Configure Cassandra as a Windows Service

1. Download binary tarball of Cassandra. (Make sure you are having all the prerequisites)
http://cassandra.apache.org/download/

2. Unzip this archive to a directory say D:\apache-cassandra-1.0.7.

3. Run cassandra.bat from bin folder to make sure its up and running.

4. Close this and now lets try and install it as a windows service.

5. Open command prompt, point to  D:\apache-cassandra-1.0.7\bin and run "cassandra.bat install".

6. This will give the right message, but it won't be installed. 

7. Make a folder daemon on this path "D:\apache-cassandra-1.0.7-bin\bin\daemon".

8. Download prunsrv.exe from http://www.apache.org/dist/commons/daemon/binaries/windows/ (Commons Daemon Service Runner)

9. Extract the correct version(32/64 bit) of prunsrv.exe from the above to D:\apache-cassandra-1.0.7-bin\bin\daemon. 

10. Now again Open command prompt, point to  D:\apache-cassandra-1.0.7\bin and run "cassandra.bat install". 

11. Now run "cassandra" service from Services Manger. 

12. To uninstall, Open command prompt, point to  D:\apache-cassandra-1.0.7\bin and run "cassandra.bat uninstall".

Make sure you choose 32/64 bit prunsrv.exe based on jre installed(32/64 bit) and not necessarily based on your Windows (32/64 bit).

You may get error like this in log file... 

[2012-02-04 11:04:24] [info]  Commons Daemon procrun (1.0.8.0 64-bit) started

[2012-02-04 11:04:24] [info]  Running 'cassandra' Service...

[2012-02-04 11:04:24] [info]  Starting service...

[2012-02-04 11:04:24] [error] Failed creating java 

[2012-02-04 11:04:24] [error] The system cannot find the file specified.

[2012-02-04 11:04:24] [error] ServiceStart returned 1

[2012-02-04 11:04:24] [error] The system cannot find the file specified.

[2012-02-04 11:04:24] [info]  Run service finished.

[2012-02-04 11:04:24] [info]  Commons Daemon procrun finished

This is because there is a mismatch between the jre expected by prunsrv.exe and the jre installed on your machine. 

To locate this on Task Manager, look for process with image name "prunsrv.exe".