Aerospike Daemon CLI options

For the complete documentation index see: llms.txt

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This page describes the command-line interface (CLI) options for the Aerospike daemon (asd).

In some circumstances you should run Aerospike from the command line. For Docker in particular, the service subsystem may or may not work the way you expect, and you should be running foreground within a container.

The command to start Aerospike without a service manager is ‘asd’. If you build from source, this is in the ‘target/Linux-x86_64/bin’ directory. If you install using the package manager, it is ‘/usr/bin/asd’ (and thus, usually, in the path).

Run ‘asd --help’ for a full list of available command line options.

Information options

--version

Prints edition and build version information, then exits.

Configuration and execution options

--config-file PATH

Specifies the path to the Aerospike Database configuration file.

If omitted, the server uses the default location, /etc/aerospike/aerospike.conf.

--schema-file PATH

Specifies the path to a custom JSON schema file for validating YAML configurations.

Default: /opt/aerospike/schema/aerospike_config_schema.json
Behavior: The server issues a warning if the schema hash differs from the official schema.
Availability: Database 8.1.1 and later.

--foreground

Runs Aerospike in the foreground instead of daemonizing the process.

Useful for running under gdb. Alternatively, set run-as-daemon false in the service context of your configuration file. Do not use in Docker environments.

--fgdaemon

Runs Aerospike as a “new-style” (foreground) daemon, ideal for systemd or Docker.

In this mode, asd runs in the foreground and ignores the following configuration parameters: user, group, and pidfile. For details, see the New-Style Daemons documentatio.

Cluster and feature flags

--cold-start

(Enterprise Edition only) Forces the server to read all records from storage devices at startup to rebuild the primary index and any shared memory segments from previous boots.

--instance <0-15>

(Enterprise Edition only) Distinguishes multiple asd processes running on the same host.

Each instance receives its own shared memory segments, ensuring that a restarting process reattaches to its own state rather than another instance’s. Commonly used to pin instances to specific NUMA (non-uniform memory access) nodes with auto-pin.

Caution

Database 8.2.0 and later validate --instance during option parsing. Out-of-range or non-numeric inputs exit immediately with a non-zero status:

invalid --instance 'VALUE'; valid range is 0-15

Earlier releases parsed non-numeric strings as 0 and caught out-of-range integers later in execution with a startup assertion.

--preview FEATURE_NAME

Enables a specific preview feature (Database 8.2.0 and later). Replace FEATURE_NAME with one of the following valid feature names:

Feature	Description
`yaml-config`	Load the server configuration from a YAML file.
`index-checkpoint`	Enable the Enterprise Edition index checkpoint. Without this flag, `asd` rejects `index-checkpoint-path` at startup. The flag only enables the feature; you still set `index-checkpoint-path` in the `service` context of the configuration file passed to `--config-file`. That is a service-wide setting, not a per-namespace one and not an entry in the feature-key file.

Usage details

Enabling multiple features: Pass comma-separated values or repeat the flag:

asd --preview yaml-config,index-checkpoint --config-file /etc/aerospike/aerospike.yaml

Systemd integration: Set this flag in ASD_OPTIONS inside /etc/sysconfig/aerospike or a drop-in file under /etc/systemd/system/aerospike.service.d/.

Unrecognized features: Passing an invalid feature name prevents startup and prints all valid options.