Node configuration

To configure your node properly, you will need your machine's IP address (assume 192.168.0.100, for this exercise). Once you have that, look inside your configuration directory ($CASSANDRA_HOME/conf for Tarball installs, /etc/cassandra for apt-get installs) and you will notice several files: cassandra.yaml, cassandra-env.sh, and cassandra-rackdc.properties among them.

In the cassandra.yaml file, make the following adjustments:

I'll name the cluster PermanentWaves:

cluster_name: "PermanentWaves"

Next, I'll designate this node as a seed node. Basically, this means other nodes will look for this node when joining the cluster. Do not make all of your nodes seed nodes:

seeds: "192.168.0.100"

Usually, listen_address and rpc_address will be set to the same IP address. In some cloud implementations, it may be necessary to also set broadcast_address and/or broadcast_rpc_address to your instances' external IP address, instead. But for a basic, on-the-metal setup, this will work fine:

listen_address...