Manage deployments

Each local or cloud deployment keeps its configuration, state, and credentials in a deployment directory. Keep this directory until you have destroyed the deployment resources.

Select a deployment

The default deployment is stored in ~/.exasol/personal/deployments/default. When you run a command from an existing deployment directory, the launcher selects that deployment automatically.

To maintain multiple deployments, give each one a case-sensitive name with --deployment or -d:

exasol install local -d demo
exasol install aws -d staging
exasol status -d demo
exasol connect -d demo -c "SELECT 1"

Named deployments live below ~/.exasol/personal/deployments/<name>. Names that differ only by case may collide on the case-insensitive filesystems commonly used by macOS and Windows.

Alternatively, select an arbitrary path with --deployment-dir <path>. You cannot combine --deployment-dir and --deployment.

List the launcher-managed default and named deployments with:

exasol deployments list

Example output:

default status=database_ready preset=local/ubuntu path=/Users/me/.exasol/personal/deployments/default
staging status=stopped preset=aws/ubuntu path=/Users/me/.exasol/personal/deployments/staging

The list does not include deployments selected through an arbitrary --deployment-dir path.

Inspect or change configuration

An initialized deployment directory is tied to its infrastructure and installation presets. Retry a failed installation with the same presets, or use these commands to inspect and change their parameters:

exasol config get
exasol config set
exasol config reset

To select different presets in the same directory, first run exasol destroy --remove. If the deployment resources have already been removed outside the launcher, run exasol remove instead.

Stop and start

Stop a deployment when you do not need its compute resources:

exasol stop

For cloud deployments, networking and data volumes can continue to incur costs while compute instances are stopped. See Cloud resources and costs for provider-specific details.

Restart the deployment with:

exasol start

Node IP addresses can change after a restart. Check the command output or run exasol info before connecting again.

Destroy a deployment

Destroying removes the deployment resources and their data:

exasol destroy

The launcher asks for confirmation first. Pass --auto-approve to skip the prompt; a command with no terminal attached proceeds without asking, so a script that reaches exasol destroy or exasol remove destroys the deployment. See Unattended approvals before automating destructive commands.

By default, the launcher retains the deployment directory for inspection or recreation. Remove it after successful destruction with:

exasol destroy --remove

If the resources were already deleted manually or are no longer accessible, remove only the local deployment directory with:

exasol remove

exasol remove does not destroy resources. Deleting a deployment directory or the launcher itself also does not remove provisioned resources. If the directory is lost before destruction, you must remove the remaining resources directly through the target environment.

For local deployments, exasol destroy removes the launcher-managed runtime and database data for the selected deployment. On Windows, it leaves Podman's shared default machine running.