Looker Deployer

Intro

Looker Deployer (aka 'ldeploy') is a command line tool to help move Looker objects across instances. This includes Content (Looks, Dashboards, entire Spaces, etc.), Boards and Connections.

Status and Support

As of 2023, Looker Deployer is supported, but not warrantied by Google. Issues and feature requests can be reported via https://github.com/llooker/looker_deployer/issues, which will be regularly monitored and prioritized.

Requirements

In order for these commands to correctly work a few assumptions/requirements are needed for your environment:

Python Looker Deployer requires Python 3.6-3.9

Gazer The content deployment command makes use of gzr to automate content deployment, so you will need to have that installed and configured properly. Gazer requires an up-to-date version of ruby.

Authentication and Configuration

Looker Deployer makes use of the Looker SDK to communicate with your Looker instances. A looker.ini file is required to provide authentication. By default the tool looks for this file in your working directory but if it is named differently or in a different location you can make use of the --ini argument to specify its location. Here's an example ini file:

[dev]
base_url=https://looker-dev.company.com:19999
client_id=abc
client_secret=xyz
verify_ssl=True

[prod]
base_url=https://looker-prod.company.com:19999
client_id=abc
client_secret=xyz
verify_ssl=True

Installation

Looker Deployer is on PyPi! - You can install it with pip install looker-deployer.

Dockerfile

A looker.ini file is required for API authentication. You will have to either volume-map the ini file when you run the container, or (recommended) build an image from this one that "burns" a relevant ini file into the container.

To do this, create a directory with an looker.ini file and a Dockerfile with the following content:

FROM python:3.9-slim

RUN apt update
RUN apt -y install ruby ruby-dev
RUN gem install gazer

RUN apt -y install git 
RUN git clone https://github.com/looker-open-source/looker_deployer.git

WORKDIR /looker_deployer

COPY looker.ini . 
RUN pip install .

ENTRYPOINT ["ldeploy"]

Then simply:

docker build -t ldeploy .

You can get use: docker run ldeploy <command> <parameters> ...

Keep in mind that in order to get the output you will need to map local directories to directories in docker, so a real life usage might look like:

docker run \
  -v /local/path/to/ldeploy/settings:/ldeploy_settings \
  -v /local/path/to/ldeploy/output:/ldeploy_output \
  ldeploy content export \
    --ini /ldeploy_settings/looker.ini \
    --local-target /ldeploy_output \
    <additional parameters>

You would put your looker.ini file in /local/path/to/ldeploy/settings and the output generated by the commands would be found in /local/path/to/ldeploy/output.

Local Installation

It is recommended to set up a python virtual environment if you intend to use looker-deployer on your local machine rather than using the docker image. This will prevent other modules from creating conflicts with the looker-deployer install.

pyenv offers easy management of python versions and virtual environments.

Once pyenv is installed, install the desired version of Python and create the virtual environment named ldeploy:

pyenv install 3.8.3
pyenv virtualenv 3.8.3 ldeploy

Activate the virtual environment and install looker-deployer:

pyenv activate ldeploy
pip install looker-deployer

looker-deployer is now ready for use! Once you are finished, deactivate the virtual environment:

source deactivate

Usage

The tool is invoked with the ldeploy command, followed by the relevant sub-command. The available sub-commands are: boards, code, connections, and content.

Each sub-command can be configured with its relevant arguments, which can be reviewed with the -h or --help argument. For example:

ldeploy content -h

Content Deployment

This command makes use of gazer to either pull content from your dev Looker instance to a directory structure on your local machine or deploy content from said directory structure to a specified Looker instance. The command can work for specific sets of Looks or Dashboards or can work on entire folders - and will correctly create any folder it doesn't find in the target instance.

The content command is further divided into two subcommands: export and import

Content Export

All content deployment tasks begin by exporting a representation of your development environment's content folder tree to local disk. This is done with the export command. This directory tree is then used in subsequent import commands to import dashboards, looks, or the entire tree to another instance.

