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Note |
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These are installation and setup instructions for the latest flex.bi Enterprise version 6.4. |
The following is a general flex.bi Enterprise installation guide. We have also prepared a more specific instructions about installation on Centos 8 platform: flex.bi Enterprise installation guide on CentOS 8.
Requirements
- flex.bi Enterprise installation is supported on Mac OS X, Linux and Windows.
- Java 8 or Java 11 should be installed. Only Oracle or OpenJDK JVMs are supported.
- MySQL (version 5.5 - 5.7), PostgreSQL (version 9.x - 11.x), MS SQL (version 2008 or later) and Oracle (version 11g or later) are supported as flex.bi Enterprise database.
- Minimum requirements for server:
- CPU with 6 cores;
- 16 GB RAM;
- 320 GB disk space.
Installation
Ask flex.bi support to provide a download URL for the latest flexlatest flex.bi Enterprise bi Enterprise full distribution .
zip zip
file.
Unzip the downloaded file and copy the folder flexbi_private
with all its contents from the downloaded file into the destination directory where all flex.bi Enterprise files will be located.
Warningnote |
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Make sure that all all of the the files in |
Warningnote |
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Make sure you have set up server entropy to avoid your server from being slow and unresponsive. See our guide for Setting up server entropy using Haveged. |
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Note |
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On Windows, there is a maximum 260 characters length limit for the full file path. flex.bi has a deeply nested folder structure. System full file paths may exceed this limitation if the |
Directory structure
flexbi_private
directory contains the following subdirectories and files:
app
- for flex.bi Enterprise customizations (e.g. custom layouts or view templates)bin
- startup and other shell scriptsconfig
- configuration filesdata
- for storing uploaded filesflexbi_private.jar
- main application archive filelib
- 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 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 a name flexbi_private
) which will then create additional databases on a specified database server.
By default, flex.bi will use one database.
The following are database server-specific instructions for flex.bi database setup.
MySQL
You can create a separate user flexbi_private
and grant access to all MySQL databases which start with flexbi_private
prefix: (Replace secret
with chosen password.)
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In addition, you should download MySQL JDBC driver version 58.10.x and 23 and copy included mysql-connector-java-58.10.*23.jar
to flexbi_private/lib
directory (MySQL JDBC driver is not included in flex.bi Enterprise distribution due to GPL license restrictions).
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In addition, you should download the Oracle JDBC driver ojdbc8.jar
and copy it to the flexbi_private/lib
directory.
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 customize it (e.g. increase Java memory parameters in JAVA_OPTS
environment variable).
On Windows start application with the bin\start.bat
batch file. Please review bin\start.bat
and customize it if necessary (e.g. change JAVA_OPTS
).
If you get an error message java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException
then please check that you are using Java
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11 or later (check with java -version
).
Wait until you see the message Private eazyBI (version ...) started on http://localhost:8080/flexbi
and then open http://localhost:8080
in your browser – you should see the flex.bi settings page.
In the flex.bi settings page specify database connection parameters for flexbi_private
database. By default, all flex.bi account-specific data will be stored in the same database (as described earlier in the Database section). If you want you can select 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 the config/database.toml
file.
In addition in the settings page please specify your flex.bi license information – the license name and key. License information will be stored in the config/eazybi.toml
file.
If database and license information will be correct then you will be redirected to the 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 uses the TOML format. Please see comments and commented examples for each section in this file.
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On Windows please use the text editor that supports Unix style line endings when editing the eazybi.toml file. The standard Notepad application will not display the content of this file correctly. We recommend using the Notepad++ application. |
If you would like to add e-mail notifications support (to invite users, reset passwords or receive notifications about failed import jobs) from flex.bi, then provide SMTP server information that can be used for outgoing e-mails (mailer
section in the configuration file). In addition, uncomment and specify the default_url_options
section which is used to generate full URL links back to your private eazyBI server.
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If you would like to set up the Jira application link to fex.bi Enterprise server then also please specify default_url_options . |
In the accounts
section you can provide connection parameters and schema definition files for accounts with a custom schema. See “FoodMart custom” account as an example.
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If you would like to add or replace your flex.bi Enterprise license key |
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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/flexbi
. Please specify the EAZYBI_HOME
variable in this script to point to flexbi_private
directory 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 the start.sh
script if different parameters should be used when starting flex.bi as a service.
