Installation
Hybrid deployment
Sign in to the hosted SQL Flow control plane, open outbound access for your agents and brokers, and connect your first agent.
In a hybrid deployment the control plane is hosted for you on the web, and you run agents and log brokers in your own network. Your data moves only between your databases and your agents; the hosted control plane sends instructions and receives status.
Before you begin
- A SQL Flow account. Contact Spectral Core to create your account and make you its admin; you can then add other users. A welcome email titled Your SQL Flow account gives you the sign-in link, your email and a one-time password.
- A 64-bit Windows or Linux machine for each agent, with network access to your sources and targets. See Agents.
- Administrator rights on the database host, if a pipeline uses a capture mode that needs a log broker.
- Permission to open outbound HTTPS from those machines to the control plane.
Sign in
- Open the sign-in link from your welcome email in a browser. The page reads Sign in to SQL Flow.
- Enter your Email and Password, and select Sign in.
- The first time you sign in with a one-time password, SQL Flow asks you to choose your own. Use at least 12 characters, with an uppercase letter, a lowercase letter and a digit. Until you do, nothing else in SQL Flow is available.
If you forget your password, select Forgot password? on the sign-in page. The reset link in the email works for 1 hour.
If you belong to more than one account, switch between them in the account menu at the top right. Agents, brokers, connections and pipelines belong to one account.
Agents and brokers connect to https://app.sqlflow.com when their install command has no --control-plane. If your control plane has another address, the Add agent and Add broker panels add --control-plane with it.
Allow outbound access
Agents and brokers start every connection to the control plane themselves, so you open outbound rules only. Nothing on the internet connects into your network.
| From | To | Port |
|---|---|---|
| Agent hosts | The control plane's host name | TCP 443 (HTTPS) |
| Log broker hosts | The control plane's host name | TCP 443 (HTTPS) |
| Users' browsers | The control plane's host name, and the Azure Blob Storage address (<account>.blob.core.windows.net) that CLI, agent and broker download links point to | TCP 443 (HTTPS) |
| Agent hosts | Your databases, log brokers (TCP 7003) and, for relay, apply agents (TCP 7420) | Inside your network |
See Network and ports for proxies and every port.
Connect your first agent
- Open Agents and select Add agent.
- Choose Windows or Linux, download the agent and copy it to the agent machine.
- Select Copy command and run the command on the agent machine, in an administrator PowerShell prompt or with
sudo. The command carries a join code that is valid for 15 minutes and for one agent:
.\SqlFlow.Agent.exe install --account <join_code>- Back on Agents, check the new agent's name and select Approve agent.
Any member of the account except a Viewer can add and approve agents. See Agents for the service it installs, its data directory and its options.
If a pipeline captures with DirectLog, or with Reconstruction on SQL Server or Sybase ASE, add a log broker on the database host the same way, with Add broker. See Log brokers.
Verify
- On Agents, the agent's status chip reads Online within seconds of approval.
- In the pipeline wizard, choose a source and select Test connection & list tables. The test runs on your agent, so a table list proves the agent reaches your database.
