Playbook openrefine

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Summary

This role installs [OpenRefine]https://openrefine.org/), an open-source web application for data cleanup and transformation to other formats, an activity commonly known as data wrangling.

This component uses JupyterHub to spawn a separate instance of OpenRefine for each user that logs in via the browser. This way, users do not have access to each other’s data. The playbook can be added to a workspace that already contains a working JupterHub installation, or it can install JupyterHub itself (see the openrefine_jupyter_force_install parameter).

Security note

JupyterHub spawns servers (JupyterLab) running under the uid of the user logged in the browser. Authentication in the browser is handled by SRAM: after logging in, the name of the user is set by SRAM in the REMOTE_USER header, and this is passed along to JupyterHub.

At the moment OpenRefine listens on a TCP port. This means users with shell access (and JupyterLab provides a shell!) can easily bypass authentication by hitting the address on localhost on which another user’s OpenRefine server is listening. Do not provide shell access to untrusted users.

Variables

• openrefine_jupyter_config_dir: String. Location of the directory containing the main JupyterHub config file.
• openrefine_jupyter_venv_path: String. Location of the virtual environment in which JupyterHub is installed (or will be installed, if the force install param is set to true). Set to system to not use a venv.
• openrefine_jupyter_force_install: Boolean. Whether to force installation of JupyterHub. If true, will install this application in standalone mode.
• openrefine_max_memory: String. Max RAM allowed to an instance of the OpenRefine app (corresponds to the -m command line argument). E.g. 6000M. If empty, this will be set to a percentage of available RAM by default.
• openrefine_base_path: String. URI at which OpenRefine is served. Default: /.
• openrefine_extra_extensions. Optional. String. A YAML-string of a list of dictionaries that specify extensions to be downloaded. See the role documentation for the specification of the dictionaries.

Note: the FilesExtension extension (which allows the user to import data from the server’s local filesystem) is already installed by default.

See also

• Role jupyterhub_standalone_proxy
• Playbook openrefine

History

2025 Written by Dawa Ometto (Utrecht University)

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