riak Command Line Interface

riak

This is the primary script for controlling the processes associated with a Riak node. Running the riak command by itself will output a listing of available commands:

Usage: riak «command»
where «command» is one of the following:
    { help | start | stop | restart | ping | console | attach
      attach-direct | ertspath | chkconfig | escript | version | getpid
      top [-interval N] [-sort { reductions | memory | msg_q }] [-lines N] } |
      config { generate | effective | describe VARIABLE } [-l debug]

help

Provides a brief description of all available commands.

start

Starts the Riak node in the background. If the node is already started, you will receive the message Node is already running! If the node is not already running, no output will be given.

riak start

stop

Stops the running Riak node. Prints ok when successful or Node <nodename> not responding to pings. when the node is already stopped or not responding.

riak stop

restart

Stops and then starts the running Riak node without exiting the Erlang VM. Prints ok when successful, Node <nodename> not responding to pings. when the node is already stopped or not responding.

riak restart

ping

Checks that the Riak node is running. Prints pong when successful or Node <nodename> not responding to pings. when the node is stopped or not responding.

riak ping

console

Starts the Riak node in the foreground, giving access to the Erlang shell and runtime messages. Prints Node is already running - use 'riak attach' instead when the node is running in the background. You can exit the shell by pressing Ctrl-C twice.

riak console

attach

Attaches to the console of a Riak node running in the background, giving access to the Erlang shell and runtime messages. Prints Node is not running! when the node cannot be reached.

riak attach

attach-direct

Attaches to the console of a Riak running in the background using a directly-connected first-in-first-out (FIFO), providing access to the Erlang shell and runtime messages. Prints Node is not running! when the node cannot be reached. You can exit the shell by pressing Ctrl-D.

riak attach-direct

ertspath

Outputs the path of the Riak Erlang runtime environment:

riak ertspath

chkconfig

Checks whether the configuration file is valid. If so, config is OK will be included in the output.

riak chkconfig

escript

Provides a means of calling escript scripts using the Riak Erlang runtime environment:

riak escript <filename>

version

Outputs the Riak version identifier:

riak version

getpid

Outputs the process identifier for the currently-running instance of Riak:

riak getpid

top

The riak top command is the direct equivalent of riak-admin top:

riak top [-interval N] [-sort { reductions | memory | msg_q }] [-lines N] }

More detailed information can be found in the riak-admin documentation.

config

Provides information about the current configuration of a Riak node, i.e. the parameters and values in the node’s riak.conf configuration.

riak config { generate | effective | describe VARIABLE } [-l debug]

generate will cause the configuration files to be re-processed. This behavior happens automatically at node startup; however riak config generate can be used to test for configuration errors that would prevent the node from starting after modifying the riak.conf or advanced.config files. The output of a successful run will show the paths to the newly generated configuration files. These configuration files will contain a timestamp to indicate when they were generated. For example:
```
 -config /var/lib/riak/generated.configs/app.2016.12.02.17.47.32.config -args_file /var/lib/riak/generated.configs/vm.2016.12.02.17.47.32.args -vm_args /var/lib/riak/generated.configs/vm.2016.12.02.17.47.32.args  
```
If you are using the legacy configuration file format (app.config/vm.args), you will receive the following message:
```
-config /etc/riak/app.config -args_file /etc/riak/vm.args -vm_args /etc/riak/vm.args  
```

effective prints the effective configuration in the following syntax:

parameter1 = value1
parameter2 = value2

If you are using the legacy configuration file format (app.config/vm.args), you will receive the following error:

Disabling cuttlefish, legacy configuration files found:
  /etc/riak/app.config
  /etc/riak/vm.args
Effective config is only visible for cuttlefish conf files.

describe VARIABLE prints the setting specified by VARIABLE, along with documentation and other useful information, such as the affected location in the configuration file, the data type of the value, the default value, and the effective value. For example, running riak config describe storage_backend will return the following:
```
Documentation for storage_backend
Specifies the storage engine used for Riak's key-value data
and secondary indexes (if supported).

   Valid Values: 
     - one of: bitcask, leveldb, memory, multi, prefix_multi
   Default Value : bitcask
   Set Value     : bitcask
   Internal key  : riak_kv.storage_backend 
```

Adding the -l debug flag to any riak config command will produce additional debugging information that can be used in advanced troubleshooting of “cuttlefish”, Riak’s configuration subsystem.