The command accepts the following arguments:

usage: ldeploy content export [-h] --env ENV [--ini INI] [--debug] --folders
                              FOLDERS [FOLDERS ...] --local-target
                              LOCAL_TARGET

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --env ENV             What environment to deploy from
  --ini INI             ini file to parse for credentials
  --debug               set logger to debug for more verbosity
  --folders FOLDERS [FOLDERS ...]
                        What folders to export content from
  --local-target LOCAL_TARGET
                        Local directory to store content

Content Import

Once you have exported your content from your development environment you can use the import command to bring it into your production environment.

usage: ldeploy content import [-h] --env ENV [--ini INI] [--debug]
                              [--recursive] [--target-folder TARGET_FOLDER]
                              (--folders FOLDERS [FOLDERS ...] | --dashboards DASHBOARDS [DASHBOARDS ...] | --looks LOOKS [LOOKS ...])

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --env ENV             What environment to deploy to
  --ini INI             ini file to parse for credentials
  --debug               set logger to debug for more verbosity
  --recursive           Should folders deploy recursively
  --target-folder TARGET_FOLDER
                        override the default target folder with a custom path
  --folders FOLDERS [FOLDERS ...]
                        Folders to fully deploy
  --dashboards DASHBOARDS [DASHBOARDS ...]
                        Dashboards to deploy
  --looks LOOKS [LOOKS ...]
                        Looks to deploy

Import base folder Support has been added for importing contenting to base folders other than Shared. There are a few important notes to go along with that:

Users, Embed Users, and Embed Groups folders must exist before running the import, ldeploy cannot create them.
Users, Embed Users, and Embed Groups folders must be uniquely named.
"Shared" is the default base folder if no other is specified using "--target-folder"

Examples:

ldeploy content export --env dev --folders 1 --local-target ./foo/bar/ <- exports the Shared folder (id 1) and all sub-folders to the directory location ./foo/bar/
ldeploy content export --env dev --folders 5 8 --local-target ./foo/bar/ <- exports folders 5 and 8 (and all of their sub-folders) to the directory location ./foo/bar/
ldeploy content import --env prod --folders ./foo/bar/Shared/Public <- deploys every piece of content in Shared/Public to the prod instance
ldeploy content import --env prod --folders ./foo/bar/Shared/Public --recursive --target-folder Shared/FromDev/Public <- deploys every piece of content in Shared/Public and all sub-folders to the prod instance in the Shared/FromDev/Public folder.
ldeploy content import --env prod --dashboards ./foo/bar/Shared/Public/Dashboard_1.json ./foo/bar/Shared/Restricted/Dashboard_2.json <- deploys Dashboard1 and Dashboard2 to their respective folders in the prod instance
ldeploy content import --env prod --folders ./dev/Users --recursive --target-folder Users <- deploys every piece of content in dev/Users and all sub-folders to the prod instance in the Users folder
ldeploy content import --env prod --folders "./dev/Embed Users" --recursive --target-folder "Embed Users" <- deploys every piece of content in dev/Embed Users and all sub-folders to the prod instance in the Embed Groups folder
ldeploy content import --env prod --folders "./dev/Embed Groups" --recursive --target-folder "Embed Groups" <- deploys every piece of content in dev/Embed Groups and all sub-folders to the prod instance in the Embed Groups folder

Board Deployment

This command allows for the deployment of boards/homepages across instances. It attempts to resolve differences in dashboard/look ids across instances and confirms that the content is present before building the new board. Boards are matched by title - updating an existing board will result in the rebuilding of the relevant sections and items to prevent issues with attempting to match via title. If needing to update a board title, make use of the title-change parameter to allow the command to find the old title. The command accepts the following arguments:

usage: ldeploy boards [-h] --source SOURCE --target TARGET [TARGET ...]
                      --board BOARD [--ini INI] [--allow-partial]
                      [--title-change TITLE_CHANGE] [--debug]

