HugeGraph Server Quick Start

1 HugeGraph Server Overview

apache/hugegraph is the main repository for the HugeGraph graph database. Its top-level modules include hugegraph-server, hugegraph-pd, and hugegraph-store. This page describes the hugegraph-server module and the service it runs.

The hugegraph-server module contains hugegraph-core, hugegraph-api, hugegraph-dist, and storage adapters. Core implements the property graph model, transactions, and TinkerPop interfaces. API provides the HTTP service and delegates client requests to Core. Graph data is stored in RocksDB (the default standalone backend), HStore (distributed), or HBase.

⚠️ Version note: This page follows HugeGraph 1.7.0 through the master branch and covers only RocksDB, HStore, and HBase. For other legacy backends and their configuration, see the HugeGraph 1.5.x documentation.

Naming: HugeGraph means the overall project or main repository, hugegraph-server is the Server module in that repository, and HugeGraphServer is the Java class for the service process. This page uses “Server service” for a running graph database service.

2 Dependency for Building/Running

2.1 Install Java 11 (JDK 11)

The hugegraph-server module in HugeGraph 1.7.0 is compiled with Java 11. Running and building it from source require Java 11 or later.

Before continuing, run java -version to confirm your JDK version.

Java 8 is no longer supported starting from 1.7.0. bin/hugegraph-server.sh refuses to start on anything older than Java 11.

The security check is on by default and installs HugeSecurityManager, which needs Java 11 to 23. JDK 24 removed the Security Manager (JEP 486), so on Java 24 or later you must start the service with the check disabled: bin/start-hugegraph.sh -s false.

Building from source also needs Maven 3.5.0 or later.

3 Deploy

There are four ways to deploy the Server service:

• Method 1: Use Docker container (Convenient for Test/Dev)
• Method 2: Download the binary tarball
• Method 3: Source code compilation
• Method 4: One-click deployment

Do not expose Gremlin, Cypher, or other query endpoints directly to the public Internet. In production, enable authentication and authorization, restrict network access, and retain audit logs. See the Security Guide for deployment guidance.

3.1 Use Docker container (Convenient for Test/Dev)

You can refer to the Docker deployment guide.

You can use docker run -itd --name=server -p 8080:8080 -e PASSWORD=xxx hugegraph/hugegraph:1.7.0 to quickly start a Server instance using the RocksDB backend.

Optional:

1. You can use docker exec -it server bash to enter the container for troubleshooting or other maintenance operations.
2. You can use docker run -itd --name=server -p 8080:8080 -e PRELOAD="true" hugegraph/hugegraph:1.7.0 to preload a built-in sample graph at startup. You can verify it through the RESTful API. See 5.1.4 for details.
3. You can use -e PASSWORD=xxx to enable authentication mode and set the admin password. See Config Authentication for details.

If you use Docker Desktop, you can set the options as follows:

Note: The Docker Compose files use bridge networking (hg-net) and work on Linux and Mac (Docker Desktop). For the 3-node distributed cluster on Mac (Docker Desktop), allocate at least 12 GB of memory (Settings → Resources → Memory). On Linux, Docker uses host memory directly.

If you want a single, unified setup for multiple HugeGraph services, you can use docker compose. Four compose files are available in the docker/ directory:

cd hugegraph/docker
# Keep the version aligned with the latest release, for example 1.x.0
HUGEGRAPH_VERSION=1.7.0 docker compose -f docker-compose.yml up -d --wait

The standalone topology publishes the Server on port 8080 and Hubble on 127.0.0.1:8088. HUGEGRAPH_VERSION selects the Server, PD, and Store image tags; Hubble is selected separately with HUBBLE_IMAGE.

The compose files read the administrator password from HUGEGRAPH_ADMIN_PASSWORD and the JWT secret from HUGEGRAPH_AUTH_TOKEN_SECRET, normally kept in a docker/.env file. A non-empty HUGEGRAPH_ADMIN_PASSWORD turns authentication on, and Hubble detects that mode by itself. With plain docker run, pass -e PASSWORD=xxx instead.

See docker/README.md for the full setup guide.

Note:

1. HugeGraph Docker images are provided as a convenient way to start HugeGraph quickly, but they are not official ASF distribution artifacts. You can find more details in the ASF Release Distribution Policy.

2. We recommend using a release tag (such as 1.7.0 or 1.x.0) for stable deployments. Use the latest tag only if you want the newest features still under development.

