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Requirements

  • 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 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 directory of your choice. It will create a flexbi_private subdirectory where all private flex.bi files will be located.

Note

On Windows there exists a length limit for the file path - 260 characters. Flex.bi has a deep nested directory structure. System full file paths may exceed this limitation if the flexbi_private directory is located deeply in a directory hierarchy. We recommended to create  flexbi_private folder directly in the root folder for Windows installations.

Table of Contents

Directory structure

The flexbi_private directory contains the following subdirectories and files:

  • app - for private flex.bi customizations (e.g. custom layouts or view templates)
  • bin - startup and other shell scripts
  • config - configuration files
  • data - for storing uploaded files
  • flexbi_private.jar - main application archive file
  • lib - additional Ruby files or *.jar files (added if necessary)
  • log - web request and queue job log files

Database setup

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 (by default with the name flexbi_private) which will then create additional databases on the specified database server.

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The following are specific database server instructions for flex.bi database setup.

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MySQL

You can create a separate flexbi_private user and grant it access to all MySQL databases which start with the flexbi_private prefix:

Code Block
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON `flexbi_private%`.* TO 'flexbi_private'@'%' IDENTIFIED BY 'secret';

(Replace secret with yur chosen password). When you specify the database connection parameters in flex.bi then a flexbi_private database will be created. Later when additional flex.bi accounts are created each account will store its data in a separate database with names flexbi_jira_dwh_N (where N is account ID number).

In addition you should download MySQL JDBC driver and copy the included mysql-connector-java-*.jar to the flexbi_private/lib directory (MySQL JDBC driver is not included in Private flex.bi distribution due to GPL license restrictions).

Please also tune MySQL memory settings to speed up data import and data queries. The following my.cnf settings are recommended:

Code Block
innodb_buffer_pool_size = 1024M
innodb_log_file_size = 256M
query_cache_size= 16M
query_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 change innodb_log_file_size then it will require you to delete the existing MySQL log files before starting MySQL server.

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PostgreSQL

You need to create a separate user flexbi_private with database creation rights for flex.bi:

Code Block
CREATE ROLE flexbi_private PASSWORD 'secret' LOGIN CREATEDB;

If you do not want to add the CREATEDB role to the flexbi_private user then manually create the flexbi_private database with flexbi_private user as the owner.

Each new flex.bi account will store data in a new flexbi_jira_dwh_N schema (where N is account ID number) in the same database.

Please tune PostgreSQL memory parameters. The following postgresql.conf settings are recommended:

Code Block
shared_buffers = 1024MB
wal_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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Microsoft SQL Server

Create a MS SQL Server user flexbi_private – if you use SQL Server Management Studio then select SQL Server authentication and uncheck Enforce password policy. In addition from Server Roles select dbcreator (to allow the creation of new databases) or manually create the flexbi_private database with flexbi_private user as the owner.

Each new flex.bi account will store data in a new flexbi_jira_dwh_N schema (where N is account ID number) in the same database.

Oracle

Create an Oracle database user flexbi_private:

Code Block
CREATE USER flexbi_private IDENTIFIED BY secret DEFAULT TABLESPACE users;
GRANT CONNECT, RESOURCE TO flexbi_private;

In this configuration all flex.bi data will be stored in one flexbi_private schema.

Start application

On Mac OS X and Linux start the application with the bin/start.sh shell script. Please review the bin/start.sh script and if necessary customise it (e.g. increase Java memory parameters in the JAVA_OPTS environment variable).

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If database and license information will be correct then you will be redirected to a sign up page where you can create the first system administration user account.

eazybi.toml configuration file

In the config/eazybi.toml file you can configure different flex.bi parameters. The configuration file use the TOML format. Please see comments and commented examples for each section in this file.

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dwadwadakjajghvt67wbrv439bt4832893e209389bv23

"""

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/flexbi. Please specify the EAZYBI_HOME variable in this script to point to the flexbi_private directories full path. By default this startup script will use $EAZYBI_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.

Windows service

Private flex.bi distribution by default does not include support for running as a Windows service. But you can use an application like AlwaysUp to create a Windows service that will start bin\start.bat file from the Private flex.bi installation directory.

Provide access to flex.bi from other computers

By default Private flex.bi will be accessible just locally at the address http://localhost:8080. If you want to provide access to 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).

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Note

On Linux or Mac OS X if you would like to start an application which listens to HTTP port 80 then you need to start application as root. An alternative solution is to use a frontend web server which listens to port 80 and proxies web requests to private flex.bi. Please contact flex.bi support if you need help with Private flex.bi setup in production mode.

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 the eazybi.toml file.

Troubleshooting

If the Private flex.bi initial page does not open or opens with error message then check the console output or check the log file log/eazybi-web.log for any error messages.

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