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --source SOURCE       which environment to source the board from
  --target TARGET [TARGET ...]
                        which target environment(s) to deploy to
  --board BOARD         which board to deploy
  --ini INI             ini file to parse for credentials
  --allow-partial       allow partial deployment of board content if not all
                        content is present on target instance?
  --title-change TITLE_CHANGE
                        if updating title, the old title to replace in target
                        environments
  --debug               set logger to debug for more verbosity

Examples:

ldeploy boards --source dev --target prod --board 'My Cool Board' <- deploys the board 'My Cool Board' from dev to prod
ldeploy boards --source dev --target prod_1 prod_2 --allow-partial --board 'My Updated Title Board' --title-change 'My Cool Board' <- This deploys a board whose title has been changed from 'My Cool Board' to 'My Updated Title Board' from dev to two instances: prod_1 and prod_2. Any content not present in either prod instance will be skipped without raising any errors.

Connections Deployment

This command allows for the migration of database connections across instances. For security purposes, Looker's API does not transmit password credentials, so this command allows for the injection of these credentials from the .ini file.

The command accepts the following arguments:

usage: ldeploy connections [-h] --source SOURCE [--ini INI] --target TARGET
                           [TARGET ...] [--pattern PATTERN]
                           [--include-password] [--debug]

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --source SOURCE       which environment to source the board from
  --ini INI             ini file to parse for credentials
  --target TARGET [TARGET ...]
                        which target environment(s) to deploy to
  --pattern PATTERN     regex pattern to filter which connections are deployed
  --include-password    should passwords be set from the ini file?
  --debug               set logger to debug for more verbosity

Examples:

ldeploy connections --source dev --target prod <- This will deploy all connections in the dev instance to the prod instance. No credentials will be included and would need to be manually added from the Looker UI.
ldeploy connections --source dev --target prod --pattern ^bigquery --include-password <- This will deploy all connections that begin with bigquery from dev to prod and attempt to inject passwords included in the .ini file.

Code Deployment

This command will manage deployments of hub/spoke LookML code from the current Github master branch to the relevant production instance(s). This is accomplished by sending a GET request to each instances deploy endpoint and authenticating it with the webhook secret.

An overview of the relevant architecture (click to embiggen):

In order to use the code deployment tool, a code_config.yaml file is required. This file requires a list of instances - one for each client production instance. This list must include the name (used to refer to that instance in the commands), the endpoint, and the name of that instances spoke project. In addition, the config file requires an entry for the common hub project and can optionally include a list of names to instance names to exclude from hub deployments. Here's an example config:

instances:
  - name: calvin
    endpoint: https://looker-dev.company.com
    spoke_project: powered_by_spoke_ck
  - name: levis
    endpoint: https://looker-dev.company.com
    spoke_project: powered_by_spoke_lv

hub_project: powered_by_hub

The command accepts the following arguments:

usage: ldeploy code [-h] [--hub] [--spoke SPOKE [SPOKE ...]]
                    [--hub-exclude HUB_EXCLUDE [HUB_EXCLUDE ...]] [--debug]

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --hub                 flag to deploy hub project
  --spoke SPOKE [SPOKE ...]
                        which spoke(s) to deploy
  --hub-exclude HUB_EXCLUDE [HUB_EXCLUDE ...]
                        which projects should be ignored from hub deployment
  --debug               set logger to debug for more verbosity

Examples:

ldeploy code --hub <- This will deploy the hub project to all production instances
ldeploy code --spoke foo <- This will deploy the spoke project named "foo" to the relevant instance
ldeploy code --hub --spoke foo bar --hub-exclude bar --debug <- This will deploy the hub project to all instances except bar and then deploy the spoke projects foo and bar to their respective instances

Role Admin Settings

Due to the related nature of role settings in Looker, it is recommended to run these commands in the following order to ensure the prior information is available:

Model Sets
Permission Sets
Roles
Groups
Group in Group
Role to Group
User Attributes

Special Considerations:

If you have externally manged groups, you will need to ensure you update for SAML/LDAP is done prior to Group in Group. These special groups are not migrated by the code referenced above.

