Install and Configure PoolParty GraphViews

02/09/2025

This guide explains how to install and configure GraphViews, a tool that helps you visualize your PoolParty taxonomies.

To deploy GraphViews, ensure the system satisfies the following prerequisites:

The same Java version as required for PoolParty must be installed on the server.
A PoolParty server must be running and accessible from the server where GraphViews will be hosted.
A dedicated PoolParty user for GraphViews must exist. This user must meet the following criteria:
1. The user must have an API admin role.
2. The user must be assigned to at least one PoolParty group with at least one project assigned to this group.

GraphViews can be configured by creating a text file called graphviews.properties. The application checks for this file in the following locations:

The same directory as the .jar file.
A subdirectory named config within the same directory as the .jar file.
A directory or file specified by the spring.config.additional-location startup option. For instance, you might use java -jar GraphViews.jar --spring.config.additional-location=file:/path-to-your-properties-file/graphviews.properties to start the application.

The following properties must be configured in your graphviews.properties file:

pp.username: The username of the API admin user.
pp.password: The password for the API admin user.
pp.url: The URL of the PoolParty server.

You can also configure optional properties to customize the application's behavior:

graphviews.languages.allowed: A comma-separated list specifying allowed languages (for example: en, de).
logging.level.root: Sets the logging level (default is INFO).
logging.file: Specifies the path for log file output (logs are written to the console by default).
server.port: The port number for GraphViews (defaults to 8080).

Note

You can find a complete list of configurable properties in the Spring Boot Common Application Properties documentation.

Instead of a properties file, you can use environment variables to configure GraphViews. These are the environment variables corresponding to the properties mentioned above:

Property	Environment Variable
`pp.url`	`PP_URL`
`pp.username`	`PP_USER`
`pp.password`	`PP_PASS`
`graphviews.languages.allowed`	`LANGUAGES_ALLOWED`

It is assumed that you already have created a PKCS12 key file and have the required certificates.

How to configure GraphViews

Open the graphviews.properties file and add the following lines:

server.port=443
server.ssl.key-alias=springboot
server.ssl.key-store-password=<your-pw>
server.ssl.key-store=/home/ec2-user/<mykey.p12>

Tip

The default SSL port is 443 but you can specify this port to match your actual SSL configuration on your system.

The following placeholders in the third line (<your-pw>) and in the fourth line <mykey.p12> have to be replaced to match the actual settings configured for your system.

Note

Please make sure that you only have a single server.port definition in your graphviews.properties file.

If a key password has been already set, you have to add an additional property to the graphviews.properties file which is server.ssl.key-password which has to contain this password.

Verification that users can bind to port 443

Start GraphViews to verify whether there are any restrictions preventing users from binding to port 443.

Tip

If there are restrictions preventing users from binding to port 443 we recommend creating a specific system user for GraphViews who is allowed to bind to port 443 and who does not have full sudo permissions. This procedure will make GraphViews available via SSL.

To start GraphViews via SSL enter

java -jar GraphViews.jar

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