TIBCO JasperReports® Server for Docker

Table of contents

1. Introduction
2. Prerequisites
3. Downloading JasperReports Server WAR
4. Cloning the repository
5. Repository structure
6. Build-time environment variables
7. Build and run
8. Building and running with docker-compose (recommended)
9. Building and running with a pre-existing PostgreSQL instance
10. Creating a new PostgreSQL instance during build
11. Additional configurations
12. Runtime variables
13. SSL configuration
14. Using data volumes 1. Paths to data volumes on Mac and Windows
15. Web application
16. License
17. Logging
18. Updating Tomcat
19. Customizing JasperReports Server at runtime
20. Applying customizations
21. Applying customizations manually
22. Applying customizations with Docker Compose
23. Restarting JasperReports Server
24. Logging in
25. Troubleshooting
26. Unable to download phantomjs
27. "No route to host" error on a VPN/network with mask
28. docker volume inspect returns incorrect paths on MacOS X
29. docker-compose up fails with permissions error
30. Docker documentation

Introduction

This distribution includes a sample Dockerfile and supporting files for building, configuring, and running TIBCO JasperReports® Server in a Docker container. This sample can be used as is or modified to meet the needs of your environment. The distribution can be downloaded from https://github.com/TIBCOSoftware/js-docker.

This configuration has been certified using the PostgreSQL 9.4 database with JasperReports Server 6.3.0.

Basic knowledge of Docker and the underlying infrastructure is required. For more information about Docker see the official documentation for Docker.

For more information about JasperReports Server, see the Jaspersoft community.

Prerequisites

The following software is required or recommended:

• docker-engine version 1.12 or higher
• (recommended) docker-compose version 1.12 or higher
• git
• (optional) TIBCO Jaspersoft® commercial license.
• Contact your sales representative for information about licensing. If you do not specify a TIBCO Jaspersoft license, the evaluation license is used.
• (optional) Preconfigured PostgreSQL 9.4 database. If you do not currently have a PostgreSQL instance, you can create a PostgreSQL container at build time.

Downloading JasperReports Server WAR

Download the JasperReports Server commercial zip archive from the Support Portal and copy it to the resources directory of your archive. For example, if you have downloaded the archive to your ~/Downloads directory:

$ cp ~/Downloads/jasperreports-server-6.3.0-bin.zip resources/

Cloning the repository

Clone the JasperReports Server Docker github repository at https://github.com/TIBCOSoftware/js-docker:

$ git clone https://github.com/TIBCOSoftware/js-docker
$ cd js-docker

Repository structure

When you clone the github repository, the following files are placed on your machine:

• Dockerfile - container build commands
• docker-compose.yml - sample configuration for building and running via docker-compose
• .env - sample file with environment variables for docker-compose
• README.md - this document
• resources\ - directory where you put your JasperReports Server zip file or other files you want to copy to the container
  • README.md - short description of resources structure
• scripts\
  • entrypoint.sh - sample runtime configuration for starting and running JasperReports Server from the shell

Build-time environment variables

At build time, JasperReports Server uses the following environment variables. These variables can be set directly in the Dockerfile. In addition, if you are using docker-compose, many of these variables can be set in the docker-compose.yml or the .env file. See the Compose file reference for more information:

• DB_USER - database username
• DB_PASSWORD - database password
• DB_HOST - database host
• DB_PORT - database port
• DB_NAME - JasperReports Server database name
• JRS_DBCONFIG_REGEN - When true, forces database configuration regeneration on container run. This variable can be used to point an already existing JasperReports Server container to a new PostgreSQL server.
• JRS_HTTPS_ONLY - When true, enables HTTPS-only mode. HTTPS-only requires modifications to the Dockerfile; see SSL configuration and the comments in the Dockerfile for details. Note that JRS_HTTP_ONLY must be set directly in the Dockerfile, because it requires additional configuration.

Compose requires the following additional variables to set up the generated PostgreSQL container. If these variables are not set, PostgreSQL will be generated with no access restrictions.

• POSTGRES_USER
• POSTGRES_PASSWORD

Build and run

Building and running with docker-compose (recommended)

docker-compose.yml provides a sample Compose implementation of JasperReports Server with PostgreSQL server, configured with volumes for JasperReports Server web application and license, with pre-setup network and mapped ports. There is also a pre-configured .env file for use with docker-compose.

