The Altus Director Configuration File

The Altus Director configuration file is used to launch a cluster through the Altus Director server with the bootstrap-remote command.

For information on the bootstrap-remote commands, see Commands. The configuration file follows the HOCON format. For information on HOCON, see the documentation on GitHub at HOCON (Human-Optimized Config Object Notation).

Location of Sample Configuration Files

Sample configuration files are found either in /usr/lib64/cloudera-director/client or /usr/lib/cloudera-director/client, depending on the operating system you are using. Copy the sample files to your home directory before editing them.

Customizing the Configuration File

Copy the sample files to your home directory before editing them. Rename the cloud_provider.simple.conf or cloud_provider.reference.conf file to your_filename.conf.
  • For simple cluster configuration, use cloud-provider.simple.conf.
  • For advanced cluster configuration, use cloud_provider.reference.conf.
Open your copy of the configuration with a text editor to customize the configuration settings.

The cloud_provider.reference.conf version of the configuration file includes advanced settings that are documented in comments within the file itself. Details on the specific settings in the file are not duplicated in this document.

Valid Role Types for Use in Configuration Files

For a list of valid roles for Cloudera Manager and CDH services that you can use in a Altus Director configuration file, see the Cloudera Manager API page on Available Role Types.

Using the API to Import a Configuration File

Beginning with release 2.0 of Altus Director, you can import the contents of a configuration file into Altus Director with the API using the /api/<api_version>/import endpoint. For example: 
 /api/v10/import?clusterName=someClusterName&deploymentName=someDeploymentName&environmentName=someEnvironmentName

In this way, you can POST the contents of a configuration file to Altus Director without using the Altus Director CLI. The values clusterName, deploymentName, and environmentName are all optional. If they are present, they override the values in the configuration file.

Default Values for Configuration Files

In Altus Director 2.7 and lower, Altus Director provides default values for several common configuration file properties when no values have been specified in a user's configuration file.

In 2.8 and higher, Altus Director no longer provides the default values. You must include these values in any new configuration files you create for 2.8 and higher, and add them to older configuration files if you want to reuse them. Specifically, the following configuration file properties must now be included in your configuration file:

  • CDH version: In Altus Director 2.8 and higher, the products section in the cluster description section of the configuration file must specify the CDH version, for example, CDH: 5, as shown below. 
    products {
      CDH: 5
      KAFKA: 3
      ACCUMULO: 1.6
    # SPARK2: 2
    }
  • Instance name prefix: In the absence of a user-provided instance name prefix, the default instance name prefix for AWS EC2 instances in Altus Director 2.7 and lower is launchpad, and for Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform instances it is director. In 2.8 and higher, the default instance name prefix is director on all three supported cloud platforms. If you require the prefix launchpad for EC2 instances, you must specify it in your configuration file.
  • Instance template names based on EC2 instance types: The instance template names m1x, cc28, and hs18 can be specified in Altus Director 2.7 and lower to launch a particular EC2 instance type. If you want to use these as instance names in 2.8 and higher, you can specify them as names in your configuration file, but they won't automatically correspond to an instance type. You must configure the instance type yourself.
  • Predefined lists of master and worker roles for each cluster service: No default master and worker role lists for CDH services are provided in Altus Director 2.8 and higher, and they must be specified in the configuration file. Existing configuration files that rely on the predefined lists of roles must be updated with master and worker roles if you want to use them with Altus Director 2.8 and higher.