# Aerospike

Aerospike is an open source distributed database. Aerospike is built on a "shared nothing" architecture designed to reliably store terabytes of data with automatic fail-over, replication and cross data-center synchronization.

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Documentation for Aerospike is available at [http://aerospike.com/docs](https://www.aerospike.com/docs).

# Using this Image

The following will run `asd` with all the exposed ports forward to the host machine.

	docker run -d --name aerospike -p 3000:3000 -p 3001:3001 -p 3002:3002 -p 3003:3003 aerospike/aerospike-server

**NOTE** Although this is the simplest method to getting Aerospike up and running, but it is not the preferred method. To properly run the container, please specify an **custom configuration** with the **access-address** defined.

# Advanced Usage

## Custom Configuration

By default, `asd` will use the configuration file in `/etc/aerospike/aerospike.conf`, which is added to the directory by the Dockerfile. To provide a custom configuration, you should first mount a directory containing the file using the `-v` option for `docker`:

	-v <DIRECTORY>:/opt/aerospike/etc

Where `<DIRECTORY>` is the path to a directory containing your custom configuration file. Next, you will want to tell `asd` to use a configuration file from `/opt/aerospike/etc`, by using the `--config-file` option for `aerospike/aerospike-server`:

	--config-file /opt/aerospike/etc/aerospike.conf

This will use tell `asd` to use the file in `/opt/aerospike/etc/aerospike.conf`, which is mapped to `<DIRECTORY>/aerospike.conf`.

A full example:

	docker run -d -v <DIRECTORY>:/opt/aerospike/etc --name aerospike -p 3000:3000 -p 3001:3001 -p 3002:3002 -p 3003:3003 aerospike/aerospike-server asd --foreground --config-file /opt/aerospike/etc/aerospike.conf

## access-address Configuration

In order for Aerospike to properly broadcast its address to the cluster or applications, the **access-address** needs to be set in the configuration file. If it is not set, then the IP address within the container will be used, which is not accessible to other nodes.

To specify **access-address** in aerospike.conf:

	network {
	    service {
	        address any                  # Listening IP Address
	        port 3000                    # Listening Port
	        access-address 192.168.1.100 # IP Address to be used by applications and other nodes in the cluster.
	    }
	    ...

## Persistent Data Directory

With Docker, the files within the container are not persisted. To persist the data, you will want to mount a directory from the host to the guest's `/opt/aerospike/data` using the `-v` option:

	-v <DIRECTORY>:/opt/aerospike/data

Where `<DIRECTORY>` is the path to a directory containing your data files.

A full example:

	docker run -d -v <DIRECTORY>:/opt/aerospike/data --name aerospike -p 3000:3000 -p 3001:3001 -p 3002:3002 -p 3003:3003 aerospike/aerospike-server

## Clustering

Aerospike recommends using Mesh Clustering. Mesh uses TCP point to point connections for heartbeats. Each node in the cluster maintains a heartbeat connection to all other nodes. Please see [http://www.aerospike.com/docs/operations/configure/network/heartbeat/#mesh-unicast-heartbeat](http://www.aerospike.com/docs/operations/configure/network/heartbeat/#mesh-unicast-heartbeat)

### Mesh Clustering

Mesh networking requires setting up links between each node in the cluster. This can be achieved in two ways:

1.	Define a configuration for each node in the cluster, as defined in [Network Heartbeat Configuration](http://www.aerospike.com/docs/operations/configure/network/heartbeat/#mesh-unicast-heartbeat).
2.	Use `asinfo` to send the `tip` command, to make the node aware of another node, as defined in [tip command in asinfo](http://www.aerospike.com/docs/tools/asinfo/#tip).