This week Fuad and I worked together to create our Tableau Server through Linux. When naming our Server, we decided to merge our two names together and so 'Flainey' was born.
What is linux?
- It is an operating system like Windows.
- It manages the computer hardware and software resources.
Why would we need to learn how to install Tableau Serveron Linux?
- This skill is especially important when your currentsystem is dependent on servers in Linux.
- Linux is considered to be more stable – it has alower risk of crashes and errors; it can handle simultaneous processes anddoesn’t need to be restarted as frequently.
- Free to install.
- More secure as it can source code so thecommunity can fix bugs instead of waiting for manufacturers to roll out a fix.
Pre-conceptions before taking on the project:
- Coding/Hacker feel
- Command line and having no interface was scary
- Not knowing how to fully navigate the computer i.e. not knowing many commands and having to google/research them would be difficult.
- Worried that we would cause the entire server to crash.
What is the difference between installing Tableau Server on Windows and Linux?
Windows
| Took longer to clone |
| Needed to change settings to allow the internet to see the computer. |
| Easier to navigate as web interface is familiar |
| Open up safari and navigate to the download page on Tableau website: |
| Creating an administrator was dependent on a pop up which would betriggered after the initialisation of TSM. If this pop up did not show, itwould be harder to set up the administrator account and therefore finish theinstallation of Tableau Server. |
| Expensive |
Linux
| Faster to clone |
| Needed to change settings to allow the internet to see the computer. |
| Needed to understand the structure of the command line and understanding the responses for each request. |
| Install gdebi, and then install tableau server package via gdebi wgetcommand – see screenshot below. |
| Creating an administrator account was manual and you had more controlover the settings. It is also much simpler to reset the username andpassword, as it just needs one command. |
| Cheaper |
Challenges that we came across:
- Configuring the virtual machine – we needed tore-do this process several times as we kept running into problems, where thesolution would be to re-start the computer or to blow the whole virtualmachine.
- A lot of the configuration was to do with thehardware requirements. Depending on how much processing each server was doing onthe node would impact the performance of our server. Another Tableau Server onanother VM was being installed so at one point that was causing a lot ofperformance issues for ours.
- Our server was not completely accessible when wecompleted the installation because we had not configured the network to be publicand therefore only the servers within the node could see our Tableau Server.
- We did not configure TSM correctly the firsttime round as we were not able to create an administrator account. Usually, atthe end of the TSM initialisation it prompts to create an account. However, forus that did not happen, so we had to go in and manually reset this within Linuxusing CML.
- When downloading the package, one of the scriptsthat we downloaded was corrupted, which meant we had to re-start our server andstart from scratch.
- When entering your password, Linux does not showany characters or indication of it being entered. If you make a mistake, it isharder to correct.
- Realising that there was two separate IP’s forTSM and Tableau Server.
- Understanding that the server takes time toreboot – we thought that our server processes had degraded but it was just amatter of waiting.
Resources and links todocumentation:
https://onlinehelp.tableau.com/current/server-linux/en-us/config_general.htm- this outlines a step by step guide in installing Tableau Server on bothwindows and Linux – really good documentation for people who have never dealtwith Linux before.
https://onlinehelp.tableau.com/current/guides/everybody-install-linux/en-us/everybody_admin_install_linux.htm- Tableau’s main guide to installing Tableau Server on Linux.
https://kb.tableau.com/articles/howto/downloading-tableau-server-on-linux-installer-packages-with-wget-or-curl- how to download the Tableau package using the wget command.