Step-by-Step Guide to Installing an HBase Cluster on Hadoop

1. Introduction

HBase is a distributed, open‑source, column‑oriented database that differs from relational databases and is suited for storing unstructured data. It uses a column‑based model similar to Google BigTable: rows have a primary key and any number of columns grouped into column families, which are stored in HFiles for efficient caching. Tables are loosely stored, allowing rows to have varying columns, and data is sorted by primary key and split into multiple Regions.

In production, HBase runs on top of HDFS, using HDFS as its storage layer. Applications access HBase data through a Java API. An HBase cluster consists of a Master, RegionServers, and Zookeeper, as illustrated below:

Master

The Master coordinates multiple RegionServers, monitors their status, balances load, and assigns Regions to RegionServers. Multiple Masters can exist for HA, but only one is active at a time; Zookeeper helps manage failover.

RegionServer

A RegionServer hosts several Regions, manages tables, and handles read/write operations. Clients connect directly to RegionServers to retrieve data. A Region is the basic unit of storage and availability in HBase.

Zookeeper

Zookeeper is critical for HBase HA: it ensures at least one Master is running, registers Regions and RegionServers, and provides fault‑tolerance for many distributed big‑data frameworks.

Because HBase relies on Hadoop, you must have a working Hadoop cluster before installing HBase.

2. Environment Preparation

(1) Update hostnames, edit /etc/hosts, and disable firewalls on all servers.

# cat >> /etc/hosts << EOF
192.168.16.135  c7001
192.168.16.80   c7002
192.168.16.95   c7003
192.168.16.97   c7004
192.168.16.101  c7005
EOF

(2) Configure password‑less SSH from c7001 to the other nodes.

ssh-keygen -t rsa
ssh-copy-id -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub c7001
ssh-copy-id -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub c7002
ssh-copy-id -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub c7003
ssh-copy-id -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub c7004
ssh-copy-id -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub c7005

(3) Install JDK 1.7+ on each server.

# tar zxf jdk-8u171-linux-x64.tar.gz -C /opt/
# mv jdk1.8.0_171/ jdk1.8
# echo "export JAVA_HOME=/opt/jdk1.8" >> /etc/profile
# echo "export PATH=\$PATH:\$JAVA_HOME/bin" >> /etc/profile
# source /etc/profile
# java -version

3. Install HBase

Extract the binary package on the primary node (c7003).

# tar zxf /usr/src/hbase-1.3.0-bin.tar.gz -C /opt/

Edit configuration files:

hbase-env.sh

# vim conf/hbase-env.sh
export JAVA_HOME=/opt/jdk1.8.0_121
export HBASE_MANAGES_ZK=false

hbase-site.xml

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<configuration>
  <property>
    <name>hbase.rootdir</name>
    <value>hdfs://c7001:9000/hbase</value>
  </property>
  <property>
    <name>hbase.cluster.distributed</name>
    <value>true</value>
  </property>
  <property>
    <name>hbase.zookeeper.quorum</name>
    <value>c7003,c7004,c7005</value>
  </property>
  <property>
    <name>hbase.zookeeper.property.dataDir</name>
    <value>/opt/hbase-1.3.0/tmp/zk/data</value>
  </property>
</configuration>

Update regionservers to list the RegionServer hosts:

# vi regionservers
c7004
c7005

Copy the HBase installation to the other nodes:

# scp -r hbase-1.3.0 root@c7004:/opt/
# scp -r hbase-1.3.0 root@c7005:/opt/

Start the cluster: # bin/start-hbase.sh Access the web UI at http://<your‑ip>:16010.

Node processes overview: