OpenRefine running "natively" on Binderhub

[psychemedia]

Hi

I was wondering if there's a way of defining a Binder build so that rather than OpenRefine being launched via a Jupyter menu, OpenRefine, rather than Jupyter notebook homepage, is the default "first class" service page when the repo is lanuched via Binderhub.

Does Binderhub require that a Jupyter notebook service is running, or can Binderhub be used to launch arbitrary services (such as a standalone OpenRefine application?).

[psychemedia]

I think this relates to jupyterhub/binderhub#258

[betatim]

I think binderhub respects the command set in a Dockerfile which means you could launch OpenRefine directly. All it really cares about is that a web server appears on the specified IP and port.

There is some discussion on setting the command here jupyterhub/mybinder.org-user-guide#87

[felixlohmeier]

I think this issue is solved by #8 or what does "first class" mean actually?

[betatim]

I think what @psychemedia was thinking of is that you don't get the Jupyter notebook interface when you start a binder, but instead directly see OpenRefine. The "native" (to me) means that you talk directly to OpenRefine instead of via the proxy that we use.

[felixlohmeier]

Ah, thanks, now I get it.

... that you don't get the Jupyter notebook interface when you start a binder, but instead directly see OpenRefine

This is solved by the "quickstart" link in the readme with urlpath=/openrefine: https://mybinder.org/v2/gh/betatim/openrefineder/master?urlpath=%2Fopenrefine

The "native" (to me) means that you talk directly to OpenRefine instead of via the proxy that we use.

As you wrote above in comment #3 (comment) it would be possible to launch OpenRefine natively (without the proxy) via Dockerfile config but I don't see any advantages from a user perspective.

[betatim]

re: native openrefine

Another thing to consider if we wanted to do this: we need some kind of proxy that understands how to update the "this container is still active" timestamp of JupyterHub so I think you wouldn't gain much.

[psychemedia]

I think what I actually meant was a more of a limiting case example - a way of launching and running OpenRefine from MyBinder using a Dockerfile built container that didn't include a Jupyter server.

The question I had in mind was: can I use Binderhub to launch arbitrary containerised applications with http UIs.

From @betatim's comment, I guess this means any such container would need some sort of heartbeat shim to keep JupyterHub happy?

Something like:

???

[betatim]

From @betatim's comment, I guess this means any such container would need some sort of heartbeat shim to keep JupyterHub happy?

Nods. That is my understanding, I've never experimentally verified this though and with software you never know.

[psychemedia]

If I understand it correctly, jhsingle-native-proxy provides a shim for/wrapper around an arbitrary app that looks like a Jupyter server without requiring a Jupyter server.

When it first came out I think I tried to wrap OpenRefine with it, but IIRC didn't have much success at the time. Code / examples / docs may have moved on since then, so I'll try it again when I get a chance. (This is just a placeholder / reminder to self for that...)