[I/O] InfluxDB adapter: CRATEDB_SQLALCHEMY_URL not working when using the Docker-aliased command

[amotl]

Procedure

alias ctk="docker run --rm -it ghcr.io/crate-workbench/cratedb-toolkit:latest ctk"
export CRATEDB_SQLALCHEMY_URL=crate://crate@localhost:4200/testdrive/demo
ctk load table influxdb2://example:token@localhost:8086/testdrive/demo

Problem

KeyError: 'Either CrateDB Cloud Cluster identifier or CrateDB SQLAlchemy or HTTP URL needs to be supplied. Use --cluster-id / --cratedb-sqlalchemy-url / --cratedb-http-url CLI options or CRATEDB_CLOUD_CLUSTER_ID / CRATEDB_SQLALCHEMY_URL / CRATEDB_HTTP_URL environment variables.'

References

• https://cratedb.com/docs/guide/integrate/etl/influxdb.html
• crate/cratedb-guide#82

[amotl]

Evaluation

Environment variables are not propagated through the command alias, which is a bit bare-bones up until now.

We will need to extend it like (untested):

alias ctk="docker run --rm -it --env="CRATEDB_SQLALCHEMY_URL='${CRATEDB_SQLALCHEMY_URL}'" ghcr.io/crate-workbench/cratedb-toolkit:latest ctk"

Thoughts

In order to enumerate all possible environment variables, the list would quickly grow, and may look unwieldly to handle and use.

Suggestions

• Improve the documentation, to document only "forwarding" the environment variable CRATEDB_SQLALCHEMY_URL, and otherwise refer the dear reader to the --env-file option of docker run, admitting and educating about that the alias command is only a conveniency shortcut, and may not deliver all available powers of ctk load table without further adjustments.

[amotl]

We decided to not use environment variable configuration together with the Docker command alias operation mode.