Install & Run

SetupmacOS / Linux

Run the aetheriusd daemon on your machine. By default it exposes three wire endpoints (native, PostgreSQL pgwire, and Arrow Flight SQL) and stores data in a local directory.

Supported platforms

Platform	Tier	Notes
macOS (Apple Silicon, arm64)	Tier 1	Development primary
Linux x86_64	Tier 1	Fastest bulk-ingest path
Linux aarch64	Tier 1	Fastest bulk-ingest path
Windows	—	Use WSL2

Option 1 — Build from source

AetheriusDB is a Rust project; you need a recent Rust toolchain (1.79+).

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/your-org/aetherius.git
cd aetherius

# Build the daemon and the AetherTerm REPL in release mode
cargo build --release -p aetheriusd -p aether-term

# Run the daemon (creates ./aetherius-data on first start)
./target/release/aetheriusd --data-dir ./aetherius-data

You should see a banner like:

aetheriusd · listening:
  pgwire:   127.0.0.1:5678
  native:   127.0.0.1:5679
  flight:   127.0.0.1:8815 (Arrow Flight SQL)
data-dir: ./aetherius-data

Option 2 — Pre-built installer

If you don’t want to build from source, grab a pre-built tarball from the Download page — the database server and client tools for Linux, macOS, and Windows, with every published version listed.

# Unpack the database-server tarball and start the daemon
tar -xzf aetheriusdb-<version>-<os>-<arch>.tar.gz
cd aetheriusdb-<version>-<os>-<arch>
./aetheriusd --data-dir ./aetherius-data

The Client Tools tarball unpacks aesql and the AetherTerm REPL the same way.

Smoke-test the install

From another terminal, use the bundled REPL to confirm everything works:

./target/release/aether-term

aether> CREATE TABLE hello (id BIGINT, msg TEXT);
-- OK

aether> INSERT INTO hello VALUES (1, 'world');
-- 1 row affected

aether> SELECT * FROM hello;
 id | msg
----+------
  1 | world
(1 row)

Common start-up flags

Flag	Purpose
--data-dir <PATH>	Where data is stored. Default ./aetherius-data.
--port <N>	PostgreSQL pgwire port. Default 5678.
--native-port <N>	Native binary protocol port. Default 5679.
--flight-port <N>	Arrow Flight SQL port. Default 8815.
--disable-flight	Don’t start the Flight SQL listener.
--disable-native	Don’t start the native listener.
--native-auth-token <TOK>	Require a bearer token on the native protocol. Env: AETHERIUS_NATIVE_AUTH_TOKEN.
--flight-auth-token <TOK>	Require a bearer token on Flight SQL. Env: AETHERIUS_FLIGHT_AUTH_TOKEN.

See the configuration matrix for the full list, including the feature flags that turn JIT, parallelism, and HTAP on.

Backups

Tip

Data files are immutable once written, so you can copy the data directory while the daemon is running:

cp -r aetherius-data backup-2026-06-16

Install the license key

Server tarballs carry a signed license.key. It belongs at /etc/aetherius/license.key — not next to the aetheriusd binary, which is not a path the daemon searches:

sudo install -d -m 0755 /etc/aetherius
sudo install -m 0644 ./license.key /etc/aetherius/license.key
sudo aetheriusd verify-license --file /etc/aetherius/license.key

Without a valid key the daemon still starts and still serves reads, but every write is refused — the boot banner reports license: no license file present (read-only). See Licensing & the license.key File for the resolution order, the other enforcement modes, and what clients see when writes are gated.

Stopping the daemon

Send SIGTERM (or press Ctrl-C). In-flight clients are notified, connections drain gracefully, and the daemon exits within a few seconds.

kill -TERM $(pgrep aetheriusd)

Quickstart →

Walk through SQL, vectors, and a WASM cell.

Connect a Client →

Python, psql/JDBC, and Arrow Flight SQL.

Configuration & Availability →

Every daemon flag and feature default.

Licensing →

Install and verify license.key; what read-only mode means.