3.2 Download the binary tarball

You could download the binary tarball from the download page of the ASF site like this:

# 1.7.0 is a historical release from the incubation period, so its file name still includes "incubating"
wget https://downloads.apache.org/hugegraph/1.7.0/apache-hugegraph-incubating-1.7.0.tar.gz
tar zxf apache-hugegraph-incubating-1.7.0.tar.gz

# (Optional) verify the integrity with SHA512 (recommended)
shasum -a 512 apache-hugegraph-incubating-1.7.0.tar.gz
curl https://downloads.apache.org/hugegraph/1.7.0/apache-hugegraph-incubating-1.7.0.tar.gz.sha512

3.3 Source code compilation

Please ensure that the wget/curl commands are installed before compiling the source code

Download HugeGraph source code in either of the following 2 ways (so as the other HugeGraph repos/modules):

• download the stable/release version from the ASF site
• clone the unstable/latest version by GitBox(ASF) or GitHub

# Way 1. download release package from the ASF site
wget https://downloads.apache.org/hugegraph/{version}/apache-hugegraph-incubating-src-{version}.tar.gz
tar zxf *hugegraph*.tar.gz

# (Optional) verify the integrity with SHA512 (recommended)
shasum -a 512 apache-hugegraph-incubating-src-{version}.tar.gz
curl https://downloads.apache.org/hugegraph/{version}/apache-hugegraph-incubating-{version}-src.tar.gz.sha512

# Way2 : clone the latest code by git way (e.g GitHub)
git clone https://github.com/apache/hugegraph.git

Compile and generate tarball

cd *hugegraph
# (Optional) use "-P stage" param if you build failed with the latest code(during pre-release period)
mvn package -DskipTests -ntp

A successful build includes the following line:

[INFO] BUILD SUCCESS

After a successful build, the generated distribution is the *hugegraph-*.tar.gz file in the repository root.

The default build bundles the rocksdb, hbase, and hstore backend modules, and records them in the backends option of the backend.properties resource inside the hugegraph-dist jar. To build a smaller distribution that carries RocksDB only, add -Drocksdb-only:

mvn package -DskipTests -ntp -Drocksdb-only

# download toolchain binary package, it includes loader + tool + hubble
# please check the latest version (e.g. here is 1.7.0)
wget https://downloads.apache.org/hugegraph/1.7.0/apache-hugegraph-toolchain-incubating-1.7.0.tar.gz
tar zxf *hugegraph-*.tar.gz

# enter the tool's package
cd *hugegraph*/*tool* 

bin/hugegraph deploy -v {hugegraph-version} -p {install-path} [-u {download-path-prefix}]

4 Config

If you need to quickly start HugeGraph just for testing, then you only need to modify a few configuration items (see next section). For detailed configuration introduction, please refer to configuration document and introduction to configuration items

5 Startup

5.1 Use a startup script to startup

Startup is divided into “first startup” and “non-first startup”. On the first startup, you need to initialize the backend database before starting the service.

If the service was stopped manually, or needs to be started again for any other reason, you can usually start it directly because the backend database is persistent.

When HugeGraphServer starts, it connects to the backend storage and checks its version information. If the backend has not been initialized, or if it was initialized with an incompatible version (for example, old-version data), HugeGraphServer will fail to start and report an error.

If you need to access HugeGraphServer externally, modify the restserver.url configuration item in rest-server.properties (the default is http://127.0.0.1:8080) and change it to the machine name or IP address.

Since the configuration (hugegraph.properties) and startup steps required by various backends are slightly different, the following will introduce the configuration and startup of each backend one by one.

Note: Configure Server Authentication before starting HugeGraphServer if you need Auth mode (especially for production or public network environments).

5.1.1 Distributed Storage (HStore)

backend=hstore
serializer=binary

# PD service address, multiple PD addresses are separated by commas, configure PD's RPC port
pd.peers=127.0.0.1:8686,127.0.0.1:8687,127.0.0.1:8688

# Simple example (with authentication)
gremlin.graph=org.apache.hugegraph.auth.HugeFactoryAuthProxy

# Specify storage backend hstore
backend=hstore
serializer=binary
store=hugegraph

# pd config
pd.peers=127.0.0.1:8686

usePD=true
# load the hugegraph.properties above from the graphs directory; the source default is false
graph.load_from_local_config=true

