To have a RegionServer test a set of codecs and fail-to-start if any code is missing or misinstalled, add the configuration hbase.regionserver.codecs to your hbase-site.xml with a value of codecs to test on startup. For example if the hbase.regionserver.codecs value is lzo,gz and if lzo is not present or improperly installed, the misconfigured RegionServer will fail to start.

Administrators might make use of this facility to guard against the case where a new server is added to cluster but the cluster requires install of a particular coded.