Remotely access collected data

WHEN : basicly, if you don't want to download each time all the CSV files and change the datasource filepath in the PowerBI file. Or if you want a faster way to "refresh" the PowerBi files.
THE CASE (1) : you manage a lot of servers and don't have time to download manually all the files, each time.
THE CASE (2) : you work with non-technical people and you want to enable them to view performance data "on the fly" without bothering you with "sorry, errr.... how do i download the files?"

THE ANSWER : give the ProxyBI a try! It will listen for http connection on localhost and perform the remote "cat" on the linux servers for you (or for your users).

Configure ProxyBI

  1. ProxyBi needs SSH.NET from codeplex, please download it from https://sshnet.codeplex.com/
  2. Download the ProxyBI source code and compile it, or use the binary in the release files of the download section.
  3. ProxyBI will open an ssh connection to the remote host, please ensure that the host on which you're running ProxyBI can reach the remote (target) server
  4. Run the ProxyBI executables with the "-h" or "-?" or "--help" command line parameter to have USAGE help to (eventually) configure the bind address/port.

Use ProxyBI

  1. ProxyBI is running, is listening on an address : port and is accepting connections.
  2. You could open your favoure data analysis tool (PowerBI, Excel, etc) and simply open the file(s) on the remote host using an URL similar to this (please customize them based on your credentials/paths) :

EXAMPLE : this will get the content of the /var/tmp/file.csv file on machine host123, using username myusername and password mypassword
http://127.0.0.1:18080/ssh::host123::myusername::mypassword/getFile/var/tmp/file.csv
EXAMPLE : this will get the content of the /var/tmp/file.csv file on machine host123, using username myusername and your private ssh key at the path c:\mykeys\mykey.priv. Please note that you may need to manually escape the \ character of the path with the char sequence %5C
http://127.0.0.1:18080/ssh::host124::myusername::c:%5Cmykeys%5Cmykey.priv/getFile/var/tmp/file.csv

Basicly when your program try to open the HTTP connection to get the CSV file ProxyBI will split the URL, getting all the connection details and file position, then it tries to connect to the remote host and perform a simple cat of that file. The output is then returned to your program.