# notice: must have this conf in 1.7.0
pd.peers=127.0.0.1:8686,127.0.0.1:8687,127.0.0.1:8688
# If auth is needed
# auth.authenticator=org.apache.hugegraph.auth.StandardAuthenticator

usePD=true
restserver.url=http://127.0.0.1:8081
gremlinserver.url=http://127.0.0.1:8181
pd.peers=127.0.0.1:8686

rpc.server_host=127.0.0.1
rpc.server_port=8091

server.id=server-1
server.role=master

usePD=true
restserver.url=http://127.0.0.1:8082
gremlinserver.url=http://127.0.0.1:8182
pd.peers=127.0.0.1:8686

rpc.server_host=127.0.0.1
rpc.server_port=8092

server.id=server-2
server.role=worker

host: 127.0.0.1
port: 8181

host: 127.0.0.1
port: 8182

cd *hugegraph-${version}
bin/init-store.sh

bin/start-hugegraph.sh

curl http://localhost:8081/graphspaces/DEFAULT/graphs
# Should return: {"graphs":["hugegraph"]}

bin/stop-hugegraph.sh

cd hugegraph/docker
HUGEGRAPH_VERSION=1.7.0 docker compose -f docker-compose-3pd-3store-3server.yml up -d --wait

# Server configuration, shared by server0, server1 and server2
HG_SERVER_BACKEND: hstore
HG_SERVER_PD_PEERS: pd0:8686,pd1:8686,pd2:8686
HG_SERVER_CLUSTER: hg
HG_SERVER_USE_PD: "true"
HG_SERVER_MIN_FREE_MEMORY: "0"
HG_SERVER_INIT_STORE_ENABLED: "false"
HG_SERVER_REQUIRE_AUTH_TOKEN_SECRET: "true"
STORE_REST: store0:8520
# per node, for example on server0
HG_SERVER_REST_URL: http://server0:8080

curl http://localhost:8080/versions
curl http://localhost:8620/v1/stores

5.1.2 RocksDB / ToplingDB

backend=rocksdb
serializer=binary
rocksdb.data_path=.
rocksdb.wal_path=.

cd *hugegraph-${version}
bin/init-store.sh

bin/start-hugegraph.sh
Starting HugeGraphServer in daemon mode...
Connecting to HugeGraphServer (http://127.0.0.1:8080/graphs)....OK
Started [pid 21614]

5.1.3 HBase

backend=hbase
serializer=hbase

# hbase backend config
hbase.hosts=localhost
hbase.port=2181
# Note: recommend to modify the HBase partition number by the actual/env data amount & RS amount before init store
# it may influence the loading speed a lot
#hbase.enable_partition=true
#hbase.vertex_partitions=10
#hbase.edge_partitions=30

cd *hugegraph-${version}
bin/init-store.sh

bin/start-hugegraph.sh
Starting HugeGraphServer in daemon mode...
Connecting to HugeGraphServer (http://127.0.0.1:8080/graphs)....OK
Started [pid 21614]

5.1.4 Create an example graph when startup

Pass the -p true argument when starting the script to enable preload, which creates a sample graph.

bin/start-hugegraph.sh -p true
Starting HugeGraphServer in daemon mode...
Connecting to HugeGraphServer (http://127.0.0.1:8080/graphs)......OK

And use the RESTful API to request HugeGraphServer and get the following result:

> curl "http://localhost:8080/graphspaces/DEFAULT/graphs/hugegraph/graph/vertices" | gunzip

{"vertices":[{"id":"2:lop","label":"software","type":"vertex","properties":{"name":"lop","lang":"java","price":328}},{"id":"1:josh","label":"person","type":"vertex","properties":{"name":"josh","age":32,"city":"Beijing"}},{"id":"1:marko","label":"person","type":"vertex","properties":{"name":"marko","age":29,"city":"Beijing"}},{"id":"1:peter","label":"person","type":"vertex","properties":{"name":"peter","age":35,"city":"Shanghai"}},{"id":"1:vadas","label":"person","type":"vertex","properties":{"name":"vadas","age":27,"city":"Hongkong"}},{"id":"2:ripple","label":"software","type":"vertex","properties":{"name":"ripple","lang":"java","price":199}}]}

This indicates the successful creation of the sample graph.

5.1.5 Startup script options

bin/start-hugegraph.sh accepts the following options. Every one of them takes a value, so write -d false, not a bare -d.

bin/stop-hugegraph.sh accepts -m true|false (default true), which controls whether the cron monitor task is removed along with the service.

5.2 Use Docker to startup

In 3.1 Use Docker container, we introduced how to deploy hugegraph-server with Docker. You can also switch storage backends or preload a sample graph by setting the corresponding parameters.

5.2.1 Create an example graph when starting a server

Set the environment variable PRELOAD=true when starting Docker so that sample data is loaded during startup.