Windows service
flex.bi Enterprise 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 the bin\start.bat
file from the flex.bi Enterprise installation directory.
Provide access to flex.bi from other computers
By default, flex.bi Enterprise will be accessible just locally at the address http://localhost:8080
. If you want to provide access to flex.bi Enterprise from other computers then edit bin/start.sh
or bin\start.bat
and set EAZYBI_HOST
to 0.0.0.0
at the end of the file.
If you would like to change default web application port 8080 to a different port then edit bin/start.sh
or bin\start.bat
and modify EAZYBI_PORT
.
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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 |
Export to PDF using Google Chrome
If you would like to export dashboard pages to PDF or send regular emails with flex.bi dashboards as PDF attachments then please install Google Chrome on your flex.bi Enterprise server.
Troubleshooting
If the flex.bi Enterprise initial page does not open or opens with an error message then check either console output or check the log file log/eazybi-web.log
if it has any error messages.
After eazyBI has started up it will store its log files in log
subdirectory:
eazybi-web.log
contains a log of web requestseazybi-queues.log
contains a log of background queue jobs
Please contact flex.bi support if you have any issues with flex.bi Enterprise installation and setup.
Version upgrade
To upgrade flex.bi Enterprise version here is what you should do:
- Download the newest version or ask flex.bi support or your partner to provide it to you.
Stop the
flexbi
server process.Make a backup copy of your SQL database, e.g., using
mysqldump:
(Replace <username>
and <password>
with the actual username and password of your MySQL server.)Code Block mysqldump -u <username> -p<password> --all-databases >> flexbi_private_dump_2021.01.01.sql
Make a backup copy of the existing installation, by copying the
flexbi_private
folder to e.g.flexbi_private_5.0
.Delete the following files and folders from your existing server folder:
Code Block flexbi_private/spec flexbi_private/app flexbi_private/db/migrate flexbi_private/config/initializers flexbi_private/config/locales flexbi_private/examples flexbi_private/public/images flexbi_private/public/flexbi flexbi_private/public/javascripts flexbi_private/public/style flexbi_private/public/stylesheets flexbi_private/config/torquebox flexbi_private/vendor flexbi_private/LICENSE flexbi_private/CHANGELOG.md flexbi_private/flexbi_private.jar flexbi_private/tmp
Extract the new flex.bi version .zip archive into
flexbi
_private/
folder.Make note of files that are overwritten during extraction process. Especially for configuration files in the config folder and startup files in bin folder. Manually compare them with the backed up versions and bring over any changes that you made during initial server setup.
Make sure that all all of the the files in
flexbi_private
folder are owned by the user that runsflexbi
process (by default the user isflexbi
).- If you are updating from flex.bi version older than
5.1
, then:If you are using a
systemd
initialization script, change it according to this example(don't forget to adjust directories, port, Java memory settings and other parameters specific to your installation):Code Block # Sample init script for flex.bi [Unit] Description=flex.bi reporting service After=syslog.target network.target [Service] Type=simple # Run the service as this user and group User=flexbi Group=flexbi TimeoutSec=30 # Remember to change /home/flexbi/flexbi_private to the actual home directory of flex.bi in all places WorkingDirectory=/home/flexbi/flexbi_private Environment="RAILS_ENV=production" Environment="EAZYBI_HOME=/home/flexbi/flexbi_private" Environment="EAZYBI_PREFIX=/flexbi" Environment="RUBYOPT=-W0" # Adjust to available memory Environment="JAVA_OPTS=-Xmx1024m -Xms256m -Dfile.encoding=UTF-8 -Djava.awt.headless=true -Dorg.eclipse.jetty.LEVEL=OFF -Djava.io.tmpdir=/home/flexbi/flexbi_private/tmp" # Default configuration ExecStart=/usr/bin/java $JAVA_OPTS -Dwarbler.host=localhost -Dwarbler.port=8080 -jar flexbi_private.jar Restart=on-failure StandardOutput=syslog StandardError=syslog SyslogIdentifier=flexbi #LimitNOFILE=10000 [Install] WantedBy=multi-user.target
If you are using
nginx
as a web proxy, add these lines to yournginx
configuration:Code Block proxy_http_version 1.1; proxy_set_header Connection "";
- Start the
flexbi
Enterprise server process). - Check flex.bi Enterprise Changelog for any additional action mentioned to be performed before the upgrade.