Connecting to the Database
Cube.js currently provides connectors to the following databases:
| Database | Cube.js DB Type |
|---|---|
| PostgreSQL | postgres |
| MySQL | mysql |
| AWS Athena | athena |
| AWS Redshift | redshift |
| MongoDB (via MongoDB Connector for BI) | mongobi |
| Google BigQuery | bigquery |
| MS SQL | mssql |
| ClickHouse | clickhouse |
| Snowflake | snowflake |
| Presto | prestodb |
| Hive / SparkSQL (thrift) | hive |
| Oracle | oracle |
| Apache Druid | druid |
| SQLite | sqlite |
If you'd like to connect to a database which is not yet supported, you can create a Cube.js-compliant driver package. Here's a simple step-by-step guide.
When you create a new Cube.js app with the Cube.js CLI, the
.env will be generated to manage all connection credentials. The set of
variables could be different based on your database type. For example, for
PostgreSQL the .env will look like this:
CUBEJS_DB_HOST=<YOUR_DB_HOST_HERE>
CUBEJS_DB_NAME=<YOUR_DB_NAME_HERE>
CUBEJS_DB_USER=<YOUR_DB_USER_HERE>
CUBEJS_DB_PASS=<YOUR_DB_PASS_HERE>
CUBEJS_DB_TYPE=postgres
CUBEJS_API_SECRET=secret
The table below shows which environment variables are used for different databases:
| Database | Credentials |
|---|---|
| PostgreSQL, MySQL, AWS Redshift, ClickHouse, Hive/SparkSQL, Oracle | CUBEJS_DB_HOST, CUBEJS_DB_PORT, CUBEJS_DB_NAME, CUBEJS_DB_USER, CUBEJS_DB_PASS |
| MS SQL | CUBEJS_DB_HOST, CUBEJS_DB_PORT, CUBEJS_DB_NAME, CUBEJS_DB_USER, CUBEJS_DB_PASS, CUBEJS_DB_DOMAIN |
| AWS Athena | CUBEJS_AWS_KEY, CUBEJS_AWS_SECRET, CUBEJS_AWS_REGION, CUBEJS_AWS_S3_OUTPUT_LOCATION |
| Google Bigquery | CUBEJS_DB_BQ_PROJECT_ID, CUBEJS_DB_BQ_KEY_FILE or CUBEJS_DB_BQ_CREDENTIALS |
| MongoDB | CUBEJS_DB_HOST, CUBEJS_DB_NAME, CUBEJS_DB_PORT, CUBEJS_DB_USER, CUBEJS_DB_PASS, CUBEJS_DB_SSL, CUBEJS_DB_SSL_CA, CUBEJS_DB_SSL_CERT, CUBEJS_DB_SSL_CIPHERS, CUBEJS_DB_SSL_PASSPHRASE |
| Snowflake | CUBEJS_DB_SNOWFLAKE_ACCOUNT, CUBEJS_DB_SNOWFLAKE_REGION, CUBEJS_DB_SNOWFLAKE_WAREHOUSE, CUBEJS_DB_SNOWFLAKE_ROLE, CUBEJS_DB_SNOWFLAKE_CLIENT_SESSION_KEEP_ALIVE, CUBEJS_DB_NAME, CUBEJS_DB_USER, CUBEJS_DB_PASS |
| Presto | CUBEJS_DB_HOST, CUBEJS_DB_PORT, CUBEJS_DB_CATALOG, CUBEJS_DB_SCHEMA, CUBEJS_DB_USER, CUBEJS_DB_PASS |
| Druid | CUBEJS_DB_URL, CUBEJS_DB_USER, CUBEJS_DB_PASS |
| SQLite | CUBEJS_DB_NAME |
To enable external pre-aggregations you need to configure an external database to store these pre-aggregations.
Cube.js provides a set of environment variables to configure a connection to an external database:
CUBEJS_EXT_DB_HOST=<YOUR_DB_HOST_HERE>
CUBEJS_EXT_DB_PORT=<YOUR_DB_PORT_HERE>
CUBEJS_EXT_DB_NAME=<YOUR_DB_NAME_HERE>
CUBEJS_EXT_DB_USER=<YOUR_DB_USER_HERE>
CUBEJS_EXT_DB_PASS=<YOUR_DB_PASS_HERE>
CUBEJS_EXT_DB_TYPE=<SUPPORTED_DB_TYPE_HERE>
Cube.js supports SSL-encrypted connections for Postgres, MongoDB, MS SQL, and
MySQL. To enable it set the CUBEJS_DB_SSL environment variable to true.
Cube.js can also be configured to use custom connection settings. For example,
to use a custom CA and certificates, you could do the following:
CUBEJS_DB_SSL_CA=/ssl/ca.pem
CUBEJS_DB_SSL_CERT=/ssl/cert.pem
CUBEJS_DB_SSL_KEY=/ssl/key.pem
For a complete list of SSL-related environment variables, consult the Database Connections section of the Environment Variables Reference.
Below you can find useful tips for configuring the connection to specific databases.
To use Cube.js with MongoDB you need to install MongoDB Connector for BI. You can download it here. Learn more about setup for MongoDB here.
Use CUBEJS_DB_SSL=true to enable SSL as MongoDB Atlas requires it. All other
SSL-related environment variables can be left unset.
Use CUBEJS_DB_SSL=true to enable SSL if you have SSL enabled for your RDS
cluster. Download the new certificate here, and provide the
contents of the downloaded file to CUBEJS_DB_SSL_CA. All other SSL-related
environment variables can be left unset. See Enabling SSL
for more details. More info on AWS RDS SSL can be found
here.
For Athena, you'll need to specify the AWS access and secret keys with the access necessary to run Athena queries, and the target AWS region and S3 output location where query results are stored.
In order to connect BigQuery to Cube.js, you need to provide service account credentials. Cube.js requires the service account to have BigQuery Data Viewer and BigQuery Job User roles enabled.
You can set the CUBEJS_DB_BQ_KEY_FILE environment variable with a path to a
JSON key file.
CUBEJS_DB_BQ_KEY_FILE=/path/to/key-file.json
You could also encode the key file with Base64:
CUBEJS_DB_BQ_CREDENTIALS=$(cat /path/to/key-file.json | base64)
You can learn more about acquiring Google BigQuery credentials here and here.
You can connect to an SSL-enabled MySQL database by setting CUBEJS_DB_SSL to
true. You may also need to set CUBEJS_DB_SSL_SERVERNAME, depending on how
you are connecting to Cloud SQL.
To connect to a local MySQL database using a UNIX socket use
CUBEJS_DB_SOCKET_PATH, by doing so, CUBEJS_DB_HOST will be ignored.
You can connect to an SSL-enabled MySQL database by setting CUBEJS_DB_SSL to
true. All other SSL-related environment variables can be left unset. See
Enabling SSL for more details.
Cube.js supports connection to multiple databases out-of-the-box. Please refer to Multitenancy Guide to learn more.
