OpenRefine is intended to be installed locally as a desktop application. Due to the client-server architecture it is also possible to install OpenRefine on a web server to share it with multiple users. This can be useful despite the missing user administration, e.g. temporarily for a workshop or permanently in a protected network.
Can I somehow host OpenRefine for others to access ?
OpenRefine has no built-in security for multi-user or multi-tenant scenarios. OpenRefine has a single data model that is not shared, so there is a risk of columnar data operations being overwritten by other users, so care must be taken by users. Having said that, if you are inclined to proceed at your own risk, you can get some security by using a proxy.
Tested on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS
- Install Java 11 and Unzip
apt update && apt install openjdk-11-jre-headless unzip
- Configure Java to be behave better on cloud infrastructure
sed -i 's/securerandom.source=file:\/dev\/random/securerandom.source=file:\/dev\/urandom/' /etc/java-11-openjdk/security/java.security
- Install OpenRefine 3.7.7
mkdir /opt/openrefine
wget https://github.com/OpenRefine/OpenRefine/releases/download/3.7.7/openrefine-linux-3.7.7.tar.gz
tar -xzf openrefine-linux-3.7.7.tar.gz -C /opt/openrefine --strip 1
- Create a systemd service for OpenRefine
adduser --system openrefine
echo "[Unit]
Description=OpenRefine
[Service]
User=openrefine
ExecStart=/opt/openrefine/refine -i 0.0.0.0
TimeoutStopSec=3600s
Restart=always
RestartSec=10
[Install]
WantedBy=default.target
" > /etc/systemd/system/openrefine.service
systemctl enable openrefine.service
systemctl start openrefine.service
- Redirect port 3333 to 80
iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p tcp --dport 80 -j REDIRECT --to-port 3333
apt install iptables-persistent
- Optional: Adjust memory setting in refine.ini
sed -i 's/REFINE_MEMORY=1400M/REFINE_MEMORY=6192M/' /opt/openrefine/refine.ini
systemctl restart openrefine.service
Thank you for the guide! I have followed it, but being as inexperienced as I am, I do not know how to then access openrefine remotely from my laptop. I can login fine into my server using putty (it uses ssh).