Quick Start Guide for the TiDB Database Platform

This guide provides the quickest way to get started with TiDB. For non-production environments, you can deploy your TiDB database using either of the following methods:

In addition, you can try out TiDB features on TiDB Playground.

Try Out TiDB - 图1

Note

The deployment method provided in this guide is ONLY FOR quick start, NOT FOR production or comprehensive functionality and stability testing.

Deploy a local test cluster

  • Scenario: Quickly deploy a local TiDB cluster for testing using a single macOS or Linux server. By deploying such a cluster, you can learn the basic architecture of TiDB and the operation of its components, such as TiDB, TiKV, PD, and the monitoring components.

  • macOS

  • Linux

As a distributed system, a basic TiDB test cluster usually consists of 2 TiDB instances, 3 TiKV instances, 3 PD instances, and optional TiFlash instances. With TiUP Playground, you can quickly build the test cluster by following these steps:

  1. Download and install TiUP:

    1. curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://tiup-mirrors.pingcap.com/install.sh | sh

    If the following message is displayed, you have successfully installed TiUP:

    1. Successfully set mirror to https://tiup-mirrors.pingcap.com
    2. Detected shell: zsh
    3. Shell profile:  /Users/user/.zshrc
    4. /Users/user/.zshrc has been modified to add tiup to PATH
    5. open a new terminal or source /Users/user/.zshrc to use it
    6. Installed path: /Users/user/.tiup/bin/tiup
    7. ===============================================
    8. Have a try:     tiup playground
    9. ===============================================

    Note the Shell profile path in the output above. You need to use the path in the next step.

  2. Declare the global environment variable:

    Try Out TiDB - 图2

    Note

    After the installation, TiUP displays the absolute path of the corresponding Shell profile file. You need to modify ${your_shell_profile} in the following source command according to the path. In this case, ${your_shell_profile} is /Users/user/.zshrc from the output of Step 1.

    1. source ${your_shell_profile}

  3. Start the cluster in the current session:

    • To start a TiDB cluster of the latest version with 1 TiDB instance, 1 TiKV instance, 1 PD instance, and 1 TiFlash instance, run the following command:

      1. tiup playground

    • To specify the TiDB version and the number of instances of each component, run a command like this:

      1. tiup playground v8.1.0 --db 2 --pd 3 --kv 3

      The command downloads a version cluster to the local machine and starts it, such as v8.1.0. To view the latest version, run tiup list tidb.

      This command returns the access methods of the cluster:

      1. CLUSTER START SUCCESSFULLY, Enjoy it ^-^
      2. To connect TiDB: mysql --comments --host 127.0.0.1 --port 4001 -u root -p (no password)
      3. To connect TiDB: mysql --comments --host 127.0.0.1 --port 4000 -u root -p (no password)
      4. To view the dashboard: http://127.0.0.1:2379/dashboard
      5. PD client endpoints: [127.0.0.1:2379 127.0.0.1:2382 127.0.0.1:2384]
      6. To view Prometheus: http://127.0.0.1:9090
      7. To view Grafana: http://127.0.0.1:3000

      Try Out TiDB - 图3

      Note

      • Since v5.2.0, TiDB supports running tiup playground on the machine that uses the Apple M1 chip.
      • For the playground operated in this way, after the test deployment is finished, TiUP will clean up the original cluster data. You will get a new cluster after re-running the command.
      • If you want the data to be persisted on storage, run tiup --tag <your-tag> playground .... For details, refer to the TiUP Reference guide.

  4. Start a new session to access TiDB:

    • Use the TiUP client to connect to TiDB.

      1. tiup client

    • Alternatively, you can use the MySQL client to connect to TiDB.

      1. mysql --host 127.0.0.1 --port 4000 -u root

  5. Access the Prometheus dashboard of TiDB at http://127.0.0.1:9090.

  6. Access the TiDB Dashboard at http://127.0.0.1:2379/dashboard. The default username is root, and the password is empty.

  7. Access the Grafana dashboard of TiDB through http://127.0.0.1:3000. Both the default username and password are admin.

  8. (Optional) Load data to TiFlash for analysis.

  9. Clean up the cluster after the test deployment:

    1. Stop the above TiDB service by pressing Control+C.

    2. Run the following command after the service is stopped:

      1. tiup clean --all

Try Out TiDB - 图4

Note

TiUP Playground listens on 127.0.0.1 by default, and the service is only locally accessible. If you want the service to be externally accessible, specify the listening address using the --host parameter to bind the network interface card (NIC) to an externally accessible IP address.

