The parcel.json file

The parcel.json file

The primary metadata file for a parcel is parcel.json. While all the other files are optional, this one must exist for a parcel to be a parcel.

A parcel.json Example

The following example is a simplified version of the CDH parcel.json. It truncates the long component/package/user lists, but illustrates all of the different parts of the file.

{
  "name": "CDH",
  "version": "5.0.0",
  "setActiveSymlink": true,

  "depends": "",
  "replaces": "IMPALA, SOLR, SPARK",
  "conflicts": "",

  "provides": [
    "cdh",
    "impala",
    "solr",
    "spark"
  ],

  "scripts": {
    "defines": "cdh_env.sh"
  },

  "packages": [
    { "name"   : "hadoop",
      "version": "2.2.0+cdh5.0.0+609-0.cdh5b2.p0.386~precise-cdh5.0.0"
    },
    { "name"   : "hadoop-client",
      "version": "2.2.0+cdh5.0.0+609-0.cdh5b2.p0.386~precise-cdh5.0.0"
    },
    { "name"   : "hadoop-hdfs",
      "version": "2.2.0+cdh5.0.0+609-0.cdh5b2.p0.386~precise-cdh5.0.0"
    }
  ],

  "components": [
    { "name"       : "hadoop",
      "version"    : "2.2.0-cdh5.0.0-SNAPSHOT",
      "pkg_version": "2.2.0+cdh5.0.0+609"
    },
    { "name"       : "hadoop-hdfs",
      "version"    : "2.2.0-cdh5.0.0-SNAPSHOT",
      "pkg_version": "2.2.0+cdh5.0.0+609"
    }
  ],

  "users": {
    "hdfs": {
      "longname"    : "Hadoop HDFS",
      "home"        : "/var/lib/hadoop-hdfs",
      "shell"       : "/bin/bash",
      "extra_groups": [ "hadoop" ]
    },
    "impala": {
      "longname"    : "Impala",
      "home"        : "/var/run/impala",
      "shell"       : "/bin/bash",
      "extra_groups": [ "hive", "hdfs" ]
    }
  },

  "groups": [
    "hadoop"
  ]
}

Fields

Basic Identity information

• name: The name of the parcel.
• version: The version of the parcel.

The name and version fields are the fundamental fields that identify a parcel; only one parcel may provide a given (name, version) combination, and for any given name, Cloudera Manager will only consider one version to be active at a time, for a particular cluster.

Parcel directories must be named 'name-version' to match these two fields. Cloudera Manager will flag any parcel where this is not true as invalid.

Compressed parcel files must similarly be named 'name-version-distro_suffix.parcel' to be considered valid. See [here](Parcel Distro Suffixes) for details on distro suffixes.