Doc > Hue Administration Guide

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This guide describes how to install and configure a Hue tarball or packages. # Installation The following instructions describe how to install the Hue tarball on a multi-node cluster. You need to also install Hadoop and its satellite components (Oozie, Hive...) and update some Hadoop configuration files before running Hue. Hue consists of a web service that runs on a special node in your cluster. Choose one node where you want to run Hue. This guide refers to that node as the _Hue Server_. For optimal performance, this should be one of the nodes within your cluster, though it can be a remote node as long as there are no overly restrictive firewalls. For small clusters of less than 10 nodes, you can use your existing master node as the Hue Server. You can download the Hue tarball here: [https://github.com/cloudera/hue/releases](https://github.com/cloudera/hue/releases) ## Hue Dependencies Hue employs some Python modules which use native code and requires certain development libraries be installed on your system. To install from the tarball, you must have the following installed: Required Dependencies The full list is here: [https://github.com/cloudera/hue#development-prerequisites](https://github.com/cloudera/hue#development-prerequisites) ## Build Configure `$PREFIX` with the path where you want to install Hue by running: PREFIX=/usr/share make install cd /usr/share/hue You can install Hue anywhere on your system, and run Hue as a non-root user. It is a good practice to create a new user for Hue and either install Hue in that user's home directory, or in a directory within `/usr/share`. ## Troubleshooting the Hue Tarball Installation .Q: I moved my Hue installation from one directory to another and now Hue no longer functions correctly. A: Due to the use of absolute paths by some Python packages, you must run a series of commands if you move your Hue installation. In the new location, run: rm app.reg rm -r build make apps .Q: Why does "make install" compile other pieces of software? A: In order to ensure that Hue is stable on a variety of distributions and architectures, it installs a Python virtual environment which includes its dependencies. This ensures that the software can depend on specific versions of various Python libraries and you don't have to be concerned about missing software components. ## Starting Hue from the Tarball After your cluster is running with the plugins enabled, you can start Hue on your Hue Server by running: build/env/bin/supervisor This will start several subprocesses, corresponding to the different Hue components. Your Hue installation is now running. # Configuration ## Reference Architecture 3 Hues and 1 Load Balancer Databases: MySQL InnoDB, PostgreSQL, Oracle LDAP Monitoring Impala HA HiveServer2 HA Downloads ## Quick Start Wizard The Quick Start wizard allows you to perform the following Hue setup operations by clicking the tab of each step or sequentially by clicking Next in each screen: 1. **Check Configuration** validates your Hue configuration. It will note any potential misconfiguration and provide hints as to how to fix them. You can edit the configuration file described in the next section or use Cloudera Manager, if installed, to manage your changes. 2. **Examples** contains links to install examples into the Hive, Impala, MapReduce, Spark, Oozie, Solr Dashboard and Pig Editor applications. 3. **Users** contains a link to the User Admin application to create or import users and a checkbox to enable and disable collection of usage information. 4. **Go!** - displays the Hue home screen, which contains links to the different categories of applications supported by Hue: Query, Hadoop, and Workflow. ## Configuration Displays a list of the installed Hue applications and their configuration. The location of the folder containing the Hue configuration files is shown at the top of the page. Hue configuration settings are in the hue.ini configuration file. Click the tabs under **Configuration Sections and Variables** to see the settings configured for each application. For information on configuring these settings, see Hue Configuration in the Hue installation manual. Hue ships with a default configuration that will work for pseudo-distributed clusters. If you are running on a real cluster, you must make a few changes to the `hue.ini` configuration file (`/etc/hue/hue.ini` when installed from the package version) or `pseudo-distributed.ini` in `desktop/conf` when in development mode). The following sections describe the key configuration options you must make to configure Hue.
To list all available configuration options, run: $ /usr/share/hue/build/env/bin/hue config_help | less This commands outlines the various sections and options in the configuration, and provides help and information on the default values.
To view the current configuration from within Hue, open: http:///hue/dump_config
Hue loads and merges all of the files with extension `.ini` located in the `/etc/hue` directory. Files that are alphabetically later take precedence.
