Cassandra's server starting error on OS X

Question

I'm trying to set up apache cassandra on my OS X macbook. I'm trying to test NoSql databases, I've already set up memcached and redis. But with cassandra I'm having I'm using jdk 1.7.0_09 from oracle I've followed the installation instructions, but when I'm trying to start the server, I get this the issue from the console:

MacBook-Air-Urij:bin urijvoskresenskij$ ./cassandra -f
xss =  -ea -javaagent:./../lib/jamm-0.2.5.jar -XX:+UseThreadPriorities -XX:ThreadPriorityPolicy=42 -Xms1024M -Xmx1024M -Xmn200M -XX:+HeapDumpOnOutOfMemoryError
log4j:ERROR setFile(null,true) call failed.
java.io.FileNotFoundException: /var/log/cassandra/system.log (Permission denied)
    at java.io.FileOutputStream.open(Native Method)
    at java.io.FileOutputStream.<init>(FileOutputStream.java:212)
    at java.io.FileOutputStream.<init>(FileOutputStream.java:136)
    at org.apache.log4j.FileAppender.setFile(FileAppender.java:294)
    at org.apache.log4j.RollingFileAppender.setFile(RollingFileAppender.java:207)
    at org.apache.log4j.FileAppender.activateOptions(FileAppender.java:165)
    at org.apache.log4j.config.PropertySetter.activate(PropertySetter.java:307)
    at org.apache.log4j.config.PropertySetter.setProperties(PropertySetter.java:172)
    at org.apache.log4j.config.PropertySetter.setProperties(PropertySetter.java:104)
    at org.apache.log4j.PropertyConfigurator.parseAppender(PropertyConfigurator.java:809)
    at org.apache.log4j.PropertyConfigurator.parseCategory(PropertyConfigurator.java:735)
    at org.apache.log4j.PropertyConfigurator.configureRootCategory(PropertyConfigurator.java:615)
    at org.apache.log4j.PropertyConfigurator.doConfigure(PropertyConfigurator.java:502)
    at org.apache.log4j.PropertyConfigurator.doConfigure(PropertyConfigurator.java:395)
    at org.apache.log4j.PropertyWatchdog.doOnChange(PropertyConfigurator.java:922)
    at org.apache.log4j.helpers.FileWatchdog.checkAndConfigure(FileWatchdog.java:89)
    at org.apache.log4j.helpers.FileWatchdog.<init>(FileWatchdog.java:58)
    at org.apache.log4j.PropertyWatchdog.<init>(PropertyConfigurator.java:914)
    at org.apache.log4j.PropertyConfigurator.configureAndWatch(PropertyConfigurator.java:461)
    at org.apache.cassandra.service.AbstractCassandraDaemon.initLog4j(AbstractCassandraDaemon.java:100)
    at org.apache.cassandra.thrift.CassandraDaemon.<clinit>(CassandraDaemon.java:61)
 INFO 17:40:17,717 Logging initialized
 INFO 17:40:17,720 JVM vendor/version: Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM/1.7.0_09
 INFO 17:40:17,720 Heap size: 1052770304/1052770304
 INFO 17:40:17,721 Classpath: ./../conf:./../build/classes/main:./../build/classes/thrift:./../lib/antlr-3.2.jar:./../lib/apache-cassandra-1.1.7.jar:./../lib/apache-cassandra-clientutil-1.1.7.jar:./../lib/apache-cassandra-thrift-1.1.7.jar:./../lib/avro-1.4.0-fixes.jar:./../lib/avro-1.4.0-sources-fixes.jar:./../lib/commons-cli-1.1.jar:./../lib/commons-codec-1.2.jar:./../lib/commons-lang-2.4.jar:./../lib/compress-lzf-0.8.4.jar:./../lib/concurrentlinkedhashmap-lru-1.3.jar:./../lib/guava-r08.jar:./../lib/high-scale-lib-1.1.2.jar:./../lib/jackson-core-asl-1.9.2.jar:./../lib/jackson-mapper-asl-1.9.2.jar:./../lib/jamm-0.2.5.jar:./../lib/jline-0.9.94.jar:./../lib/json-simple-1.1.jar:./../lib/libthrift-0.7.0.jar:./../lib/log4j-1.2.16.jar:./../lib/metrics-core-2.0.3.jar:./../lib/servlet-api-2.5-20081211.jar:./../lib/slf4j-api-1.6.1.jar:./../lib/slf4j-log4j12-1.6.1.jar:./../lib/snakeyaml-1.6.jar:./../lib/snappy-java-1.0.4.1.jar:./../lib/snaptree-0.1.jar:./../lib/jamm-0.2.5.jar
