting the database

You can start a database through one of the following:.

You can start a database through one of the following:

Management Console
Administration Tools
Command Line

Administration tools

You can start a database with the Vertica Administration Tools:

Open the Administration Tools and select View Database Cluster State to make sure all nodes are down and no other database is running.
Open the Administration Tools. See Using the administration tools for information about accessing the Administration Tools.
On the Main Menu, select Start Database,and then select OK.
Select the database to start, and then click OK.

Caution
Start only one database at a time. If you start more than one database at a given time, results can be unpredictable: users are liable to encounter resource conflicts, or perform operations on the wrong database.
Enter the database password and click OK.
When prompted that the database started successfully, click OK.
Check the log files to make sure that no startup problems occurred.

Command line

You can start a database with the command line tool start_db:

$ /opt/vertica/bin/admintools -t start_db -d db-name
     [-p password]
     [-s host1[,...] | --hosts=host1[,...]]
     [--timeout seconds]
     [-i | --noprompts]
     [--fast]
     [-F | --force]

Option	Description
`-d --database`	Name of database to start.
`-p` `--password`	Required only during database creation, when you install a new license. If the license is valid, the option `-p` (or `--password`) is not required to start the database and is silently ignored. This is by design, as the database can only be started by the user who (as part of the verticadba UNIX user group) initially created the database or who has root or su privileges. If the license is invalid, Vertica uses the `-p` password argument to attempt to upgrade the license with the license file stored in `/opt/vertica/config/share/license.key`.
`-s --hosts`	(Eon Mode only) Comma delimited list of primary node host names or IP addresses. If you use this option, `start_db` attempts to start the database using just the nodes in the list. If omitted, `start_db` starts all database nodes. For details, see Start Just the Primary Nodes in an Eon Mode Database below.
`--timeout`	The number of seconds a timeout in seconds to await startup completion. If set to `never`, start_db never times out (implicitly sets `-i`)
`-i` `--noprompts`	Startup does not pause to await user input. Setting `-i` implies a timeout of 1200 seconds.
`--fast`	(Eon Mode only) Attempts fast startup on a database using startup information from `cluster_config.json`. This option can only be used with databases that do not use Spread encryption.
`-F` `--force`	Forces the database to start at an epoch before data consistency problems were detected.

The following example uses start_db to start a single-node database:

$ /opt/vertica/bin/admintools -t start_db -d VMart
Info:
no password specified, using none
Node Status: v_vmart_node0001: (DOWN)
Node Status: v_vmart_node0001: (DOWN)
Node Status: v_vmart_node0001: (DOWN)
Node Status: v_vmart_node0001: (DOWN)
Node Status: v_vmart_node0001: (DOWN)
Node Status: v_vmart_node0001: (DOWN)
Node Status: v_vmart_node0001: (DOWN)
Node Status: v_vmart_node0001: (DOWN)
Node Status: v_vmart_node0001: (UP)
Database VMart started successfully

Eon Mode database node startup

On starting an Eon Mode database, you can start all primary nodes, or a subset of them. In both cases, pass start_db the list of the primary nodes to start with the -s option.

The following requirements apply:

Primary node hosts must already be up to start the database.
The start_db tool cannot start stopped hosts such as cloud-based VMs. You must either manually start the hosts or use the MC to start the cluster.

The following example starts the three primary nodes in a six-node Eon Mode database:

$ admintools -t start_db -d verticadb -p 'password' \
   -s 10.11.12.10,10.11.12.20,10.11.12.30
    Starting nodes:
        v_verticadb_node0001 (10.11.12.10)
        v_verticadb_node0002 (10.11.12.20)
        v_verticadb_node0003 (10.11.12.30)
    Starting Vertica on all nodes. Please wait, databases with a large catalog may take a while to initialize.
    Node Status: v_verticadb_node0001: (DOWN) v_verticadb_node0002: (DOWN) v_verticadb_node0003: (DOWN)
    Node Status: v_verticadb_node0001: (DOWN) v_verticadb_node0002: (DOWN) v_verticadb_node0003: (DOWN)
    Node Status: v_verticadb_node0001: (DOWN) v_verticadb_node0002: (DOWN) v_verticadb_node0003: (DOWN)
    Node Status: v_verticadb_node0001: (DOWN) v_verticadb_node0002: (DOWN) v_verticadb_node0003: (DOWN)
    Node Status: v_verticadb_node0001: (DOWN) v_verticadb_node0002: (DOWN) v_verticadb_node0003: (DOWN)
    Node Status: v_verticadb_node0001: (DOWN) v_verticadb_node0002: (DOWN) v_verticadb_node0003: (DOWN)
    Node Status: v_verticadb_node0001: (UP) v_verticadb_node0002: (UP) v_verticadb_node0003: (UP)
Syncing catalog on verticadb with 2000 attempts.
Database verticadb: Startup Succeeded.  All Nodes are UP

After the database starts, the secondary subclusters are down. You can choose to start them as needed. See Starting a Subcluster.

Starting the database with a subset of primary nodes

As a best pratice, Vertica recommends that you always start an Eon Mode database with all primary nodes. Occasionally, you might be unable to start the hosts for all primary nodes. In that case, you might need to start the database with a subset of its primary nodes.

If start_db specifies a subset of database primary nodes, the following requirements apply:

The nodes must comprise a quorum: at least 50% + 1 of all primary nodes in the cluster.
Collectively, the nodes must provide coverage for all shards in communal storage. The primary nodes you use to start the database do not attempt to rebalance shard subscriptions while starting up.

If either or both of these conditions are not met, start_db returns an error. In the following example, start_db specifies three primary nodes in a database with nine primary nodes. The command returns an error that it cannot start the database with fewer than five primary nodes:

$ admintools -t start_db -d verticadb -p 'password' \
    -s 10.11.12.10,10.11.12.20,10.11.12.30
    Starting nodes:
        v_verticadb_node0001 (10.11.12.10)
        v_verticadb_node0002 (10.11.12.20)
        v_verticadb_node0003 (10.11.12.30)
Error: Quorum not satisfied for verticadb.
    3 < minimum 5  of 9 primary nodes.
Attempted to start the following nodes:
Primary
        v_verticadb_node0001 (10.11.12.10)
        v_verticadb_node0003 (10.11.12.30)
        v_verticadb_node0002 (10.11.12.20)
Secondary

 hint: you may want to start all primary nodes in the database
Database start up failed.  Cluster partitioned.

If you try to start the database with fewer than the full set of primary nodes and the cluster fails to start, Vertica processes might continue to run on some of the hosts. If so, subsequent attempts to start the database will return with an error like this:

Error: the vertica process for the database is running on the following hosts:
10.11.12.10
10.11.12.20
10.11.12.30
This may be because the process has not completed previous shutdown activities. Please wait and retry again.
Database start up failed.  Processes still running.
Database verticadb did not start successfully: Processes still running.. Hint: you may need to start all primary nodes.

Before you can start the database, you must stop the Vertica server process on the hosts listed in the error message, either with the admintools menus or the admintools command line's stop_host tool:

$ admintools -t stop_host -s 10.11.12.10,10.11.12.20,10.11.12.30