Managing Software Installation

A major function of Cloudera Manager is to install CDH and managed service software in your cluster. Cloudera Manager supports two software distribution formats: packages and parcels.

A package is a binary distribution format that contains compiled code and meta-information such as a package description, version, and dependencies. Package management systems evaluate this meta-information to allow package searches, perform upgrades to a newer version, and ensure that all dependencies of a package are fulfilled. Cloudera Manager uses the native "system package manager" for each supported OS.

A parcel is a binary distribution format containing the program files, along with additional metadata used by Cloudera Manager. There are a few notable differences between parcels and packages:
  • Parcels are self-contained and installed in a versioned directory, which means that multiple versions of a given parcel can be installed side-by-side. You can then designate one of these installed versions as the active one. With packages, only one package can be installed at a time so there's no distinction between what's installed and what's active.
  • Parcels can be installed at any location in the filesystem and by default are installed in /opt/cloudera/parcels. In contrast, packages are installed in /usr/lib.