To build and run using docker-compose.yml, execute the following commands in the root directory of your repository:

$ docker-compose build
$ docker-compose up

Building and running with a pre-existing PostgreSQL instance

To build and run a JasperReports Server container with a pre-existing PostgreSQL 9.4 instance, execute these commands in your repository:

$ docker build -t jasperserver-pro:6.3.0 .
$ docker run --name some-jasperserver -p 8080:8080 \
-e DB_HOST=some-external-postgres -e DB_USER=username \
-e DB_PASSWORD=password -d jasperserver-pro:6.3.0

Where:

• jasperserver-pro:6.3.0 is the image name and version tag for your build. This image will be used to create containers.
• some-jasperserver is the name of the new JasperReports Server container.
• some-external-postgres is the hostname, fully qualified domain name (FQDN), or IP address of your PostgreSQL server.
• username and password are the user credentials for your PostgreSQL server.

Creating a new PostgreSQL instance during build

To build and run JasperReports Server with a new PostgreSQL container you can use linking:

$ docker run --name some-postgres -e POSTGRES_USER=username \
-e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=password -d postgres:9.4
$ docker build -t jasperserver-pro:6.3.0 .
$ docker run --name some-jasperserver --link some-postgres:postgres \
-p 8080:8080 -e DB_HOST=some-postgres -e DB_USER=db_username \
-e DB_PASSWORD=db_password -d jasperserver-pro:6.3.0

Where:

• some-postgres is the name of your new PostgreSQL container.
• username and password are the user credentials to use for the new PostgreSQL container and JasperReports Server container.
• postgres:9.4 PostgreSQL 9.4 is the PostgreSQL image from Docker Hub.
• jasperserver-pro:6.3.0 is the image name and version tag for your build. This image will be used to create containers.
• some-jasperserver is the name of the new JasperReports Server container.
• db_username and db_password are the user credentials for accessing the PostgreSQL server. Database settings should be modified for your setup.

Additional configurations

Runtime variables

Runtime variables are set to sensible defaults and in general do not require changes. However you can change them, for example, to adjust Java options for running the JasperReports Server container. See the Dockerfile for pre-defined environment variables.

SSL configuration

To enable generation and configuration of a self-signed certificate for the JasperReports Server container at build time:

• Locate and uncomment the SSL section in the Dockerfile. This commented section contains ENV and RUN commands to set up variables for key dname, keystore password, HTTPS_PORT and HTTPS-only mode for JasperReports Server.
• Run keytool to generate a new key and keystore.
• Edit your Tomcat configuration to use the new keystore by default.

Using data volumes

Docker recommends the use of data volumes for managing persistent data and configurations. The type and setup of data volumes depend on your infrastructure. We provide sensible defaults for a basic docker installation. Data volumes are also enabled by default in docker-compose.yml, see Building and running with docker-compose for more information.

Note that the data in data volumes is not removed with the container and needs to be removed separately. Changing or sharing data in the default data volume while the container is running is not recommended. To share a volume, use volume plugins. See the Docker [documentation](https://docs.docker.com/engine/tutorials/dockervolumes/#/ important-tips-on-using-shared-volumes) for more information.

Paths to data volumes on Mac and Windows

On Mac and Windows, you must mount a volume as a directory and reference the local path. For example, to access a license on a local directory on Mac:

docker run --name new-jrs
-v /<path>/resources/license:/usr/local/share/jasperreports-pro/license 
-p 8080:8080 -e DB_HOST=172.17.10.182 -e DB_USER=postgres -e 
DB_PASSWORD=postgres -d jasperserver-pro:6.3.0

Web application

By default, the JasperReports Server Docker container stores the web application data in /usr/local/tomcat/webapps/jasperserver-pro. To create a locally-accessible named volume, run the following commands at container generation time:

$ docker volume create --name some-jasperserver-data
$ docker run --name some-jasperserver \
-v some-jasperserver-data:/usr/local/tomcat/webapps/jasperserver-pro \
-p 8080:8080 -e DB_HOST=172.17.10.182 -e DB_USER=postgres \
-e DB_PASSWORD=postgres -d jasperserver-pro:6.3.0

Where:

• some-jasperserver-data is the name of the new data volume.
• some-jasperserver is the name of the new JasperReports Server container.
• jasperserver-pro:6.3.0 is the image name and version tag for your build. This image will be used to create containers.
• Database settings should be modified for your setup.

Now you can access the JasperReports Server web application locally. Run docker volume inspect jasperserver-data to determine the storage path and additional details about the new volume.

If you want to define the local volume path manually, you cannot use named volumes. Instead, modify docker run like this:

$ docker run --name some-jasperserver -v \
/some-path/some-jasperserver-data:/usr/local/tomcat/webapps/jasperserver-pro \
-d jasperserver-pro:6.3.0

Where:

• /some-path/some-jasperserver-data is a local path that will be mounted.

License

By default, the JasperReports Server Docker container expects to find the license in the /usr/local/share/jasperreports-pro/license directory on your system. If a license file is not present at this location, then the 30-day evaluation license is used.