 INFO 17:40:17,722 JNA not found. Native methods will be disabled.
 INFO 17:40:17,734 Loading settings from file:/Users/urijvoskresenskij/apache-cassandra-1.1.7/conf/cassandra.yaml
 INFO 17:40:17,924 DiskAccessMode 'auto' determined to be mmap, indexAccessMode is mmap
 INFO 17:40:18,149 Global memtable threshold is enabled at 334MB
java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:57)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:601)
    at org.xerial.snappy.SnappyLoader.loadNativeLibrary(SnappyLoader.java:317)
    at org.xerial.snappy.SnappyLoader.load(SnappyLoader.java:219)
    at org.xerial.snappy.Snappy.<clinit>(Snappy.java:44)
    at org.apache.cassandra.io.compress.SnappyCompressor.create(SnappyCompressor.java:46)
    at org.apache.cassandra.io.compress.SnappyCompressor.isAvailable(SnappyCompressor.java:56)
    at org.apache.cassandra.io.compress.SnappyCompressor.<clinit>(SnappyCompressor.java:38)
    at org.apache.cassandra.config.CFMetaData.<clinit>(CFMetaData.java:76)
    at org.apache.cassandra.config.KSMetaData.systemKeyspace(KSMetaData.java:84)
    at org.apache.cassandra.config.DatabaseDescriptor.loadYaml(DatabaseDescriptor.java:438)
    at org.apache.cassandra.config.DatabaseDescriptor.<clinit>(DatabaseDescriptor.java:114)
    at org.apache.cassandra.service.AbstractCassandraDaemon.setup(AbstractCassandraDaemon.java:127)
    at org.apache.cassandra.service.AbstractCassandraDaemon.activate(AbstractCassandraDaemon.java:389)
    at org.apache.cassandra.thrift.CassandraDaemon.main(CassandraDaemon.java:106)
Caused by: java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError: no snappyjava in java.library.path
    at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadLibrary(ClassLoader.java:1860)
    at java.lang.Runtime.loadLibrary0(Runtime.java:845)
    at java.lang.System.loadLibrary(System.java:1084)
    at org.xerial.snappy.SnappyNativeLoader.loadLibrary(SnappyNativeLoader.java:52)
    ... 17 more
 WARN 17:40:18,269 Cannot initialize native Snappy library. Compression on new tables will be disabled.
ERROR 17:40:18,317 Exception encountered during startup
java.lang.AssertionError: Directory /var/lib/cassandra/data is not accessible.
    at org.apache.cassandra.service.AbstractCassandraDaemon.setup(AbstractCassandraDaemon.java:155)
    at org.apache.cassandra.service.AbstractCassandraDaemon.activate(AbstractCassandraDaemon.java:389)
    at org.apache.cassandra.thrift.CassandraDaemon.main(CassandraDaemon.java:106)
java.lang.AssertionError: Directory /var/lib/cassandra/data is not accessible.
    at org.apache.cassandra.service.AbstractCassandraDaemon.setup(AbstractCassandraDaemon.java:155)
    at org.apache.cassandra.service.AbstractCassandraDaemon.activate(AbstractCassandraDaemon.java:389)
    at org.apache.cassandra.thrift.CassandraDaemon.main(CassandraDaemon.java:106)
Exception encountered during startup: Directory /var/lib/cassandra/data is not accessible.
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I don't know how to solve the problem. Please, help me, guys :)

Answer 1

You don't have permission to write to /var/log, which is to be expected. You'll need to run Cassandra as sudo or create the directory yourself with the proper permissions.