You can just do a netstat on port 9042 to see if anything connected .
Something like
netstat -anp | grep 9042 .
Or you can also check for read/write client requests metrics . You can
check if specific tables are taking read or writes .
There is also a metrics to see number of connected clients .
Cassandra tracks it and no new hints will be created once the default 3
hours window is passed . However , cassandra will not automatically
trigger a repair if your node is down for more than 3 hours .Default
settings of 3 hours for hints is defined in cassandra.yaml file . Look for
"max_hint_wind
The client should notice this on their side . If you want to see on the
server log one idea may be is to enable the debug mode .
You can set it specifically for org.apache.cassandra.transport
Something like nodetool setlogginglevel org.apache.cassandra.transport
DEBUG
If you are lucky enough :) (
If it helps you can use 'nodetool netstats' to monitor . If you do not see
any streams stuck there , then you should be good . Also if you are
concerned , you can run "nodetool repair" after the decommission just to
make sure .
I think what you are doing is okay . If the node is alive then nodeto