How to Deploy TigerBeetle on Debian VPS Server

This article provides a guide for how to deploy TigerBeetle on Debian VPS server.

What is TigerBeetle?

TigerBeetle is a financial accounting database designed for mission-critical workloads, such as payment systems, banks, and other financial institutions that require high availability, speed, and correctness in their accounting operations.

It is a relatively new technology that focuses on providing a robust and reliable infrastructure for managing financial transactions, ensuring that systems can process millions of transactions per second with strong consistency and fault tolerance.

Key features of TigerBeetle:

1. High Performance: TigerBeetle is optimized for speed, capable of handling millions of transactions per second with low latency. This makes it suitable for high-demand environments where performance is critical.
2. Fault Tolerance: It is designed to be resilient to failures, ensuring that even in the event of hardware or network issues, the system can continue to operate correctly without data loss or corruption.
3. Strong Consistency: TigerBeetle provides strong consistency guarantees, meaning that it ensures that all transactions are processed in the correct order and that the database remains in a consistent state, even in the case of failures.
4. Financial Accuracy: Given its use case in financial systems, TigerBeetle emphasizes accuracy and correctness in its accounting operations, ensuring that financial data is recorded and processed with precision.
5. Open Source: TigerBeetle is an open-source project, allowing developers and organizations to use, modify, and contribute to its development.

TigerBeetle is particularly useful for organizations that need a reliable and scalable solution for managing high volumes of financial transactions, such as digital wallets, payment processors, and other financial services.

How to Deploy TigerBeetle on a Debian VPS Server: A Step-by-Step Guide

TigerBeetle is a high-performance, distributed financial accounting database designed for modern financial systems. Deploying TigerBeetle on a Debian VPS server involves several steps, from setting up the environment to configuring and starting the TigerBeetle service. This guide will walk you through each step in detail.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, ensure you have the following:

• A VPS running Debian 10 (Buster) or Debian 11 (Bullseye).
• Root or sudo access to the VPS.
• Basic knowledge of using the terminal.

Step 1: Update the System

The first step is to ensure your Debian system is up-to-date. Log into your VPS using SSH and run the following commands:

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade -y

These commands will update the package lists and upgrade all installed packages to the latest versions.

Step 2: Install Required Dependencies

TigerBeetle has specific dependencies that need to be installed before proceeding with the deployment. Install these dependencies by running:

sudo apt install -y build-essential cmake libssl-dev pkg-config git

• build-essential: Contains the GCC compiler and other essential build tools.
• cmake: A build system generator required to compile TigerBeetle.
• libssl-dev: Provides SSL libraries needed for secure connections.
• pkg-config: Helps manage library paths and dependencies.
• git: Required to clone the TigerBeetle repository.

Step 3: Install Zig

TigerBeetle is written in the Zig programming language, so you need to install Zig. Follow these steps:

1. Download the latest Zig binary:

   wget https://ziglang.org/download/index.json

2. Extract and install Zig:

   tar -xf zig-linux-x86_64-*.tar.xz sudo mv zig-linux-x86_64-* /opt/zig sudo ln -s /opt/zig/zig /usr/local/bin/zig

3. Verify the installation:

   zig version

You should see the version of Zig printed on your terminal.

Step 4: Clone the TigerBeetle Repository

With the environment set up, it’s time to get the TigerBeetle source code. Clone the repository from GitHub:

git clone https://github.com/tigerbeetledb/tigerbeetle.git
cd tigerbeetle

Step 5: Build TigerBeetle

Now, you’ll need to build TigerBeetle from source using Zig:

zig build -Drelease-safe

This command compiles the TigerBeetle source code into a binary executable optimized for safety in release mode.

Step 6: Configure TigerBeetle

TigerBeetle requires configuration before you can start using it. Create a configuration file in the project directory:

nano config.json

Add the following configuration parameters:

{
"cluster_id": 0,
"replica_id": 0,
"addresses": [
"0.0.0.0:3000"
],
"directory": "./data"
}

• cluster_id: The ID of your TigerBeetle cluster.
• replica_id: The ID of this node in the cluster.
• addresses: The IP address and port on which TigerBeetle will listen.
• directory: The directory where TigerBeetle will store its data.

Save and close the file (press CTRL + X, then Y, and Enter).

Step 7: Create the Data Directory

TigerBeetle needs a directory to store its data files. Create this directory by running:

mkdir data

Ensure that the user running TigerBeetle has read/write permissions to this directory.

Step 8: Start the TigerBeetle Service

With everything configured, you can now start the TigerBeetle server:

./zig-out/bin/tigerbeetle start -config config.json

If everything is set up correctly, you should see output indicating that TigerBeetle is running and listening on the specified address.

Step 9: Set Up TigerBeetle as a Systemd Service (Optional)

To ensure TigerBeetle starts automatically and runs as a background service, you can set it up as a systemd service.

1. Create a systemd service file:

   sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/tigerbeetle.service

2. Add the following content:

   [Unit] Description=TigerBeetle Service After=network.target [Service] ExecStart=/path/to/zig-out/bin/tigerbeetle start -config /path/to/config.json WorkingDirectory=/path/to/tigerbeetle Restart=always User=yourusername [Install] WantedBy=multi-user.target

   Replace /path/to/zig-out/bin/tigerbeetle and /path/to/config.json with the correct paths.

3. Reload systemd, enable, and start the service:

   sudo systemctl daemon-reload sudo systemctl enable tigerbeetle sudo systemctl start tigerbeetle

4. Check the status of the service:

   sudo systemctl status tigerbeetle

If the service is running correctly, you’ll see output indicating that TigerBeetle is active and running.

Step 10: Testing and Validation

To verify that TigerBeetle is working correctly, you can use a client application or simply check the logs to ensure it is handling requests properly. The service should now be fully operational and available on the configured address.

Conclusion

You’ve successfully deployed TigerBeetle on your Debian VPS. This guide covered the essential steps from setting up the environment to starting TigerBeetle as a systemd service. Remember to monitor your server for performance and security, and refer to the TigerBeetle documentation for advanced configuration options.

This guide is designed to be comprehensive but straightforward, ensuring you can get TigerBeetle up and running with minimal hassle.