System Administration FAQs

How do I apply or update my license key?

If you have a version 1.0 string-type license key, then during initial platform installation, you can either specify your license key as an argument, for example:

./install.sh -l <your_license_key>

Or you may input it when prompted.

To apply a new license key string, use the following command:

gadmin license set <license_key>
or
gadmin license set @textfile

If you have a version 2.0 file-type license key which is linked to a specific machine or cluster:

  • If this is the initial installation or you are updating a previous key file, then please see the document Advanced License Issues

  • If you are updating from a version 1.0 key string to a version 2.0 key file, please open a support ticket for the correct procedure.

When does my license key expire?

If you have a version 1.0 string-type license key, the following command will tell you your key’s expiration date:

gadmin status license

If you have a version 2.0 file-type license key which is linked to a specific machine or cluster, then run the following command:

curl -X GET "localhost:9000/showlicenseinfo"

If you are running TigerGraph v3.0+, run the following command:

gadmin license status

What are the components of the TigerGraph platform?

Command Line Usage Name : Official Name

"GPE" : GPE,
"GSE" : GSE,
"RESTPP" : RESTPP,
"GSQL" : GSQL,
"EXE" : EXECUTOR,
"IFM" : INFORMANT,
"GUI" : GUI,
"CTRL" : CONTROLLER,
"KAFKA" : KAFKA,
"ETCD" : ETCD,
"ZK" : ZK,
"NGINX" : NGINX,
"TS3" : TS3,
"TS3SERV" : TS3SERV,
"DICT" : DICT,
"ADMIN" : ADMIN,
"KAFKACONN" : KAFKACONN,
"KAFKASTRM-LL" : KAFKASTRMLL,

A description of each component is given in the Glossary section of the Internal Architecture document.

How can I find out current status of the system?

The following command tells you the basic summary of each component:

gadmin status

If you want to know more, including process information, memory/cpu usage information of each component, use the -v option for verbose output.

gadmin status -v

How can I find out the port of a service?

To find out the port of a service, use the gadmin config get <port_name> command:

$ gadmin config get RESTPP.NginxPort

To list and edit all ports, use the following command:

gadmin config group port

To change the port number of one service, use the following command:

gadmin config set <port_name> <port_number>

How do I backup my data?

GBAR is the utility to do backup and restore of TigerGraph system. Before a backup, GBAR needs to be configured. Please see GBAR - Graph Backup and Restore for details.

To backup the current system:

gbar backup -t <tag_of_the_backup>

Please be advised that GBAR only backs up data and configuration. No logs or binaries will be backed up.

How do I restore a backup?

To restore an existing backup:

gbar restore <tag_of_the_backup>

Please be advised that running restore will STOP the service and ERASE existing data.

How can I find out statistics of my graph data?

You can get statistics of Graph data on TigerGraph database instance using gstatusgraph utility:

Syntax:

gstatusgraph [-s <node_name>]

using -s to do statistics for one node
$ gstatusgraph
=== graph ===
[GRAPH  ] Graph was loaded (/data/tigergraph/tigergraph3/data/gstore/0/part/):
[m1     ] Partition size: 43GiB, IDS size: 16GiB, Vertex count: 262053633, Edge count: 1115267545, NumOfDeletedVertices: 130988916 NumOfSkippedVertices: 0
[m2     ] Partition size: 40GiB, IDS size: 16GiB, Vertex count: 261996922, Edge count: 971304656, NumOfDeletedVertices: 130998461 NumOfSkippedVertices: 0
[m3     ] Partition size: 44GiB, IDS size: 16GiB, Vertex count: 271436710, Edge count: 1115214212, NumOfDeletedVertices: 121605839 NumOfSkippedVertices: 0
[m4     ] Partition size: 44GiB, IDS size: 16GiB, Vertex count: 262030593, Edge count: 1191498785, NumOfDeletedVertices: 130964790 NumOfSkippedVertices: 0
[WARN   ] Above vertex and edge counts are for internal use which show approximate topology size of the local graph partition. Use DML to get the correct graph topology information

Due to a known bug, gstatusgraph command will count each undirected edge as two edges. To get an accurate number of undirected edges, user should use the built-in queries instead. The message below is sent as a warning to users when gstatusgraph is used.

"[WARN ] Above vertex and edge counts are for internal use which show approximate topology size of the local graph partition. Use DML to get the correct graph topology information"

How can I find out statistics of requests?

TigerGraph provides a RESTful API to tell request statistics. Assuming REST port is 9000, use command below:

curl -l http://localhost:9000/statistics

How do I restart a service?

If you need to restart everything, use the following:

gadmin restart

If you know which component(s) you want to restart,you can list them:

gadmin restart <component_name(s)>

Multiple component names are separated by spaces.

How to I stop some or all services?

Normally it is not necessary to manually turn off any services. However if you wish to, use the stop command.

# stop (nearly) all services
# will stop services except for infrastructure services
gadmin stop

# stop selected services
gadmin stop <component_name(s)>

Why the service is down?

There are a few typical causes for a service being down:

  1. Expired license key. Double-check your license key expiration date, and please open a support ticket if it is expired. After applying a new license key, your service will come back online. Usually, TigerGraph will reach out before your license key expires. Please act accordingly when that happens.

  2. Not enough memory. TigerGraph is a memory intensive system. When there is not much free memory, Linux may kill a process based on memory usage. Please check your memory usage after TigerGraph starts. We suggest at least 30% free memory after TigerGraph starts up. To confirm if one of TigerGraph’s processes is a victim, use dmesgto check.

  3. Not enough free disk space. TigerGraph writes data, logs, as well as some temporary files onto disk(s). It requires enough free space to function properly. If TigerGraph service or one of its components is down, please check whether there is enough free space on the disk using df.

Where are the logs?

Use following command to figure out where are log files for each component:

gadmin log

To log at the log file for a particular component:

gadmin log <component>

Why has my request timed out?

Timeout is applied to any request coming into TigerGraph system. If a request runs longer than the Timeout value, it will be killed. The default timeout value is 16 second.

If you knows that your query will run longer than the value, configure all related timeouts to a bigger value. To do this:

gadmin config entry RESTPP.Factory.DefaultQueryTimeoutSec

Input a value you expected, the unit is in second. Then apply the config to the system and restart the service.

gadmin config apply
gadmin restart

The timeout can also be changed for each query, but only when calling the REST endpoint. You would need to use a timeout value each time you run a query, otherwise the default timeout value will be assumed.

curl -X <GET/POST> -H "GSQL-TIMEOUT: <timeout value in milliseconds>" '<request_URL>'

Where are the core dump files located?

A core dump file is produced by the OS when a certain signal causes a process to terminate. The core dump is a disk file containing an image of the process’s memory at the time of termination. This image can be used in a debugger (e.g., gdb) to inspect the state of the program at the time that it terminated.

The TigerGraph installation process configures the operating system to place core dump files in the TigerGraph root directory, with the name core-%e-%s-%p.%t, where

  • %e: executable filename (without path prefix)

  • %s: signal number which caused the dump

  • %p: PID of dumped process

  • %t: time of dump, expressed as seconds since the epoch

The coredump configuration was set by the following command:

echo "$coreLocation/core-%e-%s-%p.%t" > /proc/sys/kernel/core_pattern

If you want to alter the location or file name template, you can edit the contents of /proc/sys/kernel/core_pattern