Hue can run in one line via the docker command.

It also needs to be configured to point to a traditional database instead of Sqlite so see below how to configure the docker image to point to a local MySql or use docker-compose which will start both services for you.

To have a zero configuration start use kubernetes is also a great option.

Directly boot the image:

docker run -it -p 8888:8888 gethue/hue:latest

Hue should then be up and running on your default Docker IP on the port 8888, so usually http://127.0.0.1:8888.

Then to avoid the database locked error, please see below Configuration.

Docker compose allows to start all the required services in one command line.

This will start a Hue server as well as a MySQL database by default. Only the MySQL interpreter is configured in tools/docker/hue/conf/z-hue-overrides.ini.

Assuming we have a local hue.ini as shown in the previous section:

cd tools/docker/hue

Edit conf/z-hue-overrides.ini and ucomment the MySql section in [[database]].

Then:

docker-compose up -d

And to stop:

docker-compose down

Note

If http://127.0.0.1:8888 does not work, get the IP of the docker container with:

sudo docker ps
CONTAINER ID        IMAGE               COMMAND             CREATED             STATUS              PORTS                            NAMES
4064b02b42c9        gethue/hue          "./startup.sh"      About a minute ago   Up About a minute   0.0.0.0:8888->8888/tcp   awesome_wiles

docker inspect -f '{{range .NetworkSettings.Networks}}{{.IPAddress}}{{end}}' 4064b02b42c9
172.17.0.2

So in our case http://172.17.0.2:8888.

By default the Hue container is using tools/docker/hue/conf/z-hue-overrides.ini on top of desktop/conf/hue.ini which assumes localhost for all the data services and uses and embedded sqlite database that will error out.

To configure Hue to point to the databases to query, the simplified ini z-hue-overrides.ini can be edited before starting Hue.

Just curl it:

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cloudera/hue/master/tools/docker/hue/conf/z-hue-overrides.ini -O hue.ini

Or get is via the repository:

cd tools/docker/hue
cp conf/z-hue-overrides.ini hue.ini

Let's pull and start the latest Hue container and open a shell inside it:

docker run -it -p 8888:8888 gethue/hue:latest /bin/bash

This puts us into the /usr/share/hue home folder of the Hue installation. Now let's open the configuration file:

apt-get install -y vim

vim desktop/conf/hue.ini

First let's make sure that Hue is backed by a relational database supporting transactions like MySQL, PostgreSql or Oracle. Here we go with MySQL and fill-up the [[database]] section with the credentials:

[desktop]
[[database]]
host=demo.gethue.com  # Use 127.0.0.1 and not localhost if on the same host
engine=mysql
user=hue
password=password
name=hue

Now from another terminal use docker ps to identify the Hue container id and commit its state to remember the configuration even after stopping it:

docker ps

docker commit 368f0d568a5f hue-hive

Now you can start the saved container which will expose the Hue interface on localhost:8888.

docker run -it -p 8888:8888 hue-hive ./startup.sh

Hue needs an existing database with transactions like MySQL to support concurrent requests and also not lose the registered users, saved queries, sharing permissions... when the server gets stopped.

Edit the database settings in hue.ini for one of these two databases. Do not forget to create a 'hue' database too.

PostGreSql

[desktop]
[[database]]
engine=postgresql_psycopg2
host=127.0.0.1
port=5432
user=hue
password=hue
name=hue

MySql

[desktop]
[[database]]
engine=mysql
host=127.0.0.1
port=3306
user=root
password=secret
name=hue

To be able to query a database, update the connector interpreters accordingly, e.g.:

[notebook]
[[interpreters]]
[[[mysql]]]
name = MySQL
interface=sqlalchemy
options='{"url": "mysql://root:secret@database-host:3306/hue"}'

If you are looking another warehouse than Hive, check out all the other connectors.

Then start the Hue server:

docker run -it -p 8888:8888 -v $PWD/hue.ini:/usr/share/hue/desktop/conf/z-hue.ini gethue/hue

Note

If for example the database is pointing to your localhost, if using Docker on Linux just add the --network="host" parameter and the container will correctly point to it.

sudo docker run -it -p 8888:8888 -v $PWD/desktop/conf/pseudo-distributed.ini:/usr/share/hue/desktop/conf/z-hue.ini --network="host" gethue/hue

Just pull the latest from the Internet or build it yourself from the Hue repository via the Dockerfile.

docker pull gethue/hue:latest

Directly from Github source:

docker build https://github.com/cloudera/hue.git#master -t hue -f tools/docker/hue/Dockerfile

Or from a cloned local Hue:

docker build . -t gethue/hue -f tools/docker/hue/Dockerfile

Note

Feel free to replace -t hue in all the commands by your own docker repository and image tag, e.g. gethue/hue:latest, docker-account/hue:4.8.0

Push the image to the container registry

push docker.io/gethue/hue:latest