Model Sets Deployment

This command allows for the migration of model sets across instances.

Matching for create/update/delete will be based on the name of the setting, since IDs are auto-incremented.

The command accepts the following arguments:

usage: ldeploy model_sets [-h] --source SOURCE [--ini INI] --target TARGE [TARGET ...] [--pattern PATTERN] [--delete] [--debug]

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --source SOURCE       which environment to source the model sets from
  --ini INI             ini file to parse for credentials
  --target TARGET [TARGET ...]
                        which target environment(s) to deploy to
  --pattern PATTERN     regex pattern to filter
  --delete              allows for deletion from target based on name
  --debug               set logger to debug for more verbosity

Examples:

ldeploy model_sets --source dev --target prod <- This will deploy all model sets in the dev instance to the prod instance.
ldeploy model_sets --source dev --target prod --pattern ^test <- This will deploy all model sets that starts with test.

Permission Sets Deployment

This command allows for the migration of permission sets across instances.

Matching for create/update/delete will be based on the name of the setting, since IDs are auto-incremented.

The command accepts the following arguments:

usage: ldeploy permission_sets [-h] --source SOURCE [--ini INI] --target TARGE [TARGET ...] [--pattern PATTERN] [--delete] [--debug]

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --source SOURCE       which environment to source the permission sets from
  --ini INI             ini file to parse for credentials
  --target TARGET [TARGET ...]
                        which target environment(s) to deploy to
  --pattern PATTERN     regex pattern to filter
  --delete              allows for deletion from target based on name
  --debug               set logger to debug for more verbosity

Examples:

ldeploy permission_sets --source dev --target prod <- This will deploy all permission sets in the dev instance to the prod instance.
ldeploy permission_sets --source dev --target prod --pattern ^test <- This will deploy all permission sets that starts with test.

Roles Deployment

This command allows for the migration of roles across instances.

Matching for create/update/delete will be based on the name of the setting, since IDs are auto-incremented.

The command accepts the following arguments:

usage: ldeploy roles [-h] --source SOURCE [--ini INI] --target TARGE [TARGET ...] [--pattern PATTERN] [--delete] [--debug]

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --source SOURCE       which environment to source the roles from
  --ini INI             ini file to parse for credentials
  --target TARGET [TARGET ...]
                        which target environment(s) to deploy to
  --pattern PATTERN     regex pattern to filter
  --delete              allows for deletion from target based on name
  --debug               set logger to debug for more verbosity

Examples:

ldeploy roles --source dev --target prod <- This will deploy all roles in the dev instance to the prod instance.
ldeploy roles --source dev --target prod --pattern ^test <- This will deploy all roles that starts with test.

Groups Deployment

This command allows for the migration of non-externally managed groups across instances.

Matching for create/update/delete will be based on the name of the setting, since IDs are auto-incremented.

The command accepts the following arguments:

usage: ldeploy groups [-h] --source SOURCE [--ini INI] --target TARGE [TARGET ...] [--pattern PATTERN] [--delete] [--debug]

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --source SOURCE       which environment to source the groups from
  --ini INI             ini file to parse for credentials
  --target TARGET [TARGET ...]
                        which target environment(s) to deploy to
  --pattern PATTERN     regex pattern to filter
  --delete              allows for deletion from target based on name
  --debug               set logger to debug for more verbosity

Examples:

ldeploy groups --source dev --target prod <- This will deploy all groups in the dev instance to the prod instance.
ldeploy groups --source dev --target prod --pattern ^test <- This will deploy all groups that starts with test.

Group in Group (i.e. Groups Hierarchy) Deployment

This command allows for the migration of groups belonging to other groups across instances.

Matching for create or delete will be based on the name of the setting, since IDs are auto-incremented.

