HBase Error - assignment of -ROOT- failure

Fixed this issue for anyone else who finds this. Was a problem with the host file (/etc/hosts). Need to remove entries relating to 127.0.1.1 COMPNAME - just put a hash (#) in front of this line and then restart all hadoop and hbase services.

More on the solution here: http://blog.nemccarthy.me/?p=110

As per @Manav:

If you find yourself in a situation wherein you can't edit /etc/hosts, the following >workaround will also work:

in conf/hadoop-env.sh add the following line:

export HADOOP_OPTS=-Djava.net.preferIPv4Stack=true

I'm using Ubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric) and HBase 0.92.1. These steps fixed my issue for my single server install:

1. Edit the /etc/hosts: change the IP address associated with the hostname so that it uses your LAN IP instead of 127.0.0.1
2. Open <HBASE_DIR>/conf/hbase-env.sh

3. edit HBASE_OPTS, append -Djava.net.preferIPv4Stack=true. The line should look like this:

   export HBASE_OPTS="-XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC -Djava.net.preferIPv4Stack=true"

4. Restart HBase

If you find yourself in a situation wherein you can't edit /etc/hosts, the following workaround will also work:

in conf/hadoop-env.sh add the following line:

export HADOOP_OPTS=-Djava.net.preferIPv4Stack=true

(removed edit, moved as a separate answer)