Trino and Metabase

The trino profile runs Trino, which queries PostgreSQL, Iceberg, ClickHouse, Kafka and Valkey through one SQL interface. The metabase profile runs Metabase, which draws charts and dashboards over those databases. Metabase keeps its own settings and dashboards in PostgreSQL, so both profiles start postgres. The end-to-end tests run the commands below on every release.

This guide builds on Getting Started. The catalogs read the services of earlier guides, such as Kafka, Ingest into Iceberg and ClickHouse, when their profiles are running. Start both profiles:

odctl up trino metabase

Endpoint	Address
Trino UI and JDBC from the host	http://127.0.0.1:8080
Metabase from the host	http://127.0.0.1:3000

Trino Catalogs

A Trino catalog is a configured connection to one data source. This lists them:

docker exec trino trino --execute "SHOW CATALOGS"

The command prints "clickhouse", "iceberg", "kafka", "postgres", "system" and "valkey", one per line, with a Picked up JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS line before them:

Catalog	Reads	Needs
postgres	the odctl database	nothing more
iceberg	tables in the REST catalog, with files on SeaweedFS	catalog
clickhouse	the feature_store database on ch-11	ch-lite or ch-full
kafka	topics, with fields from the Karapace schema registry	kafka-lite or kafka-full
valkey	keys in Valkey	valkey

Every catalog loads when Trino starts, even when its service is not running. A query against such a catalog fails until you start that profile. Catalogs finish loading after Trino's health endpoint starts answering, so SHOW CATALOGS can take a minute to list them all.

This runs a query with no table:

docker exec trino trino --execute "SELECT 1"

It prints "1". Trino has no password authentication, so it accepts any user name. docker exec -it trino trino connects as trino. Pass --user user to use the name the rest of the stack uses. Trino Access Rules explains the rules in trino/rules.json.

The Trino UI at http://127.0.0.1:8080 asks only for a user name. It shows the cluster and the queries that ran in the last few minutes.

Metabase

Open http://127.0.0.1:3000 and create the first admin account. Then add each database under Admin settings, Databases, with these settings:

Database type	Host	Port	Other settings
PostgreSQL	postgres	5432	database odctl, user user, password password
ClickHouse	ch-11	8123	database default, user default, password password, no SSL
Starburst (for Trino)	trino	8080	catalog postgres, schema public, user admin, no SSL

Metabase runs inside the odctl network, so it reaches each database by container name. Use the Starburst driver for Trino, because it is the Trino driver Metabase ships. It needs a catalog, and any catalog in the table above works.

Metabase takes a while to start. It is ready when this request answers {"status":"ok"}:

curl http://127.0.0.1:3000/api/health

A SQL question on the PostgreSQL connection, shown as a bar chart:

From Another Container

Inside the odctl network, Trino is at http://trino:8080 and Metabase at http://metabase:3000.

Runnable Example

Save this file as example.sh and run it with bash example.sh in the folder that holds your .odctl workspace. It waits for the catalogs and for Metabase before it runs the commands above:

#!/usr/bin/env bash
# Starts trino and metabase, waits until every Trino catalog has loaded and
# Metabase answers, then lists the catalogs and runs a query.
set -euo pipefail

odctl up trino metabase

# Catalogs finish loading after Trino's health endpoint answers.
until docker exec trino trino --execute "SHOW CATALOGS" 2>/dev/null | grep '"valkey"' >/dev/null; do sleep 5; done
docker exec trino trino --execute "SHOW CATALOGS"
docker exec trino trino --execute "SELECT 1"

until curl -fs http://127.0.0.1:3000/api/health; do sleep 5; done
echo

It prints the six catalogs, "1" and {"status":"ok"}.