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Quickstart

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This quickstart guides you through deploying a local instance of Airbyte Self-Managed Community, Airbyte's open source product. Setup only takes a few minutes, and you can start moving data immediately.

Overview​

This quickstart is for most people who want to manage their own Airbyte instance. It assumes you have basic knowledge of command-line tools. It's also helpful, but not necessary, to understand the basics of Docker.

This quickstart shows you how to:

If you don't want to self-manage Airbyte, skip this guide. Sign up for an Airbyte Cloud trial and start syncing data now.

If you want to use Python to move data, Airbyte's Python library, PyAirbyte, might be the best fit for you. It's a good choice if you're using Jupyter Notebook or iterating on an early prototype for a large data project and don't need to run your own server.

Suggested resources​

For best performance, run Airbyte on a machine with 4 or more CPUs and at least 8-GB of memory. Airbyte also runs with 2 CPUs and 8-GB of memory in low-resource mode. This guide explains how to do both. Follow this Github discussion to up-vote and track progress toward supporting lower resource environments.

Part 1: Install Docker Desktop​

Install Docker Desktop on your machine, if you haven't already. Follow the steps for your operating system in Docker's online help, linked below.

You don't need to do anything with Docker, but you do need to run it in the background. Once it's open, minimize it and proceed to Part 2.

Why do you need Docker?

Airbyte runs on Kubernetes. When you deploy Airbyte locally, it uses Docker to create a Kubernetes cluster on your computer.

Part 2: Install abctl​

abctl is Airbyte's command-line tool for deploying and managing Airbyte.

Install abctl the fast way (Mac, Linux)​

This is the best way to get abctl, but this method doesn't work on Windows.

  1. Open a terminal and run the following command.

    curl -LsfS https://get.airbyte.com | bash -

  2. If your terminal asks you to enter your password, do so.

When installation completes, you see abctl install succeeded.

Install abctl manually (Mac, Linux, Windows)​

To install abctl yourself, follow the instructions for your operating system.

Use Homebrew to install abctl.

  1. Install Homebrew, if you haven't already.

  2. Run the following commands after you install Homebrew.

    brew tap airbytehq/tap
    brew install abctl

  3. Keep abctl up to date with Homebrew, too.

    brew upgrade abctl

Part 3: Run Airbyte​

  1. Open Docker Desktop, which you installed previously.

  2. Install Airbyte. To do this, open a terminal and run the following command.

    abctl local install

    To run Airbyte in a low-resource environment (fewer than 4 CPUs), specify the --low-resource-mode flag to the local install command.

    abctl local install --low-resource-mode
    note

    If you see the warning Encountered an issue deploying Airbyte with the message Readiness probe failed: HTTP probe failed with statuscode: 503, allow installation to continue. You may need to allocate more resources for Airbyte, but installation can complete anyway. See Suggested resources.

    Installation may take up to 30 minutes depending on your internet connection. When it completes, your Airbyte instance opens in your web browser at http://localhost:8000. As long as Docker Desktop is running in the background, use Airbyte by returning to http://localhost:8000. If you quit Docker Desktop and want to return to Airbyte, start Docker Desktop again. Once your containers are running, you can access Airbyte normally.

  3. Enter your Email and Organization name, then click Get Started.

Airbyte asks you to log in with a password, but you don't have one yet. Proceed to Part 4 to get one.

Part 4: Set up authentication​

To access your Airbyte instance, you need a password.

  1. Get your default password.

    abctl local credentials

    This outputs something like this:

    Credentials:
    Email: user@example.com
    Password: a-random-password
    Client-Id: 03ef466c-5558-4ca5-856b-4960ba7c161b
    Client-Secret: m2UjnDO4iyBQ3IsRiy5GG3LaZWP6xs9I

  2. Return to your browser and use that password to log into Airbyte.

  3. Optional: Since you probably want to set your own password, you can change it any time.

    abctl local credentials --password YourStrongPasswordExample

    Your Airbyte server restarts. Once it finishes, use your new password to log into Airbyte again.

What's next​

Congratulations! You have a fully functional instance of Airbyte running locally.

Move data​

In Airbyte, you move data from sources to destinations. The relationship between a source and a destination is called a connection. Try moving some data on your local instance.

Deploy Airbyte​

If you want to scale data movement in your organization, you probably need to move Airbyte off your local machine. You can deploy to a cloud provider like AWS, Google Cloud, or Azure. You can also use a single node like an AWS EC2 virtual machine. See the deployment guide to learn more.

Uninstall Airbyte​

To stop running all containers, but keep your data:

abctl local uninstall

To stop running containers and delete all data:

  1. Uninstall Airbyte with the --persisted flag.

    abctl local uninstall --persisted

  2. Clear any remaining information abctl created.

    rm -rf ~/.airbyte/abctl
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