Launching Instances
This section describes the processes for creating a JasperReports Server instance or cluster inside a Virtual Private Cloud (VPC).
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Your Jaspersoft software is charged separately from the AWS EC2 instance charges. Please make sure you follow these instructions to turn off your EC2 instance server running Jaspersoft after use. If not, you continue to be charged by the hour for EC2 use. Note that when you stop your EC2 instance server no one has access to the reports or dashboards you have created until you restart the EC2 instance server. When you stop an EC2 instance server, you can still be charged the small EBS charge. If you do not want to be charged for EBS, make sure you terminate your EC2 instance server. Note that in this case none of your work can be retrievable unless you are using an auto-scaling cluster.
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Creating a JasperReports Server Instance in a VPC
The JasperReports Server instance is hosted in your Virtual Private Cloud (VPC).
To create a JasperReports Server instance in a VPC
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Under the Fulfillment Option, select CloudFormation Template from the first dropdown list. |
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From the second dropdown list, select the option specific to the Jaspersoft product: |
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Jaspersoft Instance in a VPC for Jaspersoft Reporting and Analytics for AWS (Hourly) |
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Jaspersoft Multi-tenancy Instance in a VPC for Jaspersoft for AWS with Multi-Tenancy (Hourly) |
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BYOL Jaspersoft Stack VPC deployment for Jaspersoft Reporting and Analytics for AWS (BYOL) |
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Select the software version and region, then click Continue to Launch. |
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Under Choose Action, select Launch CloudFormation and then click Launch. The Create stack page in the AWS console opens. Under the Specify template, the Amazon S3 URL option is already selected and a URL for the template file is filled in. Do not change these options. |
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Click Next. The Specify stack details page appears. |
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In the Stack name field, give your CloudFormation stack a unique name. |
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Choose an InstanceType. |
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Choose the KeyPairName of your EC2 KeyPair. |
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Choose the VpcId from your account. |
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Choose the SubnetId from the VPC. |
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Choose whether to create a publicly accessible IP address for the instance using EnablePublicIp. Default is True. Select False to refuse. |
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In the RemoteAccessCIDR field, enter the IP address and mask for SSH access. |
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Click Next. The Configure stack options page appears. |
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Add any tags that you want to use to simplify the administration of your infrastructure. |
A tag consists of a key/value pair and can flow to resources inside your stack. You can add up to 10 unique keys to each instance, along with an optional value for each key.
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Select an IAM role for managing the stack's resources. |
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Expand the Advanced section and set your notification, rollback, and other options. |
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Click Next. The Review page appears. |
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Double check your template, parameter, and option information. |
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Click the acknowledgment checkbox, then click Create Stack. You see a message telling you your stack has been created. The Services web page shows your stack's initial status as CREATE_IN_PROGRESS. It generally takes two to four minutes for the status to change to CREATE_COMPLETE. |
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Select your complete instance and click the Outputs tab. Here you can find the information you need when you are ready to log into JasperReports Server: |
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The URL for Getting Started with JasperReports Server. |
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The name of your instance. |
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The login name and password. |
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The name of your S3LicenseBucket. |
Creating a JasperReports Server Cluster Inside a VPC
Jaspersoft provides an auto-scaling cluster using the Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) that ensures that there are enough EC2 instances to handle the workload for your JasperReports Server application. With the cluster, instances are created and removed depending on CPU usage. It also provides a failover mechanism by storing your repository in an external database, so if something happens to an instance it can be replaced and connected to your existing repository. The cluster uses the Amazon Elastic Load Balancer (ELB) to route traffic and only supports PostgreSQL databases. You need to create and initialize your PostgreSQL database and make sure that it is in the same VPC where the JasperReports® Server stack is created.
The CloudFormation template for the cluster creates the following AWS resources:
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An Auto Scaling group that contains the EC2 instances for your JasperReports Server cluster. When creating the stack, you can define the maximum number of instances in your cluster. The Auto Scaling group defines the thresholds for increasing and decreasing the instances in your cluster. For more information about auto scaling groups, see the AWS documentation: |
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/autoscaling/latest/userguide/AutoScalingGroup.html
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If you are using a BYOL license, make sure to delete any existing instances after applying your license. Deleting an instance before applying for your license may result in the automatic creation of a new instance using an older license. See Applying a Jaspersoft License for AWS BYOL for more information.
