GossipingPropertyFileSnitch defines each node’s datacenter and rack manually, then makes that topology available through gossip. It gives production clusters direct control over topology names instead of inferring them from a cloud provider. section 9.1.6
Explicit node topology
A node can use a cassandra-rackdc.properties file containing dc=datacenter1 and rack=rack1. The file belongs on every node, such as at /etc/scylla/cassandra-rackdc.properties. section 9.1.6
Select the snitch in scylla.yaml before building the cluster. Changing it later requires taking the cluster offline, so choosing explicit topology early preserves operational flexibility, including during cloud migration. section 9.1.6 section 9.2.1
Use the manually defined topology to:
- Control datacenter and rack names precisely. section 9.1.6
- Place nodes across multiple racks or zones so the cluster can tolerate a rack failure while preserving quorum consistency. section 9.2.1
- Support multi-datacenter layouts for failover, analytics, or globally distributed traffic. section 9.2.1
Listing 9.1 cassandra-rackdc.properties file
dc=datacenter1 rack=rack1
View the minimal topology properties file used by every node. section 9.1.6
