AstroPlant server

This repository contains the code for the back-end and website of the AstroPlant system.

The AstroPlant kits communicate with the back-end to push data. The website allows users to view the data.

The server is built using the Django framework.

Documentation

Full documentation can be found here.

Getting started

Clone the repository and cd into it.

This project has runtime dependencies on Python 3.6 and an accessible MySQL connection. Node 8 is used at build-time to prepare static resources. Required Python dependencies are listed in requirements.txt and can be installed with pip:

$ pip install -r requirements.txt

Nix

Optionally, you can use Nix to emulate a virtual environment (see shell.nix):

$ nix-shell

this installs Python 3.6 and Node 8 and makes them available in your shell environment for the duration of the shell session. It also creates a _build subdirectory and uses it as a virtual Python environment for packages.

Database

The server requires a database to function. It has only been tested with MySQL/MariaDB.

Creating a database:

To create a development database and a local user able to login without a password perform e.g.:

$ sudo mysql
> CREATE DATABASE astroplant;
> CREATE USER 'astroplant'@'localhost';
> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON astroplant.* TO 'astroplant'@'localhost';

Configure AstroPlant

If you set a password, or are using a name for the database or user other than astroplant, open server/settings.py and configure the DATABASES key.

Prepare the database

There have been no releases yet and as such migrations are not yet kept track of.

Create the initial migration yourself:

$ python manage.py makemigrations

Prepare the database by running:

$ python manage.py migrate

If you would like to include some default data provided by AstroPlant, such as measurement types and official peripheral device definitions, load the AstroPlant fixture.

$ python manage.py loaddata astroplant

Prepare static resources

The static JavaScript and CSS resources have to be compiled prior to running the server.

To do this, ensure Node 8 and npm are installed. Now install the project dependencies--in the root directory of the project, run:

$ npm install

Next, build the assets to static files:

$ npm run-script build

Run the server

It is recommended to host the server through a webserver using server/WSGI.py, such as Nginx with uWGSI. See also the AstroPlant server deployment repository.

Alternatively, for development, run the server using:

$ python manage.py runserver