### Web Server Configuration These configuration variables are under the `[desktop]` section in the `hue.ini` configuration file. ### Specifying the Hue HTTP Address Hue uses CherryPy web server. You can use the following options to change the IP address and port that the web server listens on. The default setting is port 8888 on all configured IP addresses. # Webserver listens on this address and port http_host=0.0.0.0 http_port=8888 ### Specifying the Secret Key For security, you should also specify the secret key that is used for secure hashing in the session store. Enter a long series of random characters (30 to 60 characters is recommended). secret_key=jFE93j;2[290-eiw.KEiwN2s3['d;/.q[eIW^y#e=+Iei*@Mn host.key Create a self-signed certificate: openssl req -new -x509 -nodes -sha1 -key host.key > host.cert
Self-signed Certificates and File Uploads To upload files using the Hue File Browser over HTTPS requires using a proper SSL Certificate. Self-signed certificates don't work.
### User Admin Configuration In the `[useradmin]` section of the configuration file, you can _optionally_ specify the following: default_user_group:: The name of a default group that is suggested when creating a user manually. If the LdapBackend or PamBackend are configured for doing user authentication, new users will automatically be members of the default group. ### Banner You can add a custom banner to the Hue Web UI by applying HTML directly to the property, banner_top_html. For example: banner_top_html=

My company's custom Hue Web UI banner

### Splash Screen You can customize a splash screen on the login page by applying HTML directly to the property, login_splash_html. For example: [desktop] [[custom]] login_splash_html=WARNING: You are required to have authorization before you proceed. ## Configuration for external services These configuration variables are under the `[hadoop]` section in the `hue.ini` configuration file. ### Install Hadoop and other analytic backends Depending on which apps you need, you need to make sure that some Hadoop services are already setup (that way Hue can talk to them).
|-------------|--------------------------------------------------------|
|  Component  | Applications                                           |
|-------------|--------------------------------------------------------|
|  Editor     | SQL (Hive, Impala, any database...), Pig, Spark...     |
|  Browsers   | YARN, Oozie, Impala, HBase, Livy                       |
|  Scheduler  | Oozie                                                  |
|  Dashboard  | Solr, SQL (Impala, Hive...)                            |
|-------------|--------------------------------------------------------|
##### Hadoop Configuration You need to enable WebHdfs or run an HttpFS server. To turn on WebHDFS, add this to your `hdfs-site.xml` and *restart* your HDFS cluster. Depending on your setup, your `hdfs-site.xml` might be in `/etc/hadoop/conf`. dfs.webhdfs.enabled true You also need to add this to `core-site.xml`. hadoop.proxyuser.hue.hosts * hadoop.proxyuser.hue.groups * If you place your Hue Server outside the Hadoop cluster, you can run an HttpFS server to provide Hue access to HDFS. The HttpFS service requires only one port to be opened to the cluster. Also add this in `httpfs-site.xml` which might be in `/etc/hadoop-httpfs/conf`. httpfs.proxyuser.hue.hosts * httpfs.proxyuser.hue.groups * #### Configure Oozie Hue submits MapReduce jobs to Oozie as the logged in user. You need to configure Oozie to accept the `hue` user to be a proxyuser. Specify this in your `oozie-site.xml` (even in a non-secure cluster), and restart Oozie: oozie.service.ProxyUserService.proxyuser.hue.hosts * oozie.service.ProxyUserService.proxyuser.hue.groups * #### Hive Configuration Hue's Hive SQL Editor application helps you use Hive to query your data. It depends on a Hive Server 2 running in the cluster. Please read this section to ensure a proper integration. Your Hive data is stored in HDFS, normally under `/user/hive/warehouse` (or any path you specify as `hive.metastore.warehouse.dir` in your `hive-site.xml`). Make sure this location exists and is writable by the users whom you expect to be creating tables. `/tmp` (on the local file system) must be world-writable (1777), as Hive makes extensive use of it.
In `hue.ini`, modify `hive_conf_dir` to point to the directory containing `hive-site.xml`.