As a distributed system, a basic TiDB test cluster usually consists of 2 TiDB instances, 3 TiKV instances, 3 PD instances, and optional TiFlash instances. With TiUP Playground, you can quickly build the test cluster by following these steps:

  1. Download and install TiUP:

    1. curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://tiup-mirrors.pingcap.com/install.sh | sh

    If the following message is displayed, you have successfully installed TiUP:

    1. Successfully set mirror to https://tiup-mirrors.pingcap.com
    2. Detected shell: zsh
    3. Shell profile:  /Users/user/.zshrc
    4. /Users/user/.zshrc has been modified to add tiup to PATH
    5. open a new terminal or source /Users/user/.zshrc to use it
    6. Installed path: /Users/user/.tiup/bin/tiup
    7. ===============================================
    8. Have a try:     tiup playground
    9. ===============================================

    Note the Shell profile path in the output above. You need to use the path in the next step.

  2. Declare the global environment variable:

    Try Out TiDB - 图5

    Note

    After the installation, TiUP displays the absolute path of the corresponding Shell profile file. You need to modify ${your_shell_profile} in the following source command according to the path.

    1. source ${your_shell_profile}

  3. Start the cluster in the current session:

    • To start a TiDB cluster of the latest version with 1 TiDB instance, 1 TiKV instance, 1 PD instance, and 1 TiFlash instance, run the following command:

      1. tiup playground

    • To specify the TiDB version and the number of instances of each component, run a command like this:

      1. tiup playground v8.1.0 --db 2 --pd 3 --kv 3

      The command downloads a version cluster to the local machine and starts it, such as v8.1.0. To view the latest version, run tiup list tidb.

      This command returns the access methods of the cluster:

      1. CLUSTER START SUCCESSFULLY, Enjoy it ^-^
      2. To connect TiDB: mysql --host 127.0.0.1 --port 4000 -u root -p (no password) --comments
      3. To view the dashboard: http://127.0.0.1:2379/dashboard
      4. PD client endpoints: [127.0.0.1:2379]
      5. To view the Prometheus: http://127.0.0.1:9090
      6. To view the Grafana: http://127.0.0.1:3000

      Try Out TiDB - 图6

      Note

      For the playground operated in this way, after the test deployment is finished, TiUP will clean up the original cluster data. You will get a new cluster after re-running the command. If you want the data to be persisted on storage, run tiup --tag <your-tag> playground .... For details, refer to the TiUP Reference guide.

  4. Start a new session to access TiDB:

    • Use the TiUP client to connect to TiDB.

      1. tiup client

    • Alternatively, you can use the MySQL client to connect to TiDB.

      1. mysql --host 127.0.0.1 --port 4000 -u root

  5. Access the Prometheus dashboard of TiDB at http://127.0.0.1:9090.

  6. Access the TiDB Dashboard at http://127.0.0.1:2379/dashboard. The default username is root, and the password is empty.

  7. Access the Grafana dashboard of TiDB through http://127.0.0.1:3000. Both the default username and password are admin.

  8. (Optional) Load data to TiFlash for analysis.

  9. Clean up the cluster after the test deployment:

    1. Stop the process by pressing Control+C.

    2. Run the following command after the service is stopped:

      1. tiup clean --all

Try Out TiDB - 图7

Note

TiUP Playground listens on 127.0.0.1 by default, and the service is only locally accessible. If you want the service to be externally accessible, specify the listening address using the --host parameter to bind the network interface card (NIC) to an externally accessible IP address.

Simulate production deployment on a single machine

  • Scenario: Experience the smallest TiDB cluster with the complete topology and simulate the production deployment steps on a single Linux server.

This section describes how to deploy a TiDB cluster using a YAML file of the smallest topology in TiUP.

Prepare

Before deploying the TiDB cluster, ensure that the target machine meets the following requirements:

  • CentOS 7.3 or a later version is installed.
  • The Linux OS has access to the internet, which is required to download TiDB and related software installation packages.

The smallest TiDB cluster topology consists of the following instances:

Try Out TiDB - 图8

Note

The IP addresses of the instances are given as examples only. In your actual deployment, replace the IP addresses with your actual IP addresses.

InstanceCountIPConfiguration
TiKV310.0.1.1
10.0.1.1
10.0.1.1		Avoid conflict between the port and the directory
TiDB110.0.1.1The default port
Global directory configuration
PD110.0.1.1The default port
Global directory configuration
TiFlash110.0.1.1The default port
Global directory configuration
Monitor110.0.1.1The default port
Global directory configuration

Other requirements for the target machine include:

  • The root user and its password are required

  • Stop the firewall service of the target machine, or open the port needed by the TiDB cluster nodes

  • Currently, the TiUP cluster supports deploying TiDB on the x86_64 (AMD64) and ARM architectures:

    • It is recommended to use CentOS 7.3 or later versions on AMD64.
    • It is recommended to use CentOS 7.6 1810 on ARM.