The command accepts the following arguments:

usage: ldeploy group_in_group [-h] --source SOURCE [--ini INI] --target TARGE [TARGET ...] [--pattern PATTERN] [--debug]

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --source SOURCE       which environment to source the group hierarchy from
  --ini INI             ini file to parse for credentials
  --target TARGET [TARGET ...]
                        which target environment(s) to deploy to
  --pattern PATTERN     regex pattern to filter
  --debug               set logger to debug for more verbosity

Examples:

ldeploy group_in_group --source dev --target prod <- This will deploy all group in groups in the dev instance to the prod instance.
ldeploy group_in_group --source dev --target prod --pattern ^test <- This will deploy all group in groups that starts with test.

Role to Group Deployment

This command allows for the migration of roles associated to groups across instances.

Matching for create or update will be based on the name of the setting, since IDs are auto-incremented.

The command accepts the following arguments:

usage: ldeploy role_to_group [-h] --source SOURCE [--ini INI] --target TARGE [TARGET ...] [--pattern PATTERN] [--debug]

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --source SOURCE       which environment to source the role to group from
  --ini INI             ini file to parse for credentials
  --target TARGET [TARGET ...]
                        which target environment(s) to deploy to
  --pattern PATTERN     regex pattern to filter
  --debug               set logger to debug for more verbosity

Examples:

ldeploy role_to_group --source dev --target prod <- This will deploy all roles to group in the dev instance to the prod instance.
ldeploy role_to_group --source dev --target prod --pattern ^test <- This will deploy all roles to groups that starts with test.

User Attributes Deployment

This command allows for the migration of non-system managed user attributes across instances (i.e. id, first_name, last_name, email).

Matching for create/update/delete will be based on the name of the setting, since IDs are auto-incremented. This includes assignments made for user attributes made by group names.

The command accepts the following arguments:

usage: ldeploy user_attributes [-h] --source SOURCE [--ini INI] --target TARGE [TARGET ...] [--pattern PATTERN] [--delete] [--debug]

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --source SOURCE       which environment to source the user attributes from
  --ini INI             ini file to parse for credentials
  --target TARGET [TARGET ...]
                        which target environment(s) to deploy to
  --pattern PATTERN     regex pattern to filter
  --delete              allows for deletion from target based on name
  --debug               set logger to debug for more verbosity

Examples:

ldeploy user_attributes --source dev --target prod <- This will deploy all user attributes in the dev instance to the prod instance.
ldeploy user_attributes --source dev --target prod --pattern ^test <- This will deploy all user attributes that starts with test.

Development

This project makes use of pipenv to manage dependencies. Follow the installation instructions. It is recommended to use pyenv to manage installing python versions.

Once pipenv has been installed, clone this repo, cd into it, and invoke pipenv install --ignore-pipfile

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README.md

README.md

Looker Deployer

Intro

Status and Support

Requirements

Authentication and Configuration

Installation

Dockerfile

Local Installation

Usage

Content Deployment

Content Export

Content Import

Examples:

Board Deployment

Examples:

Connections Deployment

Examples:

Code Deployment

Examples:

Role Admin Settings

Model Sets Deployment

Examples:

Permission Sets Deployment

Examples:

Roles Deployment

Examples:

Groups Deployment

Examples:

Group in Group (i.e. Groups Hierarchy) Deployment

Examples:

Role to Group Deployment

Examples:

User Attributes Deployment

Examples:

Development

Files

README.md

Latest commit

History

README.md

File metadata and controls

Looker Deployer

Intro

Status and Support

Requirements

Authentication and Configuration

Installation

Dockerfile

Local Installation

Usage

Content Deployment

Content Export

Content Import

Examples:

Board Deployment

Examples:

Connections Deployment

Examples:

Code Deployment

Examples:

Role Admin Settings

Model Sets Deployment

Examples:

Permission Sets Deployment

Examples:

Roles Deployment

Examples:

Groups Deployment

Examples:

Group in Group (i.e. Groups Hierarchy) Deployment

Examples:

Role to Group Deployment

Examples:

User Attributes Deployment

Examples:

Development