1. Use docker run

   Use docker run -itd --name=server -p 8080:8080 -e PRELOAD=true hugegraph/hugegraph:1.7.0

2. Use docker-compose

   Create a docker-compose.yml file like the following and set PRELOAD=true in the environment. example.groovy is a predefined script used to preload sample data. If needed, you can mount a new example.groovy script to change the preload data.

   version: '3'
   services:
     server:
       image: hugegraph/hugegraph:1.7.0
       container_name: server
       environment:
         - PRELOAD=true
         - PASSWORD=xxx
       volumes:
         - /path/to/yourscript:/hugegraph-server/scripts/example.groovy
       ports:
         - 8080:8080

   Use docker compose up -d to start the container.

And use the RESTful API to request HugeGraphServer and get the following result:

> curl "http://localhost:8080/graphspaces/DEFAULT/graphs/hugegraph/graph/vertices" | gunzip

{"vertices":[{"id":"2:lop","label":"software","type":"vertex","properties":{"name":"lop","lang":"java","price":328}},{"id":"1:josh","label":"person","type":"vertex","properties":{"name":"josh","age":32,"city":"Beijing"}},{"id":"1:marko","label":"person","type":"vertex","properties":{"name":"marko","age":29,"city":"Beijing"}},{"id":"1:peter","label":"person","type":"vertex","properties":{"name":"peter","age":35,"city":"Shanghai"}},{"id":"1:vadas","label":"person","type":"vertex","properties":{"name":"vadas","age":27,"city":"Hongkong"}},{"id":"2:ripple","label":"software","type":"vertex","properties":{"name":"ripple","lang":"java","price":199}}]}

This indicates that the sample graph was created successfully.

6. Access server

6.1 Service startup status check

Use jps to see a service process

jps
6475 HugeGraphServer

curl request RESTfulAPI

echo `curl -o /dev/null -s -w %{http_code} "http://localhost:8080/graphspaces/DEFAULT/graphs/hugegraph/graph/vertices"`

Return 200, which means the server starts normally.

6.2 Request Server

The RESTful API of HugeGraphServer includes various types of resources, typically including graph, schema, gremlin, traverser and task.

• graph contains vertices、edges
• schema contains vertexlabels、 propertykeys、 edgelabels、indexlabels
• gremlin contains various Gremlin statements, such as g.v(), which can be executed synchronously or asynchronously
• traverser contains various advanced queries including shortest paths, intersections, N-step reachable neighbors, etc.
• task contains query and delete with asynchronous tasks

6.2.1 Get vertices and its related properties in hugegraph

curl http://localhost:8080/graphspaces/DEFAULT/graphs/hugegraph/graph/vertices

explanation

1. Since there are many vertices and edges in the graph, for list-type requests, such as getting all vertices, getting all edges, etc., the server will compress the data and return it, so when use curl, you get a bunch of garbled characters, you can redirect to gunzip for decompression. It is recommended to use the Chrome browser + Restlet plugin to send HTTP requests for testing.

   curl "http://localhost:8080/graphspaces/DEFAULT/graphs/hugegraph/graph/vertices" | gunzip

2. The current default configuration of HugeGraphServer can only be accessed locally, and the configuration can be modified so that it can be accessed on other machines.

   vim conf/rest-server.properties
   
   restserver.url=http://0.0.0.0:8080

response body:

{
    "vertices": [
        {
            "id": "2lop",
            "label": "software",
            "type": "vertex",
            "properties": {
                "price": [
                    {
                        "id": "price",
                        "value": 328
                    }
                ],
                "name": [
                    {
                        "id": "name",
                        "value": "lop"
                    }
                ],
                "lang": [
                    {
                        "id": "lang",
                        "value": "java"
                    }
                ]
            }
        },
        {
            "id": "1josh",
            "label": "person",
            "type": "vertex",
            "properties": {
                "name": [
                    {
                        "id": "name",
                        "value": "josh"
                    }
                ],
                "age": [
                    {
                        "id": "age",
                        "value": 32
                    }
                ]
            }
        },
        ...
    ]
}

For the detailed API, please refer to RESTful-API

You can also visit localhost:8080/swagger-ui/index.html to check the API.

When using Swagger UI to debug the API provided by HugeGraph, if HugeGraph Server turns on authentication mode, you can enter authentication information on the Swagger page.

Currently, HugeGraph supports setting authentication information in two forms: Basic and Bearer.

7 Stop Server

cd apache-hugegraph-incubating-1.7.0/apache-hugegraph-server-incubating-1.7.0
bin/stop-hugegraph.sh

8 Debug Server with IntelliJ IDEA

Please refer to Setup Server in IDEA