Session configuration

When deploying a project, some additional configuration is available. As configuration can depend on where the project is deployed, the configuration can either be defined in YAML files or in Python code through the atoti.config package.

The configuration is passed as an argument of create_session, either as a path to the YAML file or directly as a Python object.

Metadata database

Some data, such as the dashboards generated by the users, is not part of the data sources but is stored anyway in what we call the metadata database. By default, this database is in memory so everything is lost when the Atoti session is closed. However, it can also be persisted to a file.

This is an example of configuration that stores the metadata in a file:

metadata_db: ./metadata.db

which is equivalent to the following Python code:

[1]:
from atoti.config import create_config

config = create_config(metadata_db="./metadata.db")

Security

Enterprise only: Security is only available in the Enterprise edition of the library.

When sharing your application with other users, you can set up security to configure which users are allowed to connect to the application and which part of the data they are allowed to see.

Roles

Roles are a way to restrict what users can see in a cube. By default, all users mentioned in your configuration file have a role called ROLE_USER which gives access to the full cube. You can define additional roles with restrictions and give these roles to your users.

This in an example of roles in a YAML file:

roles:
  - name: ROLE_FRANCE
    restrictions:
      Country: France
      Currency: Euro
  - name: ROLE_AMERICA
    restrictions:
      Country: [USA, Canada]
  - name: ROLE_CHINA
    restrictions:
      Country: [China]

Roles can also be defined directly in Python:

[2]:
from atoti.config import create_config, create_role

french = create_role(
    "ROLE_FRANCE", restrictions={"Country": "France", "Currency": "Euro"}
)
american = create_role("ROLE_AMERICA", restrictions={"Country": ["USA", "Canada"]})
chinese = create_role("ROLE_CHINA", restrictions={"Country": "China"})

config = create_config(roles=[french, american, chinese])

Roles are defined per column. Column restrictions are inherited by all hierarchies based on this column. For instance, in the previous configuration, a user with the role ROLE_AMERICA will only see the data related to USA and Canada and won’t see the data for France.

Combining roles

Restrictions on different hierarchies are intersected. For instance, in the previous configuration, a user with the role ROLE_FRANCE will only see the data where the country is France AND the currency is Euro.

However, if a user has several roles with restrictions on the same hierarchies, the access to the union of restricted members will be granted. For instance, in the previous configuration, a user with both ROLE_AMERICA and ROLE_CHINA will see the data where the country is USA, Canada, OR China.

Authentication

Basic

Basic handles authentication with usernames and passwords. It is the easiest way to get started with security on a project, you only have to define the users, their password, and their roles.

This is an example of YAML configuration defining 3 users:

authentication:
  type: basic
  users:
    - name: admin
      password: nidma
      roles:
        - ROLE_ADMIN
    - name: user1
      password: 1resu
      roles:
        - ROLE_FRANCE
    - name: user2
      password: 2resu
      roles:
        - ROLE_UK

Which is equivalent to the following Python code:

[3]:
from atoti.config import BasicAuthentication, BasicUser, create_config

admin = BasicUser("admin", "nidma", ["ROLE_ADMIN"])
user1 = BasicUser("user1", "1resu", ["ROLE_FRANCE"])
user2 = BasicUser("user2", "2resu", ["ROLE_UK"])
basic = BasicAuthentication([admin, user1, user2], realm="Configuration Tutorial")

config = create_config(authentication=basic)

Auth0

Auth0 is an authentication and authorization platform, it can easily be connected to Atoti to handle the authentication.

The configuration requires :

  • information about your application.

  • a role mapping which is a mapping between Auth0 users and Atoti roles

This is an example of YAML configuration for Auth0 giving access to other users:

authentication:
  type: auth0
  issuer: myIssuer
  audience: myAudience
  client_id: myClientId
  client_secret: myClientSecret
  role_mapping:
    admin:
      - ROLE_ADMIN
    french_user:
      - ROLE_FRANCE

which is equivalent to the following Python code:

[4]:
from atoti.config import Auth0Authentication, create_config

auth0 = Auth0Authentication(
    issuer="myIssuer",
    audience="myAudience",
    client_id="myClientId",
    client_secret="myClientSecret",
    role_mapping={"admin": ["ROLE_ADMIN"], "french_user": ["ROLE_FRANCE"]},
)

Properties

Properties let you tweak your project to match your special use cases. For instance, the most common property is probably max_memory and you can use it to define how much data your session can hold. All the configurable properties are listed in the atoti.config.Properties enum and can be found in the documentation.

[5]:
from atoti.config import Properties

for prop in Properties:
    print(prop)
Properties.csv_max_line_size
Properties.max_memory
Properties.websocket_compression

These properties can be set in YAML:

properties:
  max_memory: 64G
  websocket_compression: True

which is equivalent to following Python code:

[6]:
from atoti.config import Properties, create_config

config = create_config(
    properties={Properties.max_memory: "64G", Properties.websocket_compression: True}
)

Configuration inheritance

Sometimes, you want to use the same base configuration for all your projects. For instance, if you are using the Auth0 account of your company, you won’t want to repeat its properties everywhere. To avoid that, a configuration file can inherit the default configuration file and be merged with it.

A default configuration file can be placed at $ATOTI_HOME/config.yml where $ATOTI_HOME defaults to $HOME/.atoti.

By default, the configuration will inherit the default one, if you don’t want this behaviour, add inherit: False to your configuration.

A classic example is to have a default config.yml with the Auth0 properties:

authentication:
  type: auth0
  issuer: myIssuer
  audience: myAudience
  client_id: myClientId
  client_secret: myClientSecret

and have a configuration specific to each project with the role mapping:

authentication:
  type: auth0
  roles:
    admin:
      - ROLE_ADMIN
    french_user:
      - ROLE_FRANCE

Environment variables

Environment variables can be used in the configuration with the following syntax:

authentication:
  type: "basic"
  users:
    - name: ${{ env.PROJECT_USERNAME }}
      password: ${{ env.PROJECT_PASSWORD }}