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To create a new JasperReports Server cluster in a VPC
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Under the Fulfillment Option, select CloudFormation Template from the first dropdown list. |
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From the second dropdown list, select the option specific to the Jaspersoft product: |
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JasperReports Server (Hourly) cluster for Jaspersoft Reporting and Analytics for AWS (Hourly) |
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JasperReports Server MT Hourly cluster for Jaspersoft for AWS with Multi-Tenancy (Hourly) |
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Jaspersoft BYOL Cluster for Jaspersoft Reporting and Analytics for AWS (BYOL) |
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Select the software version and region, then click Continue to Launch. |
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Under Choose Action, select Launch CloudFormation and then click Launch. The Create stack page in the AWS console opens. Under the Specify template, the Amazon S3 URL option is already selected and a URL for the template file is filled in. Do not change these options. |
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Click Next. The Specify stack details page appears. |
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In the Stack name field, give your CloudFormation stack a unique name. |
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Enter the host name of your database connection in DBHost, the database port number in DBPort, and the database name in DBName. |
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Enter the database username in the DBUser field and the database password in DBPassword. |
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Choose an InstanceType. |
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Choose the KeyPairName of your EC2 KeyPair. |
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Choose your VpcId from the dropdowns. |
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Choose at least two LoadBalancerSubnetIds from the same VPC. |
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Selecting two SubnetIds from the different VPCs generate an error.
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EnablePublicIp defaults to true. Unless you change this setting, your initialization instance can be assigned a public IP address and an ELB (if enabled) can be configured as "internet-facing". See Amazon's documentation about internet-facing load balancers here: |
http://docs.aws.amazon.com/ElasticLoadBalancing/latest/DeveloperGuide/elb-internet-facing-load-balancers.html
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In the SecuredIp field, enter the IP address and mask for SSH access. |
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Enter the maximum number of instances to create for your cluster in the MaxInstancesCount field. You can have a maximum of 10 instances in your cluster. |
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Select your AvailabilityZones from the dropdown. |
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To enable notifications about your instance state, enter a valid email address in the OperatorEMail field. Leave this field blank to disable the notification. |
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Click Next. The Configure stack options page appears. |
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Add any tags that you want to simplify the administration of your infrastructure. |
A tag consists of a key/value pair and can flow to resources inside your stack. You can add up to 10 unique tags for each instance.
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Expand the Advanced section of the Configure stack options page and set your notification, rollback, and other options. |
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Click Next. The Review page appears. |
Double-check your template, parameter, and option information.
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Click the acknowledgment checkbox, then click Create. |
You can see your Stack Name listed in a table. While it is being created the Status column can display CREATE_IN_PROGRESS. After a few minutes, the status should change to CREATE_COMPLETE.
If the status changes to ROLLBACK instead of CREATE_COMPLETE, you need to accept the Terms of Use. Check the Events tab for more information.
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Select your complete instance and click the Outputs tab. Here you can find the information you need when you are ready to log into JasperReports Server: |
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The URL for Getting Started with JasperReports Server. |
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The login name and password. |
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The name of your ProvisionInstance. |
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The name of your Auto Scaling group. |
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The name of your S3LicenseBucket. |
Initializing Repository
Manually create a new Repository database in an external PostgreSQL database and initialize it.
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If a database connection issue occurs, make sure that the instance's public and private IP addresses are accessible to RDS.
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To initialize the repository
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Log in to your instance by ssh using the ssh -i EC2_KeyPair ec2-user@instance_name command. |
You can find the instance name on the Outputs tab. See Amazon's documentation for more information on connecting to the instance:
http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/AccessingInstances.html
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Change the directory to: |
/usr/share/jrs_dist/jasperreports-server-bin
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Run the initialization script: |
sudo -E ./deploy-database-to-external-repo.sh normal if you want to create the sugarcrm and foodmart sample databases or sudo -E ./deploy-database-to-external-repo.sh minimal if you do not want those databases.
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You may want to skip the initialization script if your external database already contains a valid JasperReports Server repository that you want to use. The script can create (or recreate) a JasperReports Server repository database (for example from a previous dump or RDS snapshot) with a minimal set of resources or with samples.
