Cassandra and cqlsh - “Cassandra unknown” and “CQL spec unknown”

Question

I just downloaded Cassandra 1.0.10 and Java 1.6.0_45 on Ubuntu. When I run the command cqlsh on terminal, I get the following output:

Connected to Test Cluster at localhost:9160. 
[cqlsh 2.0.0 | Cassandra unknown | CQL spec unknown | Thrift protocol 19.20.0]
Use HELP for help.

Could someone explain to me why it says "Cassandra unknown" and "CQL spec unknown"? I also am not able to get the command

 DESC KEYSPACES;

to work- it just says

Improper desc command.

Could someone enlighten me as to what the issue is here? I realize I am using an older version of Cassandra- could that be the reason why?

EDIT: I realized the above doesn't work because I was using the wrong syntax. It should be DESC KEYSPACES ; so that takes care of that one.

I Strongly recommend upgrading to 2.0.9. My only guess on this issue is you have a mismatch between cqlsh version and c* version. — RussS
I agree with @RussS - if you're using the current version, you'll all the latest features and fixes, and will be more likely to find someone who can help. cassandra.apache.org/download — Don Branson
@RussS Thanks for the suggestion, but the place where I work specifically uses an older version of cassandra, and I need to write a script in java that works with that. Thus, I will be needing to use Cassandra 1.0, at the very least. — jj172

Aaron Aaron · Accepted Answer · 2014-08-07T00:39:33

I also am not able to get the command
   DESC KEYSPACES;
to work- it just says
   Improper desc command.

That's because DESC KEYSPACES is not a valid command in the version of cqlsh that shipped with Cassandra 1.0.x. Here is the source from that version. Just skip down to def do_describe(self, parsed): and you'll see that it's not in there. Better yet, from within cqlsh, you can verify that by running help desc. DESC KEYSPACE [<keyspacename>] is, but DESC KEYSPACES is not.

Likewise, you're seeing this | Cassandra unknown | CQL spec unknown | for the same reasons. That version of cqlsh tried to use the system.Versions column family to see which versions of the software you were running. But older versions of 1.0.x must not have had that column family. In the same link above, skip down to def get_cluster_versions(self): and you'll find the code responsible:

def get_cluster_versions(self):
    try:
        self.cursor.execute('select component, version from system.Versions')
        vers = dict(self.cursor)
    except cql.ProgrammingError:
        # older Cassandra; doesn't have system.Versions
        thrift_ver = self.get_thrift_version()
        return {'build': 'unknown', 'cql': 'unknown', 'thrift': thrift_ver}
    return vers

Basically, your problems are due to the fact that you are using the TRS-80 of Cassandra versions. And having used versions of Cassandra from that time, I can tell you that your problems are not going to get any better. Aside from all the great features of 2.0.x that you're missing, that version was subject to bugs that have long since been eliminated. As much as your company may not want to, they are only inviting more potential problems by refusing to upgrade.

Cassandra and cqlsh - “Cassandra unknown” and “CQL spec unknown”

1 Answers