Hands on: MySQL Samples For Pentaho 2 (PCI Post-installation tasks)

In my previous blog entry I described how to install a Pre-configured version of the Pentaho BI Platform. That entry concluded with testing a few out of the box samples to verify that the BI Platform is working correctly.

In this entry I will discuss some Pentaho (PCI) post-installation tasks. All these are also described in the Pentaho Quick start Guide.

Running the PCI as a server

A demo environment with samples is nice, but it's even nicer when you can offer the samples right at the fingertips of your audience. Suppose you want let a business play around with some of the samples: you certainly do not want to force them to crawl behind your demo machine. That would be like going to a restaurant and find out that they've only got one plate to eat from, so that all the customers need to queue before they can have dinner.

In order to allow the PCI to be accessed from a remote client, we need to edit a configuration file: the web.xml file. You can find it in the

%PCI%/jboss/server/default/deploy/pentaho.war/WEB-INF

directory.

The WEB-INF/web.xml file contains a so-called java servlet web application deployment descriptor. That's just what the Pentaho BI platform is - a web application based on java servlet technology. For the PCI, the servlet container happens to be JBoss.

Anyway, once you found the web.xml file, it's probably a good idea to make a copy before you start editing. You can open file with any text-based editor. Search for the string base-url. You should end up finding a fragment such as this:



So, we've located the parameter with the name base-url and it's value is now http://localhost:8080/pentaho. We need to change the hostname (now: localhost) to either the DNS-name or the IP address of our server. It is probably a wise idea to use a DNS-name instead of the IP address, so here we go:

http://%My Computer's Name%:8080/pentaho

Now, save the file and (Re)start the server (using the start-pentaho script). Test if your modification was successful by navigating to http://%My Computer's Name%/pentaho. Of course, you should also test if it still works when you try it from a remote machine. If that is not the case, it's most likely that this is due to a firewall that blocks remote requests or outbound responses on port 8080.

If nothing happens, or when you get an error message, you most likely made a typo. Besides comparing with the old web.xml file, you can monitor the output of the start-pentaho script. Any errors will be output by the script and it might give you a hint as to what's wrong.

Ok, so now we can reach our pentaho demo environment from a remote machine.

You can also configure the server to use a port other than 8080. For example, port 80, the default http port, seems a sensible choice. This would allow users to connect to the much friendlier-looking url:

http://%My Computer's Name%/pentaho.

To modify the server port, you must modify the pentaho web app configuration file (the web.xml file we've just been editing) accordingly. So, again, we edit the value of the base-url parameter, deleting the :8080 bit so that it reads:

http://%My Computer's Name%/pentaho

We also need to modify the server configuration file. According to page 10 of the Pentaho Advanced Install guide, this corresponds to the server.xml file that is located in the

%PCI%/jboss/server/default/deploy/jbossweb-tomcat55.sar

directory. Again, make a copy of the original first, and store it somewhere safe. Then, you can open the original with a regular text editor. Once you've opened it, you should look for the fragment that defines the HTTP connector. The lines look something like this:



Just modify the port attribute of the Connector element so that it reads 80. Save the file and (re)start the server with the start-pentaho script.

It is worth noting that this this did not work for me at first. I got the following error:

20:07:13,234 ERROR [Http11Protocol] Error initializing endpoint
java.net.BindException: Address already in use: JVM_Bind:80

This indicates that another application is already using this port. Now, usually this would be another HTTP server, but I thought of that and made sure none of the other webservers I have installed were running. Finally, I found that Skype was using port 80. The issue was solved by configuring skype not to use port 80. (For everybody laughing their eyeballs out: this option was on by default.)

Configuring Mail

In my previous blog entry, I mentioned that not all of the packaged samples will run out of the box. For example, this is the case with the Bursting examples.

To configure mail, we need to edit the email_config.xml file which resides in the directory:

%PCI%/pentaho-solutions/system/smtp-email/

Again it's best to make a copy of the file first. Then, open it with a plain text editor.

If you want to use a google mail adres, I recommend you discard the original email_config.xml. Then, rename the email_config_gmail.xml file in the same directory to email_config.xml.

In most cases, you'll need to provide values for only these elements:

• mail.smtp.host - provide the name of your smtp server


• mail.userid - the user name


• mail.password - the password for this mail

The config files have excellent inline comments and it should not be a problem to set this up.

When you're done, start pentaho if you did not already do so. Changing the mail configuration does not require a restart as far as I can tell.

Now, navigate to the Bursting Examples section. From there, follow the sequence of instructions to test if the workflow engine is working correctly. You can tell that it does when you see that your mailbox is being spammed by your pentaho demoserver.

Next time

Ok, so far we've just been busy setting up the pentaho BI platform: installing and configuring. Next time, we will get ourselves some development tools, and actually build our first MySQL sample.