Qrs-mime NPM | npm.io

qrs-mime

Add mime types to the Qlik Sense repository.

About

The qrs-mime tool is a command line tool based on node.js. It allows you to add mime-type definitions to Qlik Sense server.

This tool can be used to add the missing mime types in Qlik Sense 2.1.1 to make typical visualization extensions work again, but in general, this tool can also be used to add support for very specific Mime-types in your Qlik Sense environment.

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Installation

Make sure that you have node.js installed, otherwise install node.js
Use npm to install qrs-sense globally.

npm install qrs-mime -g

Usage

After installation of qrs-mime using npm open the node.js command line and run qrs-mime using one of the following options:

Run the tool directly on Qlik Sense server - By doing so the locally already available certificates will be used for authentication.

Run the tool on a different machine against a Qlik Sense server - If this is the case, you need to set up proper authentication between your machine and the server where the Qlik Sense Repository Services (QRS) is running on.

Running qrs-mime directly on Qlik Sense server

First find out the qualified name you have used during the installation. The easiest way to achieve this is to open the "Qlik Management Console" on your server, then you'll see the qualified name in the Url:

For example:

Then run the qrs-mime:

qrs-mime --server=qsSingle --ssl

That's it, you should get the following confirmation:

Running qrs-mime on a different machine / using header authentication

If you have properly set up header authentication for QRS, you should then have the following information to run qrs-mime:

Fully qualified name or IP-address of your server (e.g. myserver.mydomain.com)
Name of the virtual proxy (e.g. hdr)
Whether to use SSL or not
The user you want to map to:
- The header key and (e.g. hdr-usr)
- The header value (e.g. mydomain.com\myUserName)
The user defined in your header-value should have rootAdmin permissions on QRS

Then run the following command:

qrs-mime 
    --auth=header 
    --server=myserver.mydomian.com 
    --virtual-proxy=hdr 
    --ssl 
    --header-key=hdr-usr 
    --header-value=mydomain.com\myUserName

(Remove line breaks which were just added to improve readability)

Note:

Depending on the connection to the server, it can take a minute or two until the the job is done.
Further options can be defined if necessary.

Some references to help you to set up header authentication:

Qlik Sense Help: Virtual Proxy

Running qrs-mime on a different machine / using certificates

If you have exported the certificates and copied to your system, you should then have the following information available to run qrs-mime:

Fully qualified name or IP-address of your server (e.g. myserver.mydomain.com)
Name of the virtual proxy (if needed, leave blank if you are unsure)
Whether to use ssl (define it, if you are unsure)
Location of the certificate file (e.g. C:\CertStore\client.pem)
Location of the key file (e.g. C:\CertStore\client_key.pem)
Location of the ca file (e.g. C:\CertStore\root.pem)
The user you want to map to (if not defined the below values will be used)
- The header key and (e.g. X-Qlik-User)
- The header value (e.g. UserDirectory=Internal;UserId=sa_repository)

qrs-mime
    --auth=certificates
    --server=myserver.mydomain.com
    --ssl
    --cert="C:\CertStore\client.pem"
    --key="C:\CertStore\client_key.pem"
    --ca="C:\CertStore\root.pem

(Remove line breaks which were just added to improve readability)

Note:

Depending on the connection to the server, it can take a minute or two until the the job is done.
Further options can be defined if necessary.

Some references to help to set up certificate based authentication:

Qlik Sense Developer Help: Exporting certificates (Make sure you use the platform independent format)
Qlik Sense Developer Help: Connecting using certificates

Command line options

--help (alias -h) - Display the usage guide.
--debug (alias -d) - Return debug info.
--server - Server where the QRS is running.
--virtual-proxy - Name of the virtual proxy.
--auth (alias -d) Authentication method, can be either "certificates" (c) or "header" (h). Defaults to "certificates".
--port (alias -p) Port to be used. If you want to use the default port, use 0 or leave blank. In case of using certificates leave either blank or use 4242.
--ssl - Whether to use SSL (defaults to false). If --ssl is not set, SSL is not used. If SSL is desired, define --ssl, otherwise omit this option.
--header-key - Header key, typically used when using header authentication, in case of using certificates it defaults X-Qlik-User
--header-value - Header value, typically used when using header authentication, in case of using certificates, it defaults to UserDirectory=Internal;UserId=sa_repository
--cert - Path to the certificate file, typically client.pem
--key - Path to the key file, typically client_key.pem
--ca - Path to the ca file, typically root.pem
--passphrase - (TBD, not clear if needed at all)
--file - Path to the file containing the definition of mime-types, by default the file you can find in this repository under ./config/mime-types.txt will be taken.

Defining your own set of Mime-types

When running qrs-mime the default list of added or updated Mime-Types is defined in the file ./config/mime-types.txt

You can either modify this file to meet your custom needs or point to your very own definition of Mime-types by using the parameter --file

Each line of such a file defines a Mime-type to add, e.g.:

md;text/x-markdown;;false

In every line four settings need to be made

File-extension (md in the example above)
The official Mime-type (text/x-markdown in the example above)
Additional headers (left blank in the example above; leave blank if not 100% sure how to use that)
Whether the given Mime-Type is binary or not (false in the example above)

Troubleshooting

Some recommendations if qrs-mime does not work:

Make sure that you can reach the server. Use ping <servername> to see if you can ping it
Ensure that no firewall is preventing communication over port 4242 (certificates) or 80/443.
Running the tool can take a minute or two, please be patient and wait for the result.
If an exception is thrown you will see a message that a log file has been created in your personal temporary folder.

Update to a newer version of qrs-mime