Changing Index Status

A GSI has the following states:

ACTIVE: The index can be read and written normally.
UNUSABLE: The index is disabled. Index data can be written normally but cannot be used for query.
INACTIVE: The index is abnormal. The index data is inconsistent with that in the data table. The indexed data is skipped and the index cannot be used during data query.
BUILDING: Index data is being generated in batches. After the generation is complete, the index is automatically switched to the ACTIVE state. In this state, data can be read and written properly.
DROPPING: The index is being deleted. The indexed data is skipped, and the index cannot be used during data query.

You can change index status with the GSI tool. Figure 1 describes the states and transitions between them.

Figure 1 State transitions

You can use the GSI tool to disable or enable an index.

Run the following command on the HBase client to disable or enable an index:

hbase org.apache.hadoop.hbase.hindex.global.mapreduce.GlobalTableIndexer -Dtablename.to.index='table' -D[idx_state_opt]='idx1'

The parameters are described as follows:

tablename.to.index: indicates the name of the data table whose index status needs to be changed.
idx_state_opt: indicates the target status of the index to be modified. The options are as follows:
- indexnames.to.inactive: disables a specified index (INACTIVE).
- indexnames.to.active: enables a specified index (ACTIVE).
- indexnames.to.unusable: switches the specified index to UNUSABLE.