On Linux systems, you can add a license volume and store your commercial license there, for example:

$ docker volume create --name some-jasperserver-license
$ sudo cp jasperserver.license \
/var/lib/docker/volumes/some-jasperserver-license/_data
$ docker run --name some-jasperserver \
-v some-jasperserver-license:/usr/local/share/jasperreports-pro/license \
-p 8080:8080 -e DB_HOST=172.17.10.182 -e DB_USER=postgres \
-e DB_PASSWORD=postgres -d jasperserver-pro:6.3.0

Where:

• some-jasperserver-license is the name of the new data volume.
• /var/lib/docker/volumes/some-jasperserver-license/_data is an example path. It may differ on your system, use docker volume inspect to get local path to volume.
• some-jasperserver is the name of the new JasperReports Server container
• jasperserver-pro:6.3.0 is the image name and version tag for your build. This image will be used to create containers.
• Database settings should be modified for your setup.

See Dockerfile and scripts/entrypoint.sh for details.

On Windows and Macintosh, you can mount a directory with the license resource. See the Docker documentation for more information. See also Paths to data volumes on Mac and Windows. For additional information about paths on Mac, see docker volume inspect returns incorrect paths on MacOS X.

To update your license without data volumes on an existing container:

$ docker cp jasperserver.license \
some-jasperserver:/usr/local/share/jasperreports-pro/license/
$ docker restart some-jasperserver

Where:

• some-jasperserver is the name of the new JasperReports Server container.

Note that you need to stop the JasperReports Server container prior to license update and restart it after.

Logging

There are multiple options for log access, aggregation, and management in the Docker ecosystem. The most common options are:

• volumizing log files
• using docker logging drivers

For the TIBCO JasperReports Server Docker, the default json-file docker drivers should be sufficient. In a more complex environment a log collector should be considered. One example is collecting logs on a remote syslog server. See the logging drivers documentation for more information.

To volumize the JasperReports Server container log, you can create a container for log storage:

$ docker volume create --name some-jasperserver-log
$ docker run --name some-jasperserver -v \
some-jasperserver-log:/usr/local/tomcat/webapps/jasperserver-pro/WEB-INF/logs \
-p 8080:8080 -e DB_HOST=172.17.10.182 -e DB_USER=postgres \
-e DB_PASSWORD=postgres -d jasperserver-pro:6.3.0

Where:

• some-jasperserver-log is the name of the new data volume for log storage.
• some-jasperserver is the name of the new JasperReports Server container
• jasperserver-pro:6.3.0 is the image name and version tag. for your build. This image will be used to create containers.
• Database settings should be modified for your setup.

Note that docker containers do not have separate logs. All information is logged via the driver or application. In the case of the JasperReports Server container, the main log is output by Tomcat to the docker-engine via the logging driver, and the application log specific to JasperReports Server is output to some-jasperserver-log:/usr/local/tomcat/webapps/jasperserver-pro/WEB-INF/logs

Updating Tomcat

The JasperReports Server container is based on the tomcat:8.0-jre8 (Apache Tomcat) image from Docker Hub. To upgrade your JasperReports Server base image, you must rebuild the JasperReports Server image with the newer Tomcat. See Build and run for building instructions.

To update an already existing JasperReports Server container to a newer base image, you have to re-create it. If you are using volumes for JasperReports Server, you can preserve web application data between upgrades. This can be useful if you have customizations or configuration changes applied to the default web application:

$ docker stop some-jasperserver
$ docker run --name some-jasperserver-2 -v \
some-jasperserver-data:/usr/local/tomcat/webapps/jasperserver-pro \
-p 8080:8080 -e DB_HOST=172.17.10.182 -e DB_USER=postgres \
-e DB_PASSWORD=postgres -d jasperserver-pro:6.3.0

Where:

• some-jasperserver is the name of the existing JasperReports Server container.
• some-jasperserver-2 is the name of the new JasperReports Server container.
• some-jasperserver-data is the name of a data volume.
• jasperserver-pro:6.3.0 is an image name and version tag that is used as a base for the new container.
• Database settings should be modified for your setup.

Customizing JasperReports Server at runtime

Customizations can be added to JasperReports Server container at runtime via the /usr/local/share/jasperreports-pro/customization directory in the container. All zip files in this directory are applied to /usr/local/tomcat/webapps/jasperserver-pro in sorted order (natural sort).

