Getting Started from a Downloaded Zip File

Quick Step-by-step

1. Download the latest release of H₂O as a .zip file from H₂O downloads page.
2. From your terminal change your working directory to the same directory where your .zip file is saved.
3. From your terminal, unzip the .zip file. For example:

unzip h2o-1.7.0.520.zip

4. At the prompt enter the following commands. Choose a unique name (use the -name option) for yourself if other people might be running H₂O in your network.

cd h2o-1.7.0.520  #change working directory to the downloaded file
java -Xmx1g -jar h2o.jar

5. Wait a few moments and output similar to the following will appear in your terminal window:

Irenes-MacBook-Pro:target Irene$ java -Xmx3g -jar h2o.jar
09:54:05.400 main      INFO WATER: ----- H2O started -----
09:54:05.402 main      INFO WATER: Build git branch: master
09:54:05.402 main      INFO WATER: Build git hash: e44ee2cec508140fc6312e3d6874df8069eac669
09:54:05.402 main      INFO WATER: Build git describe: nn-2-3032-ge44ee2c-dirty
09:54:05.402 main      INFO WATER: Build project version: 2.1.0.99999
09:54:05.402 main      INFO WATER: Built by: 'Irene'
09:54:05.402 main      INFO WATER: Built on: 'Tue Feb  4 09:45:26 PST 2014'
09:54:05.402 main      INFO WATER: Java availableProcessors: 8
09:54:05.403 main      INFO WATER: Java heap totalMemory: 0.24 gb
09:54:05.403 main      INFO WATER: Java heap maxMemory: 2.67 gb
09:54:05.404 main      INFO WATER: Java version: Java 1.7.0_51 (from Oracle Corporation)
09:54:05.404 main      INFO WATER: OS   version: Mac OS X 10.9.1 (x86_64)
09:54:05.404 main      INFO WATER: ICE root: '/tmp/h2o-Irene'
09:54:05.407 main      INFO WATER: Possible IP Address: en0 (en0), fe80:0:0:0:6203:8ff:fe91:950a%4
09:54:05.407 main      INFO WATER: Possible IP Address: en0 (en0), 192.168.0.4
09:54:05.408 main      INFO WATER: Possible IP Address: lo0 (lo0), fe80:0:0:0:0:0:0:1%1
09:54:05.408 main      INFO WATER: Possible IP Address: lo0 (lo0), 0:0:0:0:0:0:0:1
09:54:05.408 main      INFO WATER: Possible IP Address: lo0 (lo0), 127.0.0.1
09:54:05.431 main      INFO WATER: Internal communication uses port:
54322 Listening for HTTP and REST traffic
                                 on  http: //192.168.0.4:54321/
09:54:05.471 main      INFO WATER: H2O cloud name: 'Irene'
09:54:05.472 main      INFO WATER: (v2.1.0.99999) 'Irene' on
                     /192.168.0.4:54321, discovery address /229.58.14.243:58682
09:54:05.472 main      INFO WATER: If you have trouble connecting,
try SSH tunneling from your local machine (e.g., via port 55555): 1. Open a terminal and run 'ssh -L 55555:localhost:54321 Irene@192.168.0.4'
2. Point your browser to http://localhost:55555
09:54:05.475 main      INFO WATER: Cloud of size 1 formed [/192.168.0.4:54321]
09:54:05.475 main      INFO WATER: Log dir: '/tmp/h2o-Irene/h2ologs'

5. Point your web-browser to:

http://localhost:54321/

The user interface will appear in your browser, and now H₂O is ready to go.

Useful Notes

First time users may need to download and install Java in order to run H₂O. The program is available free on the web, and can be quickly installed. Even though you will use Java to run H₂O, no programming is necessary.

In the Java command entered the term -Xmx1g was used. Xmx is the amount of memory given to H₂O. If your data set is large, give H₂O more memory (for example, -Xmx4g gives H₂O four gigabytes of memory). For best performance, Xmx should be 4x the size of your data, but never more than the total amount of memory on your computer.