### Configuring Your Firewall Hue currently requires that the machines within your cluster can connect to each other freely over TCP. The machines outside your cluster must be able to open TCP port 8888 on the Hue Server (or the configured Hue web HTTP port) to interact with the system. ### HDFS Cluster Hue supports one HDFS cluster. That cluster should be defined under the `[[[default]]]` sub-section. fs_defaultfs:: This is the equivalence of `fs.defaultFS` (aka `fs.default.name`) in Hadoop configuration. webhdfs_url:: You can also set this to be the HttpFS url. The default value is the HTTP port on the NameNode. hadoop_conf_dir:: This is the configuration directory of the HDFS, typically `/etc/hadoop/conf`. ### Yarn (MR2) Cluster Hue supports one or two Yarn clusters (two for HA). These clusters should be defined under the `[[[default]]]` and `[[[ha]]]` sub-sections. resourcemanager_host:: The host running the ResourceManager. resourcemanager_port:: The port for the ResourceManager REST service. logical_name:: NameNode logical name. submit_to:: To enable the section, set to True. ### Impala Configuration In the `[impala]` section of the configuration file, you can _optionally_ specify the following: server_host:: The hostname or IP that the Impala Server should bind to. By default it binds to `localhost`, and therefore only serves local IPC clients. ### Hive Configuration In the `[beeswax]` section of the configuration file, you can _optionally_ specify the following: beeswax_server_host:: The hostname or IP that the Hive Server should bind to. By default it binds to `localhost`, and therefore only serves local IPC clients. hive_conf_dir:: The directory containing your `hive-site.xml` Hive configuration file. ### Oozie Configuration In the `[liboozie]` section of the configuration file, you should specify: oozie_url:: The URL of the Oozie service. It is the same as the `OOZIE_URL` environment variable for Oozie. ### Solr Configuration In the `[search]` section of the configuration file, you should specify: solr_url:: The URL of the Solr service. ### HBase Configuration In the `[hbase]` section of the configuration file, you should specify: hbase_clusters:: Comma-separated list of HBase Thrift servers for clusters in the format of "(name|host:port)". ### Configuration Validation Hue can detect certain invalid configuration. To view the configuration of a running Hue instance, navigate to `http://myserver:8888/hue/dump_config`, also accessible through the About application. # Administration Now that you've installed and started Hue, you can feel free to skip ahead to the <> section. Administrators may want to refer to this section for more details about managing and operating a Hue installation. ## Server Logs Displays the Hue Server log and allows you to download the log to your local system in a zip file. ## User management The User Admin application lets a superuser add, delete, and manage Hue users and groups, and configure group permissions. Superusers can add users and groups individually, or import them from an LDAP directory. Group permissions define the Hue applications visible to group members when they log into Hue and the application features available to them. Click the **User Admin** icon in the top right navigation bar under your username. ### Users The User Admin application provides two levels of user privileges: superusers and users. - Superusers — The first user who logs into Hue after its initial installation becomes the first superuser. Superusers have permissions to perform administrative functions: - Add and delete users - Add and delete groups - Assign permissions to groups - Change a user into a superuser - Import users and groups from an LDAP server - Users — can change their name, e-mail address, and password and log in to Hue and run Hue applications, subject to the permissions provided by the Hue groups to which they belong. #### Adding a User 1. In the **User Admin** page, click **Add User**. 2. In the **Credentials** screen, add required information about the user. Once you provide the required information you can click the wizard step tabs to set other information.
Username A user name that contains only letters, numbers, and underscores; blank spaces are not allowed and the name cannot begin with a number. The user name is used to log into Hue and in file permissions and job submissions. This is a required field.
Password and Password confirmation A password for the user. This is a required field.
Create home directory Indicate whether to create a directory named /user/username in HDFS. For non-superusers, the user and group of the directory are username. For superusers, the user and group are username and supergroup.
3. Click **Add User** to save the information you specified and close the **Add User** wizard or click **Next**. 4. In the **Names and Groups** screen, add optional information.
First name and Last name The user's first and last name.
E-mail addressThe user's e-mail address. The e-mail address is used by the Job Designer and Beeswax applications to send users an e-mail message after certain actions have occurred. The Job Designer sends an e-mail message after a job has completed. Beeswax sends a message after a query has completed. If an e-mail address is not specified, the application will not attempt to email the user.
Groups The groups to which the user belongs. By default, a user is assigned to the **default** group, which allows access to all applications. See [Permissions](#permissions).
5. Click **Add User** to save the information you specified and close the **Add User** wizard or click **Next**. 6. In the **Advanced** screen, add status information.
Active Indicate that the user is enabled and allowed to log in. Default: checked.
Superuser status Assign superuser privileges to the user.