Applying customizations

For example:

$ docker volume create --name some-jasperserver-customization
$ sudo cp custom.zip \
/var/lib/docker/volumes/some-jasperserver-customization/_data
$ docker run --name some-jasperserver -v \
some-jasperserver-customization:\
/usr/local/share/jasperreports-pro/customization \
-p 8080:8080 -e DB_HOST=172.17.10.182 -e DB_USER=postgres \
-e DB_PASSWORD=postgres -d jasperserver-pro:6.3.0

Where:

• some-jasperserver-customization is the name of the customization data volume.
• custom.zip is an archive containing customizations, for example: WEB-INF/log4j.properties. The archive will be unpacked as-is to the path /usr/local/tomcat/webapps/jasperserver-pro
• /var/lib/docker/volumes/some-jasperserver-customization/_data is an example path. Use docker volume inspect to get the local path to the volume for your system.
• some-jasperserver is the name of the JasperReports Server container.
• jasperserver-pro:6.3.0 is an image name and version tag that is used as a base for the new container.
• Database settings should be modified for your setup.

See scripts/entrypoint.sh for implementation details and docker-compose.yml for a sample setup of a customization volume via Compose.

This directory can be also mounted as a Data Volume. You must mount the directory on Windows and Macintosh. See also Paths to data volumes on Mac and Windows. For additional information about paths on Mac, see docker volume inspect returns incorrect paths on MacOS X.

Applying customizations with Docker Compose

To use customizations with docker-compose, run docker volume inspect to determine the path of the volume you want and add the license. To reference an existing volume, modify the YAML file appropriately.

Applying customizations manually

You can also apply customizations manually, either via the docker cp command or by modifying files in the web application data volume. For example:

$ docker cp log4j.properties some-jasperserver:\
/usr/local/tomcat/webapps/jasperserver-pro/WEB-INF/
$ docker restart some-jasperserver

Where:

• some-jasperserver is the name of the JasperReports Server container.

Restarting the container

Note that independent of method, you need to restart the JasperReports Server container (docker restart some-jasperserver) if customizations are applied to a running container.

Logging in

To log into JasperReports Server on any operating system:

1. Start JasperReports Server.
2. Open a supported browser: Firefox, Internet Explorer, Chrome, or Safari.
3. Log into JasperReports Server by entering the startup URL in your browser's address field. The URL depends upon your installation. The default configuration uses:

http://localhost:8080/jasperserver-pro

Where:

• localhost is the name or IP address of the computer hosting JasperReports Server.
• 8080 is the port number for the Apache Tomcat application server. If you used a different port when installing your application server, specify its port number instead of 8080.

JasperReports Server ships with the following default credentials:

• superuser/superuser - System-wide administrator
• jasperadmin/jasperadmin - Administrator for the default organization

Troubleshooting

Unable to download phantomjs

At build-time Docker fails with an error "403: Forbidden" when downloading phantomjs:

2016-09-19 20:54:50 ERROR 403: Forbidden.

This occurs when the phantomjs binary is temporarily unavailable for download. You can do one of the following: disable the phantomjs download, change the URL, or use a locally-downloaded phantomjs archive. See Dockerfile for details. Note that if you had a successful build and the Docker cache has not been invalidated, you do not need to re-download phantomjs on a subsequent build.

"No route to host" error on a VPN or network with mask

The default Docker network may conflict with your VPN space. Change to a different CIDR for the Docker network using --bip. See the Docker networking documentation for more information; for Mac, also see Docker issue 25064.

docker volume inspect returns incorrect paths on MacOS X

Due to the nature of Docker for Mac docker volume inspect returns paths that are relative to the main docker process. You must either access the path in the container, for example, /var/lib/docker/volumes/some-jasperserver-license/_data, or define a volume path instead of a named volume. This also applies to Docker Compose. See Using data volumes for defining a local path. For more information see Docker Community Forums: Host path of volume

docker-compose up fails with permissions error

For example:

ERROR: for jasperserver Cannot start service jasperserver: 
oci runtime error: exec: "/entrypoint.sh": permission denied

This error can occur even if permissions are properly set for entrypoint.sh. To fix this issue:

First, locate the COPY line for entrypoint.sh in the Dockerfile:

COPY scripts/entrypoint.sh /

Then, add the following command immediately after the COPY line:

RUN chmod +x /entrypoint.sh

Docker documentation

For additional questions regarding docker and docker-compose usage see:

• docker-engine documentation
• docker-compose documentation

Copyright

Copyright © 2016. TIBCO Software Inc. This file is subject to the license terms contained in the license file that is distributed with this file.

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Software Version: 6.3.0-v1.0.4   Document version number: 1016-JSP63-01

TIBCO, Jaspersoft, and JasperReports are trademarks or registered trademarks of TIBCO Software Inc. in the United States and/or other countries.

Docker is a trademark or registered trademark of Docker, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries.