Deployment

MariaDB Exa deployment options and the production install order: configure MariaDB Server, install Exasol (local storage or AWS S3), then connect MariaDB MaxScale with CDC.

In production, MariaDB Exa is deployed as a Massively Parallel Processing (MPP) cluster of nodes.

• Optional standby nodes for high availability.

Data is automatically distributed across nodes, using MariaDB Exa internal partitioning and replication for fault tolerance.

Production Install

A complete MariaDB Exa deployment has three parts. Install and configure them in the following order.

1. Install and configure MariaDB Server

2. Install and configure Exasol — local storage (single node) or AWS S3 (clustered)

3. Install and configure MariaDB MaxScale with CDC

1. Install and configure MariaDB Server

MariaDB Server is the transactional front end for the deployment. Install it and apply your baseline configuration first.

• Installing MariaDB Server Guide

• Configuring MariaDB with Option Files

2. Install and configure Exasol

MariaDB Exa supports two deployment modes. Choose the one that fits your environment, then follow the steps below — the procedure is the same except where a step shows separate Local storage and AWS S3 tabs.

• Local storage (single node) — the simplest install, using local disk on a single host. Suitable for development, evaluation, and smaller workloads.

• AWS S3 (clustered) — a multi-node cluster on AWS, deployed through CloudFormation with S3-backed storage and high availability (five nodes by default: four active plus one standby). Although written for AWS, the same C4 workflow applies to other clouds or on-premises by changing the arguments in .ccc/config.

MariaDB Exa is powered by Exasol, and both modes use Exasol's C4 deployment tool. For upstream reference, see Exasol's on-premise installation guide, AWS deployment guide, and c4 parameter reference.

Prerequisites:

Local storage

• Ubuntu 22.04+ or RHEL 8+. Other Linux distributions might work, but are not tested or guaranteed.

• A static public IP address. Without one, the deployment will not work after a restart.

• Open ports: 8563 (default database port) and 8443 (admin UI).

AWS S3

1

Prepare the jump host

The jump host runs the C4 installer and operates the cluster. For local storage, this can be the MaxScale machine; for AWS, launch a dedicated EC2 instance in the same VPC and subnet as Exasol.

Local storage

SSH to the machine:

ssh ubuntu@<JUMPHOST_IP>

AWS S3

Update and install the required packages:

sudo apt update -y
sudo apt full-upgrade -y
sudo apt install rsync ssh uuid-runtime wget curl git python3-pip byacc flex zip unzip jq -y
sudo apt full-upgrade -y
sudo reboot now

2

Set up node access

Local storage

On your jump host, create an SSH key pair and add the public key to the target instance where you will install Exasol.

ssh-keygen -t rsa
cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

Add the public key to authorized_keys:

cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys

Check the permissions:

ls -la ~/.ssh/
# if needed: chmod 400 ~/.ssh/<key>.pem

Check that SSH works from the jump host to the Exasol node:

ssh ubuntu@<EXASOL_NODE_IP>

Confirm that port 20002 is open. You may also need to add the SSH public key to the target's root authorized_keys.

AWS S3

3

Download the Exasol C4 installer

Run the C4 installer as a non-root user. Installing as root is known to cause path-related failures; rootless installs have proven reliable in practice (as of February 2026). Exasol's older docs still describe a root-based default, but their newer versions assume non-root — see Exasol's rootless deployment guide.

cd ~
wget https://x-up.s3.amazonaws.com/releases/c4/linux/x86_64/4.28.4/c4 -O c4
chmod +x c4

The latest installer is also available from the Exasol Deployment Tool (c4) download page.

