Downloading and Installing the Hortonworks Sandbox with VirtualBox
Getting started with Big Data can be a bit overwhelming. Fortunately the folks at Hortonworks created
a virtual machine and installation instructions that makes creating a sandbox
relatively easy and free. I did
encounter a few bumps in the road so I thought I would write about my issues in
hopes that it will help others who encounter similar problems.
First, go to the Hortonworks website and download the
sandbox for either VirtualBox or VMware.
I happened to use VirtualBox.
Next, open the VirtualBox application and click File -> Import
Appliance. Select the .OVA
file and click next. I did not find it
necessary to change any of the settings so I clicked Import.
Start the VM. You
will notice that all of the underlying programs will initiate and when finished will present this screen.
At this point you can go to your browser and enter
127.0.0.1:8888, which is the Hortonworks Sandbox welcome screen.
The first tutorial, which involves Ambari, asks that you
enter the standard Ambari URL, which is
127.0.0.1:8080. The issue I had
was that another program was using that port.
So I had to change the Ambari Server Port number. I found the following link helpful.
The first thing you need to do is stop both the Ambari
Server and Ambari Agent. To do this you
hit ALT+F5 (or Fn + ALT + F5 on a Mac) and then enter the following 2 commands:
ambari-server stop
ambary-agent stop
To change the port number for Ambari you enter the following
command:
vi
/etc/ambari-server/conf/ambari.properties
This will open up the properties file. If you click “i” (insert) on the screen you
can then enter the command to change the port.
client.api.port=<new
port number>
(find an unused port)
If you enter “:wq”
this will save and close the properties file.
At this point you can turn off the VM.
There is one more thing to do to make this work. I’m not sure if this change will happen
automatically or if you need to manually make the change. I manually changed the port number in
VirtualBox.
Right click the VM and click Settings. Open Network and Port Forwarding.
Change the port number from 8080 to whatever port number
you entered in the Ambari Properties file (I chose 8082) .
If you double click the port number it will allow you to change it.
Now, if you start the VM you should be able to open the
Ambari URL. Simply enter 127.0.0.1:8082
(or whatever port you used) and you should see the following screen.
