Switch to Docker-based deployment of Metabase (>=v0.46) on Heroku

Question

Since Metabase deprecated Heroku support with the release of v0.45, the metabase-deploy workflow doesn't upgrade to the latest version anymore.

Going forward, it seems we need to use Docker-based deployments on Heroku, but the Upgrading Metabase page doesn't provide any instructions on how to switch from the previous deployment method. Can anybody point us in the right direction?

Jordan Owens · Answer 1 · 2023-06-22T23:44:55.280

I was able to get a Metabase container running by creating the two files mentioned in this post. First I pulled down the Heroku repo for the app and then replaced the files with these ones:

Dockerfile

FROM metabase/metabase:v0.46.5

COPY docker-entrypoint.sh /app/

RUN ["chmod", "+x", "/app/docker-entrypoint.sh"]

ENTRYPOINT [ "/app/docker-entrypoint.sh" ]

docker-entrypoint.sh

#!/usr/bin/env bash

if [ "$PORT" ]; then
    export MB_JETTY_PORT="$PORT"
fi

if [ "$DATABASE_URL" ]; then
    export MB_DB_CONNECTION_URI="$DATABASE_URL"
fi

# We need to override the $JAVA_OPTS and give it a slightly lower memory limit
# because Heroku tends to think we can use more memory than we actually can.
JAVA_OPTS="$JAVA_OPTS -XX:+UnlockExperimentalVMOptions"
JAVA_OPTS+=" -XX:+UseContainerSupport"         # Tell the JVM to use container info to set heap limit -- see https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/java-memory-issues#configuring-java-to-run-in-a-container
JAVA_OPTS+=" -XX:-UseGCOverheadLimit"          # Disable limit to amount of time spent in GC. Better slow than not working at all
JAVA_OPTS+=" -XX:+UseCompressedOops"           # Use 32-bit pointers. Reduces memory usage
JAVA_OPTS+=" -XX:+UseCompressedClassPointers"  # Same as above. See also http://blog.leneghan.com/2012/03/reducing-java-memory-usage-and-garbage.html
JAVA_OPTS+=" -Xverify:none"                    # Skip bytecode verification, the Heroku buildpack comes from us so it's already verified. Speed up launch slightly
JAVA_OPTS+=" -XX:+UseG1GC"                     # G1GC seems to use slightly less memory in my testing...
JAVA_OPTS+=" -XX:+UseStringDeduplication"      # Especially when used in combination with string deduplication

# Other Java options
JAVA_OPTS+=" -server"                  # Run in server mode. This is the default for 64-bit JVM
JAVA_OPTS+=" -Djava.awt.headless=true" # don't try to start AWT. Not sure this does anything but better safe than wasting memory
JAVA_OPTS+=" -Dfile.encoding=UTF-8"    # Use UTF-8

# Set timezone using the JAVA_TIMEZONE variable if present
if [ "$JAVA_TIMEZONE"]; then
    echo "  -> Timezone setting detected: $JAVA_TIMEZONE"
    JAVA_OPTS+=" -Duser.timezone=$JAVA_TIMEZONE"
fi

echo "JAVA_OPTS: $JAVA_OPTS"
export JAVA_OPTS

/app/run_metabase.sh

I backed up the database and then ran these commands:

heroku container:login
heroku container:push web
heroku container:release web

Make sure there is a DATABASE_URL environment variable set. I needed to have Metabase run on less than 1GB of RAM so I also set a JAVA_OPTS environment variable with this value -Xms640m -Xmx640m

Switch to Docker-based deployment of Metabase (>=v0.46) on Heroku

1 Answers1