4

Create the C4 configuration

mkdir ~/.ccc
vi ~/.ccc/config

Paste the configuration for your deployment mode:

Local storage

CCC_HOST_ADDRS=<HOST_PRIVATE_IP>
CCC_HOST_EXTERNAL_ADDRS=<HOST_PUBLIC_IP>
CCC_HOST_DATADISK=/dev/nvme1n1
CCC_HOST_IMAGE_USER=ubuntu
CCC_HOST_IMAGE_PASSWORD=
CCC_HOST_KEY_PAIR_FILE=id_rsa
CCC_PLAY_WORKING_COPY=@exasol-2025.1.8
CCC_PLAY_DATABASE_NAME=exa-analytics
CCC_PLAY_DB_PASSWORD="<DB_PASSWORD>"
CCC_PLAY_ADMIN_PASSWORD="<ADMIN_PASSWORD>"
CCC_ADMINUI_START_SERVER=true
CCC_HOST_CLEANUP=false

You must update the following values:

1. CCC_HOST_ADDRS — your private IP address (a static public address is required):

   hostname -i

2. CCC_HOST_EXTERNAL_ADDRS — your public IP address:

   ifconfig -a
   # or
   curl 'https://api.ipify.org?format=json'

3. CCC_HOST_DATADISK — find the data disk with:

   lsblk

4. CCC_HOST_IMAGE_USER — usually ubuntu or another default user that exists on both the jump host and the Exasol node:

   whoami

AWS S3

Set strong, unique values for the password parameters and keep them secret. Do not commit real credentials to source control or share them in documentation.

5

Validate the environment

Local storage

./c4 ps

AWS S3

6

Deploy the Exasol cluster

Local storage

./c4 host play -i .ccc/config

View the logs on the target machine:

tail -f .ccc/play/local/*/main/11/data/logs/cored/exainit.log

AWS S3

7

Check the deployment stages

View the status from the jump host (for AWS, you can also monitor progress in AWS CloudFormation):

./c4 ps

Stage	Meaning
a	Infrastructure resources are being allocated; nothing is reachable yet
b	The host is booting and running startup scripts
c	The cluster operating system (COS) service is running and reachable
d	The database is running and reachable

Wait until the deployment is complete. If you encounter errors that you cannot triage yourself, contact support.

8

Configure Exasol

On the target machine, use CCC_PLAY_DB_PASSWORD from .ccc/config (on the jump host) to check the connection to Exasol.

sudo apt install openjdk-21-jdk

sudo find / -name *exaplus*

exaplus -c 127.0.0.1/nocertcheck:8563 -u sys -p <DB_PASSWORD>

To retrieve the password from the jump host: cat .ccc/config | grep -i PLAY_DB

Set SQL_IDENTIFIER_COMPARISON to be case insensitive:

ALTER SYSTEM SET SQL_IDENTIFIER_COMPARISON = 'IGNORE CASE';

Import the MariaDB helper functions / UDF from mariadb-compat.sql:

exaplus -c 127.0.0.1/nocertcheck:8563 -u sys -p <DB_PASSWORD> -f mariadb-compat.sql

9

Upload the Exasol license

Each customer has their own license file.

Copy the license file:

scp <license_id>.exasol_license ubuntu@<JUMPHOST_IP>:/home/ubuntu/

Get CLUSTER_ID from the play_id column of ./c4 ps, then upload the license:

cat <license_id>.exasol_license | ./c4 connect -s cos -i <CLUSTER_ID> -- \
  confd_client license_upload license: '\""{< -}\""'

Verify:

./c4 connect -t1.11/cos
confd_client license_info

10

Access the admin UI

Open the following in a browser:

https://<PUBLIC_IP>:8443/login

Use these credentials:

• Username: admin

• Password: the admin password you set (CCC_PLAY_ADMIN_PASSWORD for local storage, CCC_ADMINUI_ADMIN_PASSWORD for AWS S3).

11

Manage the cluster

Common C4 commands for day-to-day operation:

./c4 ps                # list deployments
./c4 connect -t1/cos   # connect to the cluster

Stop and start the database:

Local storage

The database name comes from CCC_PLAY_DATABASE_NAME.

./c4 connect -t 1/cos
confd_client db_stop db_name: exa-analytics
confd_client db_start db_name: exa-analytics

AWS S3

AWS best practices: deploy the jump host in the same VPC as Exasol and treat it as an admin bastion only (no workloads); use S3-backed storage for long-term data and snapshots; and keep at least one reserve node for high availability.

3. Install and configure MariaDB MaxScale with CDC

MariaDB MaxScale uses the ExasolRouter to stream changes from MariaDB Server into Exasol via Change Data Capture (CDC).

• MariaDB MaxScale ExasolRouter Tutorial

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