Understanding Parcels

Parcel is a new packaging format that facilitates upgrading CDH from within the Cloudera Manager Admin console. You download, distribute, and activate a parcel from within the Parcels page, found under the Hosts tab in the Admin console.

Cloudera Manager downloads a parcel to a local repository, by default at /opt/cloudera/parcel-repo. (The location is configurable — see "Parcel Configuration Settings" in Upgrading Using Parcels.) Once the parcel is downloaded to the Cloudera Manager server, an Internet connection is no longer needed to deploy the parcel. When you click "Distribute", the Cloudera Manager agents will start to download the parcel from the Cloudera Manager server.

If your Cloudera Manager server does not have Internet access, you can obtain the required parcel file(s) and put them into the local repository. Once you copy the .parcel file into that directory and create the associated .sha file, Cloudera Manager will automatically pick it up and show it in the parcel page.

See Creating a Local Parcel Repository for instructions.