Installing ArangoDB on Windows

    • Automated, using an NSIS Installer.
    • Manual, using a ZIP archive (XCopy installation).Both installation methods have their own pros and cons.

    For production environments we highly recommend using Linux.

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

    You have to be careful when choosing an installation directory. You need eitherwrite permission to this directory or you need to modify the configuration filefor the server process. In the latter case the database directory and the Foxxdirectory have to be writable by the user.

    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 installationAllow to install Arangodb as normal user.Requires manual starting of the database server.

    Installation Options

    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

    Custom Install Paths

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

    The default installation paths are:

    Multi User Default:

    • Installation:
    • DataBase: %PROGRAMDATA%\ArangoDB

    • Foxx Service: %PROGRAMDATA%\ArangoDB-appsSingle User Default:

    • DataBase:

    • Foxx Service: %LOCALAPPDATA%\ArangoDB-apps\The environment variables are typically:

    • %PROGRAMFILES%: C:\Program Files

    • : C:\ProgramData
    • %LOCALAPPDATA%: C:\Users\<YourName>\AppData\LocalWe are not using the roaming part of the user’s profile, because doing soavoids the data being synced to the windows domain controller.

    Automatic Upgrade

    If this checkbox is selected the installer will attempt to perform an automaticupdate. For more information please see.

    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 bya time stamp.

    Add to Path

    Select this to add the binary directory to your system’s path (multi userinstallation) 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)

    Starting

    If you installed ArangoDB for multiple users (as a service) it is automaticallystarted. Otherwise you need to use the link that was created on you Desktop ifyou 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 needsand use the data directory <ROOTDIR>\var\lib\arangodb_. This is the placewhere all your data (databases and collections) will be stored by default.

    Please check the output of the arangod.exe executable before going on. If theserver started successfully, you should see a line at the end of its output.

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

    Using the Client

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

    Note that arangosh.exe does NOT start a separate server, it only starts theshell. To use it you must have a server running somewhere, e.g. by usingthe 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 touse 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 datafiles created by the Arango server will remain as well as the <ROOTDIR>_directory. To complete the uninstallation process, remove the data files andthe <ROOTDIR>_ directory manually.

    Not all users prefer the guided Installer to install ArangoDB. In order to have aportable application, or easilystart different ArangoDB versions on the same machine, and/or for the maximum flexibility,you might want to install using the ZIP archive ().

    Open an explorer, choose a place where you would like ArangoDB to be, and extract thearchive there. It will create its own top-level directory with the version number in the name.

    Edit the configuration

    This step is optional.

    If the default configuration of ArangoDB does not suite your needs,you can edit etc\arangodb3\arangod.conf to change or add configuration options.

    Start the Server

    Please refer to the Deployment chapter for details.