7. Click **Add User** to save the information you specified and close the **Add User** wizard. #### Deleting a User 1. Check the checkbox next to the user name and click **Delete**. 2. Click **Yes** to confirm. #### Editing a User 1. Click the user you want to edit in the **Hue Users** list. 2. Make the changes to the user and then click **Update user**. #### Importing Users from an LDAP Directory Hue must be configured to use an external LDAP directory (OpenLDAP or Active Directory). See Hue Installation in [CDH4 Installation](http://www.cloudera.com/content/cloudera-content/cloudera-docs/CDH4/latest/CDH4-Installation-Guide/CDH4-Installation-Guide.html). ![image](images/note.jpg) **Note**: Importing users from an LDAP directory does not import any password information. You must add passwords manually in order for a user to log in. To add a user from an external LDAP directory: 1. Click **Add/sync LDAP user**. 2. Specify the user properties:
UsernameThe user name.
Distinguished nameIndicate that Hue should use a full distinguished name for the user. This imports the user's first and last name, username, and email, but does not store the user password.
Create home directory Indicate that Hue should create a home directory for the user in HDFS.
3. Click **Add/sync user**. If the user already exists in the User Admin, the user information in User Admin is synced with what is currently in the LDAP directory. #### Syncing Users and Groups with an LDAP Directory You can sync the Hue user database with the current state of the LDAP directory using the **Sync LDAP users/groups** function. This updates the user and group information for the already imported users and groups. It does not import any new users or groups. 1. Click **Sync LDAP users/groups**. 2. The **Create Home Directories** checkbox creates home directories in HDFS for existing imported members that don't have home directories. 3. In the **Sync LDAP users and groups** dialog, click **Sync** to perform the sync. ### Groups Superusers can add and delete groups, configure group permissions, and assign users to group memberships. #### Adding a Group You can add groups, and delete the groups you've added. You can also import groups from an LDAP directory. 1. In the **User Admin** window, click **Groups** and then click **Add Group**. 2. Specify the group properties:
Name The name of the group. Group names can only be letters, numbers, and underscores; blank spaces are not allowed.
MembersThe users in the group. Check user names or check Select all.
PermissionsThe applications the users in the group can access. Check application names or check Select all.
3. Click **Add group**. #### Adding Users to a Group 1. In the **User Admin** window, click **Groups**. 2. Click the group. 3. To add users to the group, check the names in the list provided or check **Select All**. 4. Click **Update group**. #### Deleting a Group 1. Click **Groups**. 2. Check the checkbox next to the group and click **Delete**. 3. Click **Yes** to confirm. #### Importing Groups from an LDAP Directory 1. From the **Groups** tab, click **Add/sync LDAP group**. 2. Specify the group properties:
Name The name of the group.
Distinguished name Indicate that Hue should use a full distinguished name for the group.
Import new members Indicate that Hue should import the members of the group.
Import new members from all subgroups Indicate that Hue should import the members of the subgroups.
Create home directories Indicate that Hue should create home directories in HDFS for the imported members.
3. Click **Add/sync group**. Permissions ----------- Permissions for Hue applications are granted to groups, with users gaining permissions based on their group membership. Group permissions define the Hue applications visible to group members when they log into Hue and the application features available to them. 1. Click **Permissions**. 2. Click the application for which you want to assign permissions. 3. Check the checkboxes next to the groups you want to have permission for the application. Check **Select all** to select all groups. 4. Click **Update permission**. The new groups will appear in the Groups column in the **Hue Permissions** list. ## Process Hierarchy A script called `supervisor` manages all Hue processes. The supervisor is a watchdog process -- its only purpose is to spawn and monitor other processes. A standard Hue installation starts and monitors the following processes: * `runcpserver` - a web server based on CherryPy that provides the core web functionality of Hue If you have installed other applications into your Hue instance, you may see other daemons running under the supervisor as well. You can see the supervised processes running in the output of `ps -f -u hue`: UID PID PPID C STIME TTY TIME CMD hue 8685 8679 0 Aug05 ? 