Using Redash `preview`

These are (at least initially) some rough notes on how to use the Redash preview image, including workarounds for any issues found.

Note that this is being written with the Redash 24.04.0-dev docker image in mind

How to install

Doing a fresh installation of Redash using the preview image is fairly simple.

Use the setup.sh script from here, and run it with the --preview option:

$ sudo ./setup.sh --preview

Further configuration

When that finishes, you need to add a few items to the environment file in /opt/redash/env to complete the configuration.

Redash host name

Without this, emails sent by Redash will be missing the server name in embedded links.

So they'll have urls like just /something/ instead of https://your.server/something, which many email programs won't even realise should be clickable links.

Make sure to include the http:// or https:// text fragment at the start of the string too, otherwise it will be missing from the emails.

REDASH_HOST=http://your.server

Outbound email sending

For Redash to send email, it needs to know how to send it.

@justinclift uses an external service called SMTP2Go which has proven to be reliable, and not expensive. They have a free tier as well which is probably all most people would need.

You don't have to use SMTP2Go though, you just need to pick a place that supports standard SMTP protocol, preferably with TLS (for security purposes).

REDASH_MAIL_SERVER=mail.smtp2go.com
REDASH_MAIL_DEFAULT_SENDER=redash@your.server
REDASH_MAIL_PORT=2525
REDASH_MAIL_USE_TLS=yes
REDASH_MAIL_USERNAME=an_smtp2go_username
REDASH_MAIL_PASSWORD=the_matching_smtp2go_password

Then apply the changes:

$ cd /opt/redash
$ docker compose up -d