To configure your node properly, you will need your machine's IP address (assume 192.168.0.100, for this exercise). Once you have that, look inside your configuration directory ($CASSANDRA_HOME/conf for Tarball installs, /etc/cassandra for apt-get installs) and you will notice several files: cassandra.yaml, cassandra-env.sh, and cassandra-rackdc.properties among them.
In the cassandra.yaml file, make the following adjustments:
I'll name the cluster PermanentWaves:
cluster_name: "PermanentWaves"
Next, I'll designate this node as a seed node. Basically, this means other nodes will look for this node when joining the cluster. Do not make all of your nodes seed nodes:
seeds: "192.168.0.100"
Usually, listen_address and rpc_address ...