00:01:39 /usr/share/hue/build/env/bin/python /usr/share/hue/build/env/bin/desktop runcpserver Note that the supervisor automatically restarts these processes if they fail for any reason. If the processes fail repeatedly within a short time, the supervisor itself shuts down. [[logging]] ## Hue Logging The Hue logs are found in `/var/log/hue`, or in a `logs` directory under your Hue installation root. Inside the log directory you can find: * An `access.log` file, which contains a log for all requests against the Hue web server. * A `supervisor.log` file, which contains log information for the supervisor process. * A `supervisor.out` file, which contains the stdout and stderr for the supervisor process. * A `.log` file for each supervised process described above, which contains the logs for that process. * A `.out` file for each supervised process described above, which contains the stdout and stderr for that process. If users on your cluster have problems running Hue, you can often find error messages in these log files. If you are unable to start Hue from the init script, the `supervisor.log` log file can often contain clues. ### Viewing Recent Log Messages Online In addition to logging `INFO` level messages to the `logs` directory, the Hue web server keeps a small buffer of log messages at all levels in memory. You can view these logs by visiting `http://myserver:8888/hue/logs`. The `DEBUG` level messages shown can sometimes be helpful in troubleshooting issues. ## Database Hue requires a SQL database to store small amounts of data, including user account information as well as history of job submissions and Hive queries. By default, Hue is configured to use the embedded database SQLite for this purpose, and should require no configuration or management by the administrator. However, MySQL is the recommended database to use. This section contains instructions for configuring Hue to access MySQL and other databases. ### Inspecting the Hue Database The default SQLite database used by Hue is located in: `/usr/share/hue/desktop/desktop.db`. You can inspect this database from the command line using the `sqlite3` program or typing `/usr/share/hue/build/env/bin/hue dbshell'. For example: sqlite3 /usr/share/hue/desktop/desktop.db SQLite version 3.6.22 Enter ".help" for instructions Enter SQL statements terminated with a ";" sqlite> select username from auth_user; admin test sample sqlite> It is strongly recommended that you avoid making any modifications to the database directly using SQLite, though this trick can be useful for management or troubleshooting. ### Backing up the Hue Database If you use the default SQLite database, then copy the `desktop.db` file to another node for backup. It is recommended that you back it up on a regular schedule, and also that you back it up before any upgrade to a new version of Hue. ### Configuring Hue to Access Another Database Although SQLite is the default database type, some advanced users may prefer to have Hue access an alternate database type. Note that if you elect to configure Hue to use an external database, upgrades may require more manual steps in the future. The following instructions are for MySQL, though you can also configure Hue to work with other common databases such as PostgreSQL and Oracle.
Note that Hue has only been tested with SQLite and MySQL database backends.
### Configuring Hue to Store Data in MySQL To configure Hue to store data in MySQL: 1. Create a new database in MySQL and grant privileges to a Hue user to manage this database. mysql> create database hue; Query OK, 1 row affected (0.01 sec) mysql> grant all on hue.* to 'hue'@'localhost' identified by 'secretpassword'; Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec) 2. Shut down Hue if it is running. 3. To migrate your existing data to MySQL, use the following command to dump the existing database data to a text file. Note that using the ".json" extension is required. /usr/share/hue/build/env/bin/hue dumpdata > .json 4. Open the `hue.ini` file in a text editor. Directly below the `[[database]]` line, add the following options (and modify accordingly for your MySQL setup): host=localhost port=3306 engine=mysql user=hue password=secretpassword name=hue 5. As the Hue user, configure Hue to load the existing data and create the necessary database tables: /usr/share/hue/build/env/bin/hue syncdb --noinput mysql -uhue -psecretpassword -e "DELETE FROM hue.django_content_type;" /usr/share/hue/build/env/bin/hue loaddata .json Your system is now configured and you can start the Hue server as normal. The Quick Start Wizard open # Using Hue After installation, you can use Hue by navigating to `http://myserver:8888/`. The link:user-guide/index.html[user guide] will help users go through the various installed applications. ## Supported Browsers The two latest LTS versions of each browsers. * IE/Edge * Safari * Chrome * Firefox ## Feedback Your feedback is welcome. The best way to send feedback is to join the https://groups.google.com/a/cloudera.org/group/hue-user[mailing list], and send e-mail, to mailto:hue-user@cloudera.org[hue-user@cloudera.org]. ## Reporting Bugs If you find that something doesn't work, it'll often be helpful to include logs from your server. (See the <> section. Please include the logs as a zip (or cut and paste the ones that look relevant) and send those with your bug reports. image:images/logs.png[]