Install Tableau Server with Independent Gateway

Applies to: Tableau Advanced Management

This topic walks you through the process of installing Tableau Server Independent Gateway.

Following this process will result in an Independent Gateway configuration with a direct connection to the backend Tableau Sever deployment. You can learn more about direct vs relay connection modes in the topic, Configure Tableau Server with Independent Gateway.

Prerequisites

You must have a dedicated server with at least 2 cores (4 vCPUs), 8 GB of RAM and 100 GB of free disk space.
You must use Tableau Server 2022.1 or later.
You must use an installer for Tableau Server Independent Gateway with a major version (2022.1, for example) that matches the version of Tableau Server. We recommend maintenance versions (2022.1.1 or 2022.1.5, for example) match as well, but this is not a requirement. If "static assets" change between versions and versions do not match, you may see some unexpected image impact. For example, maps may not be up to date if Independent Gateway is an earlier version than Tableau Server.
You must have Advanced Management enabled in Tableau Server. To learn more about Advanced Management, see About Tableau Advanced Management on Tableau Server.
By default, the Independent Gateway must be able to communicate with the backend Tableau Server deployment on ports 80 and 21319 during installation. You can change these default ports during initialisation, as described later in this topic.
Verify that your Tableau Server deployment is complete and healthy before installing and configuring Independent Gateway.
Verify that you are not running any other web-aware applications on the computer where you are installing Independent Gateway. For example if Apache HTTPD is installed on the computer, uninstall it or configure httpd so that it is not actively listening on port 80.

Install Tableau Server and Independent Gateway

Installing Independent Gateway is done using a standalone installation package that includes "tsig" as part of the filename to distinguish it from the full Tableau Server installer. We strongly recommend you install Independent Gateway after installing Tableau Server and confirming that it is functioning as expected. To install, you must be the root user (or be able to sudo to root). You can install one or more instances of Independent Gateway, but each instance of Independent Gateway must be installed separately. If you are installing multiple instances for high availability or to distribute a heavy client load, repeat the installation steps for each instance.

After installation, you are prompted to run a script called initialize-tsig to complete the installation. The script takes information your provide using parameters and configures Independent Gateway. Once Independent Gateway is fully installed, you need to run a TSM command on the initial Tableau Server node to configure the server with details about the instance of Independent Gateway.

The IG installation consists of these steps:

Run the platform-specific installer.
Run the post-install script.
Enable the Independent Gateway instance using TSM.

Step 1: Download and install Tableau Server

Install and Initialise TSM: Follow the instructions provided in this topic and complete steps 1-5 which runs the setup program and installs TSM.
Activate and Register Tableau Server: Provide the Tableau Server Key and the Advanced Management key in the activate step. You will need to run the following command twice, first with the Tableau Server product key and then with the Advanced Management product key:
tsm licenses activate -k <product key>
Configure Initial Node Settings: Follow the instructions provided in the topic to configure the initial node settings.

Step 2: Download and install Independent Gateway

Install Tableau Server Independent Gateway with your distribution’s package manager, then run a script to initialise Independent Gateway. The script is included with the installed package.

Independent Gateway is installed in the /opt directory.

Log on as a user with sudo access to the computer where you want to install Independent Gateway.
Note: To avoid possible complications, we recommend a user account that does not include any special characters (for example, non-ASCII, "+", "-"). These may cause problems, including a failure to fully install Independent Gateway, depending on how your environment is configured.
Download the .rpm or .deb installer package from the Tableau Server Downloads and Release Notes page.
Navigate to the directory where you copied the .rpm or .deb package.
Use the package manager to install the Independent Gateway package.
Do not install to a location using a symbolic link or to a directory on a Network File System (NFS) volume. Run the following commands to install Independent Gateway, where <version> is formatted as major-minor-maintenance (example: 2022-1-0).
- On RHEL-like distributions, including CentOS:
  sudo yum update
  sudo yum install tableau-tsig-<version>.x86_64.rpm
- On Ubuntu:
```
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get -y install gdebi-core
sudo gdebi -n tableau-tsig-<version>_amd64.deb
```

Initialise Tableau Server Independent Gateway

The next step is to run the initialize-tsig script.

