85c19d21bb
cql, schema: Extend name length limit from 48 to 192 bytes
This commit increases the maximum length of names for keyspaces, tables, materialized views, and indexes from 48 to 192 bytes.
The previous 48-bytes limit was inherited from Cassandra 3 for compatibility. However, this validation was removed in Cassandra 4 and 5 (see CASSANDRA-20389)
and some usage scenarios (such as some feature store workflows generating long table names) now depend on this relaxed constraint.
This change brings ScyllaDB's behavior in line with modern Cassandra versions and better supports these use cases.
The new limit of 192 bytes is derived from underlying filesystem limitations to prevent runtime errors when creating directories for table data.
When a new table is created, ScyllaDB generates a directory for its SSTables. The directory name is constructed from the table name, a dash, and a 32-character UUID.
For a CDC-enabled table, an associated log table is also created, which has the suffix `_scylla_cdc_log` appended to its name.
The directory name for this log table becomes the longest possible representation.
Additionally we reserve 15 bytes for future use, allowing for potential future extensions without breaking existing schemas.
To guarantee that directory creation never fails due to exceeding filesystem name limits, the maximum name length is calculated as follows:
255 bytes (common filesystem limit for a path component)
- 32 bytes (for the 32-character UUID string)
- 1 byte (for the '-' separator)
- 15 bytes (for the '_scylla_cdc_log' suffix)
- 15 bytes (reserved for future use)
----------
= 192 bytes (Maximum allowed name length)
This calculation is similar in principle to the one proposed for Cassandra to fix related directory creation failures (see apache/cassandra/pull/4038).
This patch also updates/adds all associated tests to validate the new 192-byte limit.
The documentation has been updated accordingly.
Fixes #4480
Backport 2025.2: The significantly shorter maximum table name length in Scylla compared to Cassandra is becoming a more common issue for users in the latest release.
Closes scylladb/scylladb#24500
* github.com:scylladb/scylladb:
cql, schema: Extend name length limit from 48 to 192 bytes
replica: Remove unused keyspace::init_storage()
Scylla
What is Scylla?
Scylla is the real-time big data database that is API-compatible with Apache Cassandra and Amazon DynamoDB. Scylla embraces a shared-nothing approach that increases throughput and storage capacity to realize order-of-magnitude performance improvements and reduce hardware costs.
For more information, please see the ScyllaDB web site.
Build Prerequisites
Scylla is fairly fussy about its build environment, requiring very recent versions of the C++23 compiler and of many libraries to build. The document HACKING.md includes detailed information on building and developing Scylla, but to get Scylla building quickly on (almost) any build machine, Scylla offers a frozen toolchain, This is a pre-configured Docker image which includes recent versions of all the required compilers, libraries and build tools. Using the frozen toolchain allows you to avoid changing anything in your build machine to meet Scylla's requirements - you just need to meet the frozen toolchain's prerequisites (mostly, Docker or Podman being available).
Building Scylla
Building Scylla with the frozen toolchain dbuild is as easy as:
$ git submodule update --init --force --recursive
$ ./tools/toolchain/dbuild ./configure.py
$ ./tools/toolchain/dbuild ninja build/release/scylla
For further information, please see:
- Developer documentation for more information on building Scylla.
- Build documentation on how to build Scylla binaries, tests, and packages.
- Docker image build documentation for information on how to build Docker images.
Running Scylla
To start Scylla server, run:
$ ./tools/toolchain/dbuild ./build/release/scylla --workdir tmp --smp 1 --developer-mode 1
This will start a Scylla node with one CPU core allocated to it and data files stored in the tmp directory.
The --developer-mode is needed to disable the various checks Scylla performs at startup to ensure the machine is configured for maximum performance (not relevant on development workstations).
Please note that you need to run Scylla with dbuild if you built it with the frozen toolchain.
For more run options, run:
$ ./tools/toolchain/dbuild ./build/release/scylla --help
Testing
See test.py manual.
Scylla APIs and compatibility
By default, Scylla is compatible with Apache Cassandra and its API - CQL. There is also support for the API of Amazon DynamoDB™, which needs to be enabled and configured in order to be used. For more information on how to enable the DynamoDB™ API in Scylla, and the current compatibility of this feature as well as Scylla-specific extensions, see Alternator and Getting started with Alternator.
Documentation
Documentation can be found here. Seastar documentation can be found here. User documentation can be found here.
Training
Training material and online courses can be found at Scylla University. The courses are free, self-paced and include hands-on examples. They cover a variety of topics including Scylla data modeling, administration, architecture, basic NoSQL concepts, using drivers for application development, Scylla setup, failover, compactions, multi-datacenters and how Scylla integrates with third-party applications.
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