How to connect google bigtable outside of google cloud platform - bigtable

Question

I have a Google Bigtable cluster created.
I'm trying to connect following this tutorial
I was trying to download their cli project and build it, but when I try to execute any command it fails. Also I tried to build my simpler example of connector. Here it is:
import org.apache.hadoop.hbase.client.Admin;
import org.apache.hadoop.hbase.client.Connection;
import org.apache.hadoop.hbase.client.ConnectionFactory;
import org.apache.log4j.Logger;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.util.ArrayList;
public class BigTableTestConnector {
private final static Logger logger = Logger.getLogger(BigTableTestConnector.class);
public void testConnection() throws MasterNotRunningException, ZooKeeperConnectionException {
try {
Connection connection = ConnectionFactory.createConnection();
String tableName = "testTable";
ArrayList<String> columnFamilies = new ArrayList<String>();
columnFamilies.add("columnFamily1");
columnFamilies.add("columnFamily2");
columnFamilies.add("justString");
columnFamilies.add("uhhaha");
Admin admin = connection.getAdmin();
HTableDescriptor tableDescriptor = new HTableDescriptor(tableName);
for (String colFamily : columnFamilies) {
tableDescriptor.addFamily(new HColumnDescriptor(colFamily));
}
admin.createTable(tableDescriptor);
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
logger.info("done");
}
public static void main(String... args) throws Exception {
BigTableTestConnector bttc = new BigTableTestConnector();
bttc.testConnection();
}
}
but when I run it on my local machine, I get following exception
java.io.IOException: java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException
at org.apache.hadoop.hbase.client.ConnectionFactory.createConnection(ConnectionFactory.java:240)
at org.apache.hadoop.hbase.client.ConnectionFactory.createConnection(ConnectionFactory.java:218)
at org.apache.hadoop.hbase.client.ConnectionFactory.createConnection(ConnectionFactory.java:90)
at com.zoomdata.thrift.provider.BigTableTestConnector.testConnection(BigTableTestConnector.java:33)
at com.zoomdata.thrift.provider.BigTableTestConnector.main(BigTableTestConnector.java:81)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:62)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:497)
at com.intellij.rt.execution.application.AppMain.main(AppMain.java:134)
Caused by: java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException
at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance0(Native Method)
at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.java:62)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.java:45)
at java.lang.reflect.Constructor.newInstance(Constructor.java:422)
at org.apache.hadoop.hbase.client.ConnectionFactory.createConnection(ConnectionFactory.java:238)
... 9 more
Caused by: java.io.IOException: Error getting access token from metadata server at: http://metadata/computeMetadata/v1/instance/service-accounts/default/token
at com.google.cloud.bigtable.hbase.CredentialFactory.getCredentialFromMetadataServiceAccount(CredentialFactory.java:100)
at com.google.cloud.bigtable.hbase.BigtableOptionsFactory.fromConfiguration(BigtableOptionsFactory.java:236)
at org.apache.hadoop.hbase.client.BigtableConnection.<init>(BigtableConnection.java:120)
... 14 more
Caused by: java.io.IOException: ComputeEngineCredentials cannot find the metadata server. This is likely because code is not running on Google Compute Engine.
at com.google.auth.oauth2.ComputeEngineCredentials.refreshAccessToken(ComputeEngineCredentials.java:63)
at com.google.auth.oauth2.OAuth2Credentials.refresh(OAuth2Credentials.java:76)
at com.google.cloud.bigtable.hbase.CredentialFactory.getCredentialFromMetadataServiceAccount(CredentialFactory.java:98)
... 16 more
Caused by: java.net.UnknownHostException: metadata
at java.net.AbstractPlainSocketImpl.connect(AbstractPlainSocketImpl.java:184)
at java.net.SocksSocketImpl.connect(SocksSocketImpl.java:392)
at java.net.Socket.connect(Socket.java:589)
at sun.net.NetworkClient.doConnect(NetworkClient.java:175)
at sun.net.www.http.HttpClient.openServer(HttpClient.java:432)
at sun.net.www.http.HttpClient.openServer(HttpClient.java:527)
at sun.net.www.http.HttpClient.<init>(HttpClient.java:211)
at sun.net.www.http.HttpClient.New(HttpClient.java:308)
at sun.net.www.http.HttpClient.New(HttpClient.java:326)
at sun.net.www.protocol.http.HttpURLConnection.getNewHttpClient(HttpURLConnection.java:1168)
at sun.net.www.protocol.http.HttpURLConnection.plainConnect0(HttpURLConnection.java:1104)
at sun.net.www.protocol.http.HttpURLConnection.plainConnect(HttpURLConnection.java:998)
at sun.net.www.protocol.http.HttpURLConnection.connect(HttpURLConnection.java:932)
at com.google.bigtable.repackaged.com.google.api.client.http.javanet.NetHttpRequest.execute(NetHttpRequest.java:93)
at com.google.bigtable.repackaged.com.google.api.client.http.HttpRequest.execute(HttpRequest.java:965)
at com.google.auth.oauth2.ComputeEngineCredentials.refreshAccessToken(ComputeEngineCredentials.java:61)
... 18 more
It said:
ComputeEngineCredentials cannot find the metadata server. This is likely because code is not running on Google Compute Engine.
So does it mean that this code can run only inside Compute Engine?
Is there a way to connect to it from my local computer? Does anyone have any examples of this?

Answer 1

For running locally, you need to make sure that the environment variable GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS is set to your key.json you got from cloud console. This is the likely cause in your case.