Navigate to the scripts directory:

cd /opt/tableau/tableau_tsig/packages/scripts.<version_code>/

Run the following script to initialise and start Independent Gateway:
sudo ./initialize-tsig --accepteula -c <ts_cluster_location> --<optional_parameters>
The only required parameters for the initialize-tsig script are --accepteula and -c.
- --accepteula - You must include this parameter to accept the Tableau End User Licence Agreement (EULA). A link to the EULA is available in the following location:
  /opt/tableau/tableau_tsig/packages/docs.<version_code>/
- -c - You must include this parameter to specify the network location of all the nodes in the Tableau Server cluster. These nodes may be sending "housekeeping" requests to the Independent Gateway. Wild cards and subnet masks can be used to specify multiple nodes. To specify multiple addresses, separate addresses by spaces and use quotes around the complete set. Values must be provided in one of the forms acceptable to the Apache httpd mod_authz_host "Require" directive. For more information, see https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/mod/mod_authz_host.html(Link opens in a new window).
All other parameters, for example default ports used by HTTP and the housekeeping process, are optional and, if left off, will be given default values. Review the parameters and their default values before running the script: Help Output for initialize-tsig Script.

Step 3: Enable Independent Gateway in Tableau Server

The last step of installing and configuring Independent Gateway is to enable Independent Gateway in Tableau Server. To do this, use the TSM command tsm topology external-services gateway enable -c <file> with a JSON file that identifies the Independent Gateway instance or instances and provides Tableau Server with the details necessary for communication between the server and the Independent Gateway.

Tableau Server must be in a stopped state to enable Independent Gateway.

The Independent Gateway JSON file contents

The JSON file that you use to enable the instances of Independent Gateway on Tableau Server needs to contain the following:

ID – The ID value must match the tsig_instance_id for the particular instance. If you did not provide this, the default is the fully qualified domain name of the Independent Gateway computer, in lowercase. The value in the JSON file must match the output of the hostname command.
host – The host value must be a DNS-resolvable name for the Independent Gateway computer that can be resolved by the Tableau Server nodes using DNS.
Port – The port must match the housekeeping port (tsig_housekeeping_port) specified on the Independent Gateway instance. If you did not provide this during initialisation, the default is "21319".
Protocol – The protocol must be the same as the housekeeping protocol (tsig_housekeeping_port_protocol) specified on the Independent Gateway instance. If you did not provide this during initialisation, the default is "HTTP".
Authsecret – The authsecret must match the secret created by the initialisation script on the Independent Gateway instance.

The Independent Gateway authsecret

The initialisation script creates a unique, shared secret on each Independent Gateway computer. You need this secret to enable Independent Gateway in Tableau Server. Copy the secret and include it in your JSON file as the "authsecret".

The shared secret is located in the tsighk-auth.conf file here:

/var/opt/tableau/tableau_tsig/config/tsighk-auth.conf

Independent Gateway JSON file example

The JSON file should be in the format below. This example JSON file shows default values where there are defaults. Your file should have use the actual values that match your installation of Independent Gateway and your organisation.

{
 "independentGateways": [
  {
    "id": "<mycomputer.example.com>",
    "host": "<DNS name of Independent Gateway computer>",
    "port": "21319",
    "protocol": "http",
    "authsecret": "<shared-secret01>"
  },
  {
    "id": "<mycomputer2.example.com>",
    "host": "<DNS name of second Independent Gateway computer>",
    "port": "21319",
    "protocol": "http",
    "authsecret": "<shared-secret02>"
  }
 ]
}

Enabling Independent Gateway in Tableau Server

To complete the installation of Independent Gateway, you need to enable it using TSM.

Copy the JSON configuration file to the initial node of Tableau Server.
On the initial node, open a command prompt using an account that is a member of the tsmadmin group.
Run the following commands to stop Tableau Server, enable Independent Gateway using the JSON configuration file, and restart the server:
```
tsm stop
tsm topology external-services gateway enable -c tsig.json
tsm start
```

Step 4: Verify Independent Gateway in Tableau Server

You should be able to navigate to the Tableau Server sign-in page by entering the address of the Independent Gateway in a browser.

If there is a firewall between the Independent Gateway and the backend Tableau Server deployment, then you will need to open the ports for the Tableau Server processes for direct connection. See Direct connection for more information.

Alternatively, you may choose to minimise port requirements by configuring Independent Gateway for a relay connection. See Relay connection for more information.

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