Windows

The default installation directory is C:\Program Files\ArangoDB-3.x.x. During the installation process you may change this. In the following description we will assume that ArangoDB has been installed in the location <ROOTDIR>.

You have to be careful when choosing an installation directory. You need either write permission to this directory or you need to modify the configuration file for the server process. In the latter case the database directory and the Foxx directory have to be writable by the user.

Single- and Multiuser Installation

There are two main modes for the installer of ArangoDB. The installer lets you select:

multi user installation (default; admin privileges required) Will install ArangoDB as service.
single user installation Allow to install Arangodb as normal user. Requires manual starting of the database server.

CheckBoxes

The checkboxes allow you to chose weather you want to:

chose custom install paths
do an automatic upgrade
keep an backup of your data
add executables to path
create a desktop icon

or not.

Custom Install Paths

This checkbox controls if you will be able to override the default paths for the installation in subsequent steps.

The default installation paths are:

Multi User Default:

Installation: C:\Program Files\ArangoDB-3.x.x
DataBase: C:\ProgramData\ArangoDB
Foxx Service: C:\ProgramData\ArangoDB-apps

Single User Default:

Installation: C:\Users\\\AppData\Local\ArangoDB-3.x.x
DataBase: C:\Users\\\AppData\Local\ArangoDB
Foxx Service: C:\Users\\\AppData\Local\ArangoDB-apps

We are not using the roaming part of the user's profile, because doing so avoids the data being synced to the windows domain controller.

Automatic Upgrade

If this checkbox is selected the installer will attempt to perform an automatic update. For more information please see Upgrading from Previous Version.

Keep Backup

Select this to create a backup of your database directory during automatic upgrade. The backup will be created next to your current database directory suffixed by a time stamp.

Add to Path

Select this to add the binary directory to your system's path (multi user installation) or user's path (single user installation).

Desktop Icon

Select if you want the installer to create Desktop Icons that let you:

access the web inteface
start the commandline client (arangosh)
start the database server (single user installation only)

Upgrading from Previous Version

If you are upgrading ArangoDB from an earlier version you need to copy your old database directory to the new default paths. Upgrading will keep your old data, password and choice of storage engine as it is. Switching to the RocksDB storage engine requires a export and reimport of your data.

Starting

If you installed ArangoDB for multiple users (as a service) it is automatically started. Otherwise you need to use the link that was created on you Desktop if you chose to let the installer create desktop icons or

the executable arangod.exe located in <ROOTDIR>\bin. This will use the configuration file arangod.conf located in <ROOTDIR>\etc\arangodb, which you can adjust to your needs and use the data directory <ROOTDIR>\var\lib\arangodb. This is the place where all your data (databases and collections) will be stored by default.

Please check the output of the arangod.exe executable before going on. If the server started successfully, you should see a line ArangoDB is ready for business. Have fun! at the end of its output.

We now wish to check that the installation is working correctly and to do this we will be using the administration web interface. Execute arangod.exe if you have not already done so, then open up your web browser and point it to the page:

http://127.0.0.1:8529/

Advanced Starting

If you want to provide our own start scripts, you can set the environment variable ARANGODB_CONFIG_PATH. This variable should point to a directory containing the configuration files.

Using the Client

To connect to an already running ArangoDB server instance, there is a shell arangosh.exe located in <ROOTDIR>\bin. This starts a shell which can be used – amongst other things – to administer and query a local or remote ArangoDB server.

Note that arangosh.exe does NOT start a separate server, it only starts the shell. To use it you must have a server running somewhere, e.g. by using the arangod.exe executable.

arangosh.exe uses configuration from the file arangosh.conf located in <ROOTDIR>\etc\arangodb\. Please adjust this to your needs if you want to use different connection settings etc.

Uninstalling

To uninstall the Arango server application you can use the windows control panel (as you would normally uninstall an application). Note however, that any data files created by the Arango server will remain as well as the <ROOTDIR> directory. To complete the uninstallation process, remove the data files and the <ROOTDIR> directory manually.

Limitations for Cygwin

Please note some important limitations when running ArangoDB under Cygwin: Starting ArangoDB can be started from out of a Cygwin terminal, but pressing CTRL-C will forcefully kill the server process without giving it a chance to handle the kill signal. In this case, a regular server shutdown is not possible, which may leave a file LOCK around in the server's data directory. This file needs to be removed manually to make ArangoDB start again. Additionally, as ArangoDB does not have a chance to handle the kill signal, the server cannot forcefully flush any data to disk on shutdown, leading to potential data loss. When starting ArangoDB from a Cygwin terminal it might also happen that no errors are printed in the terminal output. Starting ArangoDB from an MS-DOS command prompt does not impose these limitations and is thus the preferred method.

Please note that ArangoDB uses UTF-8 as its internal encoding and that the system console must support a UTF-8 codepage (65001) and font. It may be necessary to manually switch the console font to a font that supports UTF-8.