Using a Remote GSQL Client

You can use the GSQL client to access a GSQL server on a different machine, including on a TigerGraph Cloud instance.

Prerequisites

  • The machine running the GSQL client needs to have Java 7.0 or later.

  • The server machine allows the client machine to access port 14240.

Download the GSQL client

To download the GSQL client, you can do either of the following:

  • Copy the file gsql_client.jar to from an existing installation to the client machine and storing it anywhere the user finds appropriate. The client is packaged as a Java jar file, gsql_client.jar located in the folder <TigerGraph_root_dir>/app/<VERSION_NUM>/dev/gdk/gsql/lib/.

  • Download the GSQL client for 3.4 directly from this page.

Connect to remote server

To connect to a remote server, your must provide the following to the GSQL client:

  • The IP address of the GSQL server.

  • Your TigerGraph user credentials.

  • If you are running GSQL commands, the user you are logged in as must have the privileges to run them.

  • If SSL/TLS encryption (e.g., HTTPS) is enabled on the server, you must provide the server’s SSL certificate.

Run the following command to connect to the remote server:

java -jar  gsql_client  -cacert <path_to_certificate> -ip <ip_address> -u <username> -p <password> (1) (2) (3) (4)
1 Replace <path_to_certificate> with the path to your SSL certificate. If the remote server doesn’t have SSL/TLS encryption enabled, omit the -cacert flag.
2 Replace <ip_address> with the IP address of your remote server. You can also specify the IP address in a file and omit this flag.
3 Replace <username> and <password> with the username and password of the TigerGraph user you want to be logged in as. If you don’t provide a <username>, the client uses the default user tigergraph.

Obtain SSL certificate from remote server

To obtain the SSL certificate from the remote server, you can copy it from the path: $(gadmin config get System.DataRoot)/configs/nginx/conf/ssl.cert.

Obtain SSL certificate from a TigerGraph Cloud instance

To obtain the SSL certificate from a TigerGraph Cloud instance, run the following command, and replace <ip_address> with the IP address of your Cloud instance and replace <path_to_certificate> with the path to place the certificate file.

You need to install openssl on your client machine to run this command.

echo | openssl s_client  -connect <ip_address>:443 |  sed -ne '/-BEGIN CERTIFICATE-/,/-END CERTIFICATE-/p' > <path_to_certificate>

Specify server IP address in file

You can create a one-line file called gsql_server_ip_config containing the IP address of the GSQL server. This file needs to be in the same directory where you run GSQL.

When there is a gsql_server_up_config file in the same directory where you run the GSQL client, the GSQL client uses IP address stored in the file. You won’t need to specify the IP address in the command.

Define a Unix alias for command to run GSQL client

You can define a Unix alias to simplify the command to run the GSQL client:

alias gsql="java -jar <path_to_gsql_client>"

After defining the preceding alias, running gsql is equivalent to running java -jar <path_to_gsql_client>.

Filepath semantics

Data loading jobs always specify an input file location; logically the data should be on the server side, not on the client side. Because the command request comes from one machine and the target data file is on another machine, it no longer makes sense to use a relative path.

If a remote GSQL client invokes an instruction containing a relative path, the GSQL server considers the starting point of the path to be <tigergraph_rootdir>/app/<VERSION_NUM>/dev/gdk/gsql on the GSQL server.

It is strongly recommended that GSQL commands use absolute paths only when run remotely.

For example, if the data file cf_data.csv is in the folder /home/tigergraph/example/cf/, then the command to run the loading job might look like the following:

java -jar gsql_client.jar 'RUN JOB load_cf USING FILENAME="/home/tigergraph/example/cf/cf_data.csv", SEPARATOR=",", EOL="\n"

Example: Modifying a Bash script for a remote GSQL client

The GSQL Tutorials employ both GSQL and bash scripts to run the examples. Typically, each example case contains 3 GSQL command files (for schema creation, data loading, and querying) and one bash script to run all the parts together and to display status information. Below is a simplified version of the Collaborative Filtering (cf) bash script:

Bash script for Collaborative Filtering (cf) example
#!/bin/bash
test='cf'
###
gsql 'DROP ALL'
gsql ../${test}/${test}_model.gsql
gsql 'CREATE GRAPH gsql_demo(*)'

# Loading
gsql -g gsql_demo ../${test}/${test}_load.gsql
## loading script contains this line:
## RUN JOB load_cf USING FILENAME="../cf/data/cf_data.csv", SEPARATOR=",", EOL="\n"

# Querying
gsql -g gsql_demo ../${test}/${test}_query.gsql
gsql -g gsql_demo INSTALL QUERY ALL
gsql -g gsql_demo 'RUN QUERY topCoLiked("id1", 10)'

The bash script will not run from a remote GSQL client unless a few changes are made:

  • We need to invoke java -jar gsql_client.jar instead of gsql, and need to specify the server ip address.

  • If we use the gsql_server_ip_config file, this file must be in the same folder as the command file.

The GSQL Tutorial has several folders, one for each example, which suggests making several config files.

Below is an approach that minimizes the changes required and maximizes standardization.

  1. Do initial client setup. This is done only once.

    1. Store gsql_client.jar in a standard location. For example, /home/tigergraph/gsql_client/ gsql_client.jar )

    2. Create a file called gsql_server_ip_config containing the GSQL server’s IP address, and store it a standard location, say ~/gsql_client/gsql_server_ip_config.

      Sample config file:/home/tigergraph/gsql_client/gsql_server_ip_config
      123.45.67.255

    3. In the .bashrc file in your home directory, add an alias for gsql which points to the standard location:

      alias gsql='java -jar ~/gsql_client/gsql_client.jar'

  2. Add a standard header to each bash script.

    Standard which makes 'gsql' work on remote clients
    alias gsql='java -jar gsql_client.jar'
shopt -s expand_aliases
ln -s ~/gsql_client/gsql_client.jar gsql_client.jar
ln -s ~/gsql_client/gsql_server_ip_config gsql_server_ip_config

    This header does the following:

    1. Repeat the alias definition for the gsql command. The definition in .bashrc may not be visible here.

    2. By default, bash scripts ignore aliases. Instruct the script to use aliases.

    3. Define soft links from the current folder to the locations of the client jar and config file.

  3. Change any relative paths to absolute paths. This is the only step that must be customized for each script.

    Here is the resulting script. Four standard lines were added to the beginning, and one line was edited in the cf_load.gsql file.

RUN_cf_remote.sh: Modified bash script for Collaborative Filtering (cf) example
#!/bin/bash
alias gsql='java -jar gsql_client.jar'
shopt -s expand_aliases
ln -s ~/gsql_client/gsql_client.jar gsql_client.jar
ln -s ~/gsql_client/gsql_server_ip_config gsql_server_ip_config
test='cf'
###
gsql 'DROP ALL'
gsql ../${test}/${test}_model.gsql
gsql 'CREATE GRAPH gsql_demo(*)'

# Loading
gsql -g gsql_demo ../${test}/${test}_load.gsql
## loading script contains this line:
## RUN JOB load_cf USING FILENAME="/home/tigergraph/tigergraph/document/examples/tutorial_real_life/cf/data/cf_load.csv", SEPARATOR=",", EOL="\n"

# Querying
gsql -g gsql_demo ../${test}/${test}_query.gsql
gsql -g gsql_demo INSTALL QUERY ALL
gsql -g gsql_demo 'RUN QUERY topCoLiked("id1", 10)'