Raijin plugin for Apache Superset

Manual setup

Before proceeding, install Raijin by following the installation instructions for your platform.

These instructions were tested with the following software versions:

  • Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

  • Python 3.8.1

  • Raijin 0.9.3961

  • Apache Superset 1.5.1

Installing Apache Superset

The following steps guide you to install Apache Superset from scratch, install the Raijin plugin for Apache Superset, and start a development web server. Refer to the Apache Superset documentation for other installation options.

  1. Install the Apache Superset OS dependencies.

    $ sudo apt-get install build-essential libssl-dev libffi-dev python3-dev python3-pip libsasl2-dev libldap2-dev

  2. We recommend installing Apache Superset inside a Python virtual environment. Execute the following commands to create a virtual environment and activate it:

    $ sudo apt install python3.8-venv
$ python3 -m venv superset-venv
$ . superset-venv/bin/activate

  3. Install Apache Superset and the Python library dependencies. Note that the required library versions vary depending on your installed Apache Superset version.

    (superset-venv) $ pip3 install apache-superset==1.5.1
(superset-venv) $ pip3 install SQLAlchemy==1.3.24
(superset-venv) $ pip3 install Flask-WTF==0.14.3
(superset-venv) $ pip3 install itsdangerous==1.1.0
(superset-venv) $ pip3 install flask-caching==1.11.1
(superset-venv) $ pip3 install markupsafe==2.0.1
(superset-venv) $ pip3 install requests
(superset-venv) $ pip3 install wheel

  4. Set the FLASK_APP environment variable.

    (superset-venv) $ export FLASK_APP=superset

  5. Initialize the Apache Superset metadata database.

    (superset-venv) $ superset db upgrade

    Apache Superset uses SQLite by default but also supports PostgreSQL and MySQL. See Using a production metastore in the Apache Superset documentation for more information.

  6. Create an admin user to access the Apache Superset UI (admin username is required to load the data examples in the next step)

    (superset-venv) $ superset fab create-admin

  7. (Optional) Load the data examples.

    (superset-venv) $ superset load_examples

  8. Create the default roles and permissions.

    (superset-venv) $ superset init

  9. Download the superset_raijin_plugin.tar.gz package from the Downloads page.

  10. Install the Raijin plugin for Apache Superset.

    (superset-venv) $ pip3 install superset_raijin_plugin.tar.gz

  11. Start an Apache Superset development web server.

    (superset-venv) $ superset run -p 8088 --with-threads --reload --debugger

    The development web server is not intended for production use. See Running on a WSGI HTTP Server in the Apache Superset documentation for more information on configuring a production web server.

  12. Open the Apache Superset UI by accessing http://localhost:8088 in your browser.

Configuring a Raijin data source

  1. Open the Apache Superset UI and navigate to Data > Databases.

  2. Click the + DATABASE button.

  3. Select Other from the SUPPORTED DATABASES drop-down.

  4. Enter a DISPLAY NAME, e.g., raijin.

  5. Enter the SQLALCHEMY URI to connect to the Raijin Database server in the format raijin+http://root:root@<raijin_ip>:<raijin_port>/.

    Database connection settings

  6. Click the TEST CONNECTION button to verify that the connection is successful.

  7. Click the CONNECT button to save the connection.

  8. Navigate to Data > Datasets.

  9. Click the + DATASET button.

  10. Select the database connection you created above in the DATABASE field.

  11. Select the database and table for the SCHEMA and SEE TABLE SCHEMA fields respectively.

    Add dataset

  12. Click the ADD button.

Visualizing data

Once you have created the Raijin database connection and added the datasets, you can create charts and dashboards to visualize your data.

  1. Navigate to the Charts page and click the + CHART button.

  2. Choose your dataset and select a chart type. In the screenshot below, we chose Table.

    Create a chart

  3. Click the CREATE NEW CHART button.

  4. Continue to configure the chart settings and click RUN to test your settings. In the screenshot below, we have configured the table to show raw records.

    Chart settings

  5. When you finish configuring your chart, click the SAVE button, enter a chart name and dashboard, and click SAVE & GO TO DASHBOARD.

    Apache Superset dashboard

Container-based setup

The raijindb/raijin-superset container on our Docker Hub page makes it easy to deploy Raijin and Apache Superset as a Docker application stack.

These instructions require Docker Compose and Docker Engine. They have been tested with Docker Desktop 4.10.1 (82475) and Docker Engine 20.10.17.

  1. Download the Raijin Apache Superset container package from the Downloads page. This package configures Apache Superset with a PostgreSQL metadata backend, Gunicorn web server, and Redis message queue.

  2. Extract the contents of the archive.

    $ tar -xf raijin-superset-container.tar.gz

  3. Start the container-based setup from the directory where docker-compose.yml is located.

    $ docker-compose up -d

    Setup may take ~2-5 minutes to complete depending on your CPU.

  4. Create a DNS entry for the Raijin website or add the following line to your /etc/hosts file on Linux or C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts on Windows for testing purposes:

    127.0.0.1	localhost raijin

  5. After the container starts, you can access the following URLs:

See the README.md file included in the package for more information on the setup.