Requirements
- Private A private flex.bi installation that is supported on Mac OS X, Linux and Windows.
- Java SE 7 or Java SE 8 should be installed.
- MySQL (version 5.x), PostgreSQL (version 9.x), MS SQL (version 2008 or later) and Oracle (version 11g or later) are supported as Private a private flex.bi database.
Installation
Ask flex.bi support to provide a download URL for the latest private flex.bi full distribution .zip file.
Unzip the downloaded full distribution .zip file in a selected directory of your choice. It will create create a flexbi_private subdirectory where all private flex.bi files will be located.
Directory structure
The flexbi_private directory contains the following subdirectories and files:
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flex.bi will store data in an additional MySQL, PostgreSQL, Microsoft SQL Server or Oracle database. It is recommended that you create a separate database user for flex.bi needs (by default with the name flexbi_private) which will then create additional databases on a the specified database server.
By default flex.bi will use one database
The following are database specific database server specific instructions for flex.bi database setup.
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You can create a separate user flexbi_private and private user and grant it access to all MySQL databases which start with with the flexbi_private prefix:
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON `flexbi_private%`.* TO 'flexbi_private'@'%' IDENTIFIED BY 'secret'; |
(Replace secret with Replace "secret" with your chosen password). When you will specify have specified the database connection parameters in flex.bi then a flexbi_private database will be created. Later when additional flex.bi accounts will be created then the data from each account data will be stored in separate databases with names flexbi_jira_dwh_N where (where N is account ID number).
In addition you should download the MySQL JDBC driver and copy the included mysql-connector-java-*.jar to flexbi_private/liblib directory (MySQL JDBC driver is not included in Private flex.bi distribution due to GPL license restrictions).
Please also tune the MySQL memory settings to speed up both data import and data queries. The following my.cnf settings are recommended:
innodb_buffer_pool_size = 1024Minnodb_log_file_size = 256Mquery_cache_size= 16Mquery_cache_type = 1 |
The parameter innodb_buffer_pool_size will specify how much database data MySQL can store in the memory - adjust it to your available server memory (the more data MySQL will store in the memory the less disk input/output operations will be performed). If you will changechange innodb_log_file_size then it will require that you delete existing MySQL log files before starting the MySQL server.
PostgreSQL
You can need to create a separate user flexbi_private with database creation rights for flex.bi:
CREATE ROLE flexbi_private PASSWORD 'secret' LOGIN CREATEDB; |
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Please tune PostgreSQL memory parameters. The following postgresql.conf settings are recommended:
shared_buffers = 1024MBwal_buffers = 32MB |
The parameter shared_buffers will specify how much database data PostgreSQL can store in the memory - adjust it to your available server memory (the more data PostgreSQL will store in the memory the less disk input/output operations will be performed). The parameter wal_buffers affects the performance of writing transaction logs to disk.
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CREATE USER flexbi_private IDENTIFIED BY secret DEFAULT TABLESPACE users;GRANT CONNECT, RESOURCE TO flex.biflexbi_private; |
In this configuration all flex.bi data will be stored in one flexbi_private schema.
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On Mac OS X and Linux start the application with with the bin/start.sh shell script. Please review review the bin/start.sh script and if necessary customize customise it (e.g. increase Java memory parameters in in the JAVA_OPTS environment variable).
On Windows start the application with with the bin\start.bat batch file. Please review bin\start.bat and customize customise it if necessary (e.g. change JAVA_OPTSOPTS environment variable).
If you get get the "Unsupported major.minor version 51.0" error message then please check that you are using Java 7 or later (check with java -version).
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In the flex.bi settings page specify specify the database connection parameters for for your flexbi_private database. By default all flex.bi account specific data will be stored in the same database (as described earlier in in the Database section). If you want you can select select the "Use separate DWH database" option and specify a different database where account specific schemas (with uploaded or imported data) should be stored. Database connection parameters will be stored in in the config/database.toml file.
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flexbi.toml configuration file
In In the config/flexbi.toml file you can configure different flex.bi parameters. The configuration file uses use the TOML format. Please see comments and commented examples for each section in this file.
If you would like to add e-mail notificationsnotification support (to invite users, reset passwords or receive notifications about failed import jobs) from flex.bi then provide the SMTP server information which can be used for outgoing e-mails (located in the mailer section in of configuration file). In addition uncomment and specify specify the default_url_options section which is used to generate full URL links back to your private flex.bi server.
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Linux service startup script
bin/init.d/flexbi.sample is a Linux service startup script which can be modified and copied to /etc/init.d/flex.biflexbi. Please specify the flexbi_HOME variable in this script to point to to the flexbi_private directory directories full path. By default this startup script will use $flexbi_HOME/bin/start.sh to start flex.bi – if needed then create a separate copy of start.sh script if different parameters should be used when starting flex.bi as a service.
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Provide access to flex.bi from other computers
By default private Private flex.bi will be accessible just locally at the address http://localhost:8080. If you want to provide access to private Private flex.bi from other computers then edit bin/start.sh or bin\start.bat and add -b 0.0.0.0 at the end of the startup command (see comments for further explanation).
If you would like to change the default web application port 8080 to a different port then edit bin/start.sh or bin\start.bat and add -p NNNN parameter where NNNN is the port number.
Export to PDF using PhantomJS
If you would like to export dashboard pages to the PDF format or send regular emails with flex.bi dashboards as PDF attachments then please install PhantomJS on your Private flex.bi server and specify its location in in the flexbi.toml file.
Troubleshooting
If the Private flex.bi initial page does not open or opens with error message then check either the console output or check the log file log/flexbi-web.log if it has for any error messages.
After flex.bi has started up it will store its log files in in the log subdirectory:
flexbi-web.logcontains log logs of web requestsflexbi-queues.logcontains log logs of background queue jobs
Please contact flex.bi support if you have any issues with Private flex.bi installation and setup.