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If initialization is successful, halt the instance: sudo halt -p
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If initialization is unsuccessful, troubleshoot the database, then run the initialization script (step 3).
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Go to the EC2 Console and increase the instance count from 0 to 1 in the Auto Scaling group (the name is provided on the Outputs tab of the CloudFormation template). |
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Use the Getting Started URL from the Outputs tab to access your JasperReports Server appliance. |
Creating a JasperReports Server Instance from the EC2 Console
If you have a complex network topology or special volume requirements, you might need to create your instance from the EC2 Console.
Before you can create a JasperReports Server instance from the EC2 console, you need to create a CloudFormation role. If you skip this step, when you get to the Welcome screen, you can see the following error message:
We do not recommend this method, because it does not provide the auto-connection feature for Amazon RDS and Redshift included with the CloudFormation templates. If you choose this method, be sure to define that option during the setup process.
If you launch your instance with a role, JasperReports Server use that Role to generate temporary AWS security tokens for automatic discovery and management of security between your JasperReports Server instance and RDS\Redshift instances.
If no role is defined in your JasperReports Server Instance, you have 2 options:
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Provide Access and Secret keys in AWS Datasource for Discovery and Automatic Security management. |
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Manage security manually. (In this case, remember to disable Automatic security management in JasperReports Server Server Settings.) |
To create a JasperReports Server instance from the EC2 console
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Open the AWS Management Console. |
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Go to Compute > EC2. The EC2 Dashboard page opens. |
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On the left, select Image > AMIs. |
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Enter Jaspersoft in the Search text field and press Enter. |
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Select the AMI that you want, and click the Launch button at the top of the page. The Choose an Instance Type page opens. |
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Make sure you select the correct AMI for your license type (hourly, annual, or BYOL).
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Choose an Instance Type from the list. |
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Click Next: Configure Instance Details at the bottom of the page, and configure the following details. Hover over the information icon  for descriptions of each item. |
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Availability Zone (if using EC2) or Subnet (if using VPC) |
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Enable termination protection |
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Expand the Advanced Details section and configure the following details: |
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Click Next: Add Storage and review the details. Click the items that you want to edit. You can add EBS and instance store volumes by clicking the Add New Volume button. |
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Click Next: Tag Instance and add optional tags. To add more tags, click the Create Tag button. |
A tag is a key/value pair that flows to resources inside your stack. You can add up to 10 unique tags to each instance.
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Click Next: Configure Security Group and configure your firewall rules. Choose an existing security group or create a new security group. |
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We set up one AWS DB Security Group (using IP address) per JasperReports Server instance in each RDS region. The security group allows connections from the JasperReports Server instance to the specified AWS database instance.
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Click Review and Launch. Review your information and edit if necessary. |
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When prompted, select an existing key pair, or create a new key pair, and click Launch Instances. |
You can see a message telling you that your instance is now launching. Your instances may take a few minutes to launch, depending on the software you are running.
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Hours of use on your new instances start immediately and continue to accrue until you stop or terminate your instances.
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Logging in to JasperReports Server
Log into JasperReports Server using the Getting Started URL generated when you created your JasperReports Server instance. You can find this URL in the Cloud Formation Outputs tab.
The initial user is superuser and the password is your AWS instance ID. Located below the Getting Started URL in the Outputs tab or in the EC2 console. You can change the password after your initial login.
To log into JasperReports Server the first time
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Click the GettingStartedURL link in your Outputs tab. The Welcome to Jaspersoft BI page appears. |
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Choose what you want from the following: |
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Upload your license to the server |
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Watch an introductory video |
If you are using BYOL, you can start with a 60 days license. This page displays a reminder when your license is set to expire.
Before you click the Login button on this page
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Enter superuser as your User ID. |
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Your AWS EC2 instance ID is your initial password. |
You can find your AWS instance ID on the CloudFormation Outputs tab of your instance or in the EC2 console.
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Click Change password and enter a new password. |
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Log in again. The Home screen appears. |
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If you use PostgreSQL as your database, not all PostgreSQL-supported functions work with Redshift. See the Redshift documentation for details about supported functions.
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for descriptions of each item.
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