Quick Start
Binary from Source
Getting a Liftbridge binary currently requires building and installing from source using Go. This will not be required once a release is made which will provide pre-built binaries and container images, but in the meantime follow the below step to install. Alternatively, you can use the development container which runs an instance of Liftbridge and NATS inside a single Docker container.
$ go get github.com/liftbridge-io/liftbridge
Liftbridge uses Go modules, so
ensure this is enabled, e.g. export GO111MODULE=on.
Liftbridge currently relies on an externally running
NATS server. By default, it will connect
to a NATS server running on localhost. The --nats-servers flag allows
configuring the NATS server(s) to connect to.
Also note that Liftbridge is clustered by default and relies on Raft for
coordination. This means a cluster of three or more servers is normally run
for high availability, and Raft manages electing a leader. A single server is
actually a cluster of size 1. For safety purposes, the server cannot elect
itself as leader without using the --raft-bootstrap-seed flag, which will
indicate to the server to elect itself as leader. This will start a single
server that can begin handling requests. Use this flag with caution as it should
only be set on one server when bootstrapping a cluster.
$ liftbridge --raft-bootstrap-seed
INFO[2018-07-05 16:29:44] Server ID: kn3MGwCL3TKRNyGS9bZLgH
INFO[2018-07-05 16:29:44] Namespace: liftbridge-default
INFO[2018-07-05 16:29:44] Starting server on :9292...
INFO[2018-07-05 16:29:46] Server became metadata leader, performing leader promotion actions
Once a leader has been elected, other servers will automatically join the cluster.
We set the --data-dir and --port flags to avoid clobbering the first server.
$ liftbridge --data-dir /tmp/liftbridge/server-2 --port=9293
INFO[2018-07-05 16:39:21] Server ID: 32CpplyaA031EFEW1DQzx6
INFO[2018-07-05 16:39:21] Namespace: liftbridge-default
INFO[2018-07-05 16:39:21] Starting server on :9293...
We can also bootstrap a cluster by providing the explicit cluster configuration.
To do this, we provide the IDs of the participating peers in the cluster using the
--raft-bootstrap-peers flag. Raft will then handle electing a leader.
$ liftbridge --raft-bootstrap-peers server-2,server-3
Docker Container
Instead of running a binary, you can run Liftbridge using a container. There is a container image available which runs an instance of Liftbridge and NATS inside a single Docker container. This is meant for development and testing purposes. Use the following Docker commands to run this container:
$ docker pull liftbridge/liftbridge-docker
$ docker run -d --name=liftbridge-main -p 4222:4222 -p 9292:9292 -p 8222:8222 -p 6222:6222 liftbridge/liftbridge-docker
This will run the container which will start both the NATS and Liftbridge servers. To check the logs to see if the container started properly, run:
$ docker logs liftbridge-main
See the deployment guide for more information.
Running a Liftbridge Cluster Locally
The quickest way to get a multi-node Liftbridge cluster up and running on your machine is with either Docker Compose or Kind (Kubernetes in Docker). Follow the deployment guide for help running a cluster locally for development or testing.