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Redash v5 Quick Start Guide
Redash v5 Quick Start Guide

Redash v5 Quick Start Guide: Create and share interactive dashboards using Redash

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Redash v5 Quick Start Guide

Installing Redash

Once you've decided to go for a self-hosted Redash, it's time to decide which installation you should perform.

This chapter is intended for people with some knowledge of the Linux operating system. If you choose to install Redash on a machine that already contains production services, take extra care when manually executing operations. You will need root privileges on the machine.

The information you'll find in this chapter has been checked for correctness and is accurate regarding the current version and installation procedure of Redash. For up to date data, please refer to the official Redash website!

Although it is technically possible to run Redash on Windows OS, it is highly recommended that you use a Linux machine...

Sizing – choosing the right machine to do the job

Sizing is based on the number of concurrent users and the number of concurrent queries that you have. For <10 concurrent users and <100 active queries, a tiny machine that has a dual core, 2 GB memory should be enough.

On the other hand, if you have 50-100 concurrent users and 1,000 active queries, you will need at least 16-32 GB RAM and a quad-core CPU.

In addition to the Redash app, you will also need Postgres, Redis, and Celery.
  • Redis - Memory intensive
  • Postgres - CPU and memory
  • Celery - CPU and memory (the more workers you have, the more CPU you need. If workers won't keep up and build up a queue, it starts to consume memory)

If you're hosted in the cloud, you can always start with a smaller machine and expand if needed. The same goes for deploying Redash inside a VM in your own data center.

As a good...

Installation options and installation walkthrough

In this section, we will cover the options you have when installing Redash. If your machine resides in the cloud, you will be able to choose an existing image of Redash with all the necessary components already predefined.

In case you prefer to have more control over the installation, you can run the setup.sh script or manually run Docker installation.

Installation options

There are various installation options for Redash, and they are as follows:

For the Cloud (AWS/GCE):

  • Using a predefined image
  • Manually using a Setup script

For your own datacenter (VM or Physical Machine):

  • Docker
  • Manually using a Setup script
    In all of the aforementioned options, you can provide your own...

Explaining the setup.sh script

The setup.sh script is the core of all the cloud based installation options. Regarding an image-based installation, you don't have to dive into the details of this script, but if you want to install Redash manually (or are just curious about the internals), it's better to take a quick look at it.

In case you intend to use the setup.sh script for production environment:

For small scale deployments you can use it as is.

But for large scale deployments where Redash is mission critical, and needs to be Highly Available, it's recommend that you set up a separate server for PostgreSQL and Redis, as well as set up at least 2 servers for Redash for redundancy.

The number of celery workers can be modified based on your usage patterns.

Let's break the script into parts while going over it.

At first, we set Redash base installation path...

Troubleshooting

The main thing to bear in mind here is that setup.sh (core of all the installation processes) is not idempotent.

This means that if somehow the script failed in the middle of running, you can't simply run it again.

In case something went wrong with the installation, follow these instructions:

  1. Try to check the output of the setup.sh script and figure out what the reason for its failure could be. Possible reasons include permissions/missing packages.
  2. It's always better to reinstall rather than try and run the script from where it stopped.
  3. Review the section which explains setup.sh, in combination with the logs. This might give you the answer.
  4. If using AWS/GCE, verify that ports 22, 80, and 443 are reachable (sometimes, even if not in the cloud, corporate users have strict firewall rules, so you might have to check it even if not on AWS/GCE).
...

Configuration and setup

In order to experience Redash to its fullest, after installing it, you need to run some configurations, for example, for users and emails.

Email configuration

Redash uses email as part of user management (password reset and so on) and as a destination for alerts to be received at.

After your first setup, when you log in to Redash, you will see the following notification telling you that your email has not yet been configured, which means that you can't enjoy all the features of Redash:

The email configuration resides inside an env file.

We can use the find or locate Linux command to find where exactly the env file resides on our machine.

By default (in case you used setup.sh based installation...

Permissions in Redash

Not all data is meant to be viewed and edited by all users, and there are rare cases where we don't need to restrict the access to one or more resources in some way (except maybe proof-of-concept works, or garage-mode startups where everyone is an admin).

In this section, we will cover the permissions mechanism in Redash.

Groups

The core of Redash's permissions model are Groups.

Users are members of groups, while Data Sources are associated with groups.

Group membership by a user defines the actions they can perform, and the Data Sources they can access.

Each DataSource can be associated with one or more groups.

Currently, there are two types of relations between a DataSource and a group:

  • Full...

Summary

In this chapter, we covered the different options of installing a self-hosted Redash, including detailed step by step guidance. We also reviewed the setup.sh script, which is the basis of all of the installation options, and went through a common troubleshooting practice.

Then, we covered how to configure and test emails, went over all of Redash's environment settings, and in addition covered the permissions mechanism (Users and Groups) in Redash.

The next chapter will guide you in how to create your first queries, visualizations, and dashboards.

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Key benefits

  • Learn the best use of visualizations to build powerful interactive dashboards
  • Create and share visualizations and data in your organization
  • Work with different complexities of data from different data sources

Description

Data exploration and visualization is vital to Business Intelligence, the backbone of almost every enterprise or organization. Redash is a querying and visualization tool developed to simplify how marketing and business development departments are exposed to data. If you want to learn to create interactive dashboards with Redash, explore different visualizations, and share the insights with your peers, then this is the ideal book for you. The book starts with essential Business Intelligence concepts that are at the heart of data visualizations. You will learn how to find your way round Redash and its rich array of data visualization options for building interactive dashboards. You will learn how to create data storytelling and share these with peers. You will see how to connect to different data sources to process complex data, and then visualize this data to reveal valuable insights. By the end of this book, you will be confident with the Redash dashboarding tool to provide insight and communicate data storytelling.

Who is this book for?

This book is intended for Data Analysts, BI professionals and Data Developers, but can be useful to anyone who has a basic knowledge of SQL and a creative mind. Familiarity with basic BI concepts will be helpful, but no knowledge of Redash is required.

What you will learn

  • Install Redash and troubleshoot installation errors
  • Manage user roles and permissions
  • Fetch data from various data sources
  • Visualize and present data with Redash
  • Create active alerts based on your data
  • Understand Redash administration and customization
  • Export, share and recount stories with Redash visualizations
  • Interact programmatically with Redash through the Redash API

Product Details

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Publication date, Length, Edition, Language, ISBN-13
Publication date : Sep 29, 2018
Length: 224 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781788994217
Category :

What do you get with eBook?

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Product Details

Publication date : Sep 29, 2018
Length: 224 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781788994217
Category :

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Table of Contents

9 Chapters
Introducing Redash Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Installing Redash Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Creating and Visualizing your First Query Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Connecting to Data Sources Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Writing and Executing Queries Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Creating Visualizations Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Dashboards and Practical Tips Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Customizing Redash Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Other Books You May Enjoy Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Customer reviews

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Amazon Customer Jun 23, 2019
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
This book is pretty comprehensive, from basic topics to more advanced ones.Taking you step by step through installing, configuring and running a server, up to creating useful dashboard using various data sources, this book is all you need to get working with Re:dash.Given examples are very well described.Highly recommended!
Amazon Verified review Amazon
amitg Jan 15, 2019
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
lots of well described examples. Recommended!
Amazon Verified review Amazon
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