Alternative Chromium/Google-Chrome renderer installation

[Diego_Solorzano]

Note: The following guide is intended for customer-hosted instances only. It has been validated for Ubuntu and Debian operating systems.

There are some occasions where we need to install a specific Chromium/Google-Chrome version to avoid a bug or maintain a stable version. For these cases, we will follow some of the steps from the official Looker documentation for the renderer installation with a few alternative steps.

We will be installing version 97.0.4692.99, but if another version is needed, here is a list of all available versions.

1. We start by downloading and installing the required fonts and Google Chrome from the official packages.

   sudo apt-get install fonts-freefont-otf
   
   sudo wget --no-verbose -O /tmp/chrome.deb https://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/pool/main/g/google-chrome-stable/google-chrome-stable_97.0.4692.99-1_amd64.deb
   
   sudo apt install -y /tmp/chrome.deb
   
   sudo rm /tmp/chrome.deb

2. Test the correct installation by running

   google-chrome-stable --version

   Output should be: Google Chrome 97.0.4692.99

3. Edit the ~/.bashrc file and append the following line:

   alias chromium='google-chrome-stable'

   Looker will run the "chromium" command to render documents so the alias maps that command to the installed one.

4. Read the new configuration with:

   source ~/.bashrc

5. To make this alias known and usable for Looker, run the following command:

   sudo ln -s /usr/bin/google-chrome-stable /usr/bin/chromium

6. Test the "chromium" alias:

   chromium --version

   Output should be the same: Google Chrome 97.0.4692.99

It is recommended to restart the server once this configuration has been done to verify the persistency of it. Looker should be able to normally render reports now.

If we get an error message like the following: 

"The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 4EB27DB2A3B88B8B"

We will need to search for that public key in the Ubuntu server:

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80 --recv-keys 4EB27DB2A3B88B8B

sudo apt-get update

If you need any assistance for these steps or any issues with the renderer process, you can contact Google Cloud - Looker Support. We will gladly help you!