Deploy

Try Out TiDB - 图9

Note

You can log in to the target machine as a regular user or the root user. The following steps use the root user as an example.

  1. Download and install TiUP:

    1. curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://tiup-mirrors.pingcap.com/install.sh | sh

  2. Declare the global environment variable.

    Try Out TiDB - 图10

    Note

    After the installation, TiUP displays the absolute path of the corresponding Shell profile file. You need to modify ${your_shell_profile} in the following source command according to the path.

    1. source ${your_shell_profile}

  3. Install the cluster component of TiUP:

    1. tiup cluster

  4. If the TiUP cluster is already installed on the machine, update the software version:

    1. tiup update --self && tiup update cluster

  5. Increase the connection limit of the sshd service using the root user privilege. This is because TiUP needs to simulate deployment on multiple machines.

    1. Modify /etc/ssh/sshd_config, and set MaxSessions to 20.

    2. Restart the sshd service:

      1. service sshd restart

  6. Create and start the cluster:

    Edit the configuration file according to the following template, and name it as topo.yaml:

    1. # # Global variables are applied to all deployments and used as the default value of
    2. # # the deployments if a specific deployment value is missing.
    3. global:
    4.  user: "tidb"
    5.  ssh_port: 22
    6.  deploy_dir: "/tidb-deploy"
    7.  data_dir: "/tidb-data"
    9. # # Monitored variables are applied to all the machines.
    10. monitored:
    11.  node_exporter_port: 9100
    12.  blackbox_exporter_port: 9115
    14. server_configs:
    15.  tidb:
    16.    instance.tidb_slow_log_threshold: 300
    17.  tikv:
    18.    readpool.storage.use-unified-pool: false
    19.    readpool.coprocessor.use-unified-pool: true
    20.  pd:
    21.    replication.enable-placement-rules: true
    22.    replication.location-labels: ["host"]
    23.  tiflash:
    24.    logger.level: "info"
    26. pd_servers:
    27.  - host: 10.0.1.1
    29. tidb_servers:
    30.  - host: 10.0.1.1
    32. tikv_servers:
    33.  - host: 10.0.1.1
    34.    port: 20160
    35.    status_port: 20180
    36.    config:
    37.      server.labels: { host: "logic-host-1" }
    39.  - host: 10.0.1.1
    40.    port: 20161
    41.    status_port: 20181
    42.    config:
    43.      server.labels: { host: "logic-host-2" }
    45.  - host: 10.0.1.1
    46.    port: 20162
    47.    status_port: 20182
    48.    config:
    49.      server.labels: { host: "logic-host-3" }
    51. tiflash_servers:
    52.  - host: 10.0.1.1
    54. monitoring_servers:
    55.  - host: 10.0.1.1
    57. grafana_servers:
    58.  - host: 10.0.1.1
    • user: "tidb": Use the tidb system user (automatically created during deployment) to perform the internal management of the cluster. By default, use port 22 to log in to the target machine via SSH.
    • replication.enable-placement-rules: This PD parameter is set to ensure that TiFlash runs normally.
    • host: The IP of the target machine.

  7. Execute the cluster deployment command:

    1. tiup cluster deploy <cluster-name> <version> ./topo.yaml --user root -p

    • <cluster-name>: Set the cluster name

    • <version>: Set the TiDB cluster version, such as v8.1.0. You can see all the supported TiDB versions by running the tiup list tidb command

    • -p: Specify the password used to connect to the target machine.

      Try Out TiDB - 图11

      Note

      If you use secret keys, you can specify the path of the keys through -i. Do not use -i and -p at the same time.

    Enter “y” and the root user’s password to complete the deployment:

    1. Do you want to continue? [y/N]:  y
    2. Input SSH password:

  8. Start the cluster:

    1. tiup cluster start <cluster-name>

  9. Access the cluster:

    • Install the MySQL client. If it is already installed, skip this step.

      1. yum -y install mysql

    • Access TiDB. The password is empty:

      1. mysql -h 10.0.1.1 -P 4000 -u root

    • Access the Grafana monitoring dashboard at http://{grafana-ip}:3000. The default username and password are both admin.

    • Access the TiDB Dashboard at http://{pd-ip}:2379/dashboard. The default username is root, and the password is empty.

    • To view the currently deployed cluster list:

      1. tiup cluster list

    • To view the cluster topology and status:

      1. tiup cluster display <cluster-name>

What’s next

If you have just deployed a TiDB cluster for the local test environment, here are the next steps:

If you are ready to deploy a TiDB cluster for the production environment, here are the next steps:

If you are looking for an analytics solution with TiFlash, here are the next steps: