Unisson Data Server

A RESTfull API server for various needs and a framework for developing distributed Commons services.

A sandbox where we experiment with Commons[EN] through REST APIs.

This server is inspired by the Unisson Method[FR].

API list:

• Bucket (beta) : File manager
• Flipflop (beta) : Kanban boards
• Scout (beta) : Map
• Transport/Vlille (beta) : Lille Public Bike Service
• Alambic (pre-alpha) : Room discussion- Projects : anything that can be qualified as a Project
• Graffiti: Tags (from taggit) & Django content types ressources
• ProjectSheet : Project Description
• Commons : Determine wich "commons project" to use for a given usage
• Unisson : Evaluate "commons project" with the Unisson method

Authors / contributors:

• Guillaume Libersat
• Simon Sarrazin
• Alban Tiberghien
• Freddy Limpens
• Olivier Cortès

See COPYING for license.

Roadmap

Our next step is to decouple the APIs by using a standard such as Json Linked Data.

How to install ?

First, you need to setup an isolated developement environment for the python apps using virtualenv. If you don't have virtualenv, you can install it using your package manager such as apt if you're on debian:

apt-get install python-virtualenv
virtualenv dataserver-env

Then, enters the environment:

cd dataserver-env
source bin/activate

Your prompt should update to something like (note the prefix):

(dataserver-env)glibersat@carpe:~/Source/dataserver-env

.. warning:: For all next steps, you need to be in an activated environment.

Also make sur you have the "python-dev" library since it is required for compiling some packages. On Ubuntu its:

 $ sudo apt-get install python-dev

Getting the code

Once you're in your virtualenv directory, use::

git clone https://github.com/UnissonCo/dataserver/
cd dataserver

fetch the dependencies using::

pip install -r requirements.txt

It may be the right time to fetch a cup of coffee! :-)

.. note::

From now on, the dataserver directory will be called the project root (or PROJECT_ROOT).

Configuring the database / cache

You have the choice to install a Postgis or Sqlite database. Sqlite is easier to get a test environment.

You should have redis running on 127.0.0.1 for automatic configuration. Else, define the environment variable DATASERVER_REDIS_CACHE_DB. The default value is '127.0.0.1:6379:2'. Please always specify the port, even if it's the default one (6379).

PostGis DB

If you use a postgresql backend, you need to install postgis (sudo apt-get install postgis on Debian / Ubuntu).

You need to generate the postgis template before syncing your database. As postgres user, create a template_postgis template database then the data server DB:

sudo -i -u postgres
createdb -E UTF8 template_postgis

# Tune this to your version's setup
POSTGIS_PATH="/usr/share/postgresql/contrib/postgis-2.1"

psql -d template_postgis -f ${POSTGIS_PATH}/postgis.sql
psql -d template_postgis -f ${POSTGIS_PATH}/spatial_ref_sys.sql

cat << EOF | psql -d template_postgis
GRANT ALL ON geometry_columns TO PUBLIC;
GRANT ALL ON spatial_ref_sys TO PUBLIC;
GRANT ALL ON geography_columns TO PUBLIC;
EOF

createuser dataserver -P
createdb -E utf8 -O dataserver dataserver -T template_postgis

Also don't forget to edit your /etc/postgresql/*/main/pg_hba.conf file if you are starting from a fresh postgres installation:

local   all             all       md5

then:

sudo service postgresql restart

SQlite

Install spatialite:

sudo apt-get install libspatialite5

Change settings.py:

'ENGINE': 'django.contrib.gis.db.backends.spatialite',
'NAME': 'dataserver.db',

(Optional) Elastic Search

The bucket module requires elastic search. If you plan to use it, you should install ES and configure it (alongside haystack) in site_settings (see below).

Tune your Django settings

Use the site_settings template for your own settings:

cp dataserver/site_settings.py.tmpl dataserver/site_settings.py

You can tune the database configuration URL with the UNISSON_DATA_SERVER_DATABASE environment variable (this follows the 12factor recommendations). Default value doesn't need any tuning if you set dataserver as the database user/password/name.

Populating the Database & starting the data-server

Then you need to initialize your database with these commands:

python manage.py syncdb --all

The --all option is required to create all permissions bound to the models

python manage.py migrate --all
python manage.py check_permissions

Django will prompt for a user creation, this is always a good idea to say yes:

 You just installed Django's auth system, which means you don't have any superusers defined.
 Would you like to create one now? (yes/no): y

Now, run the server:

python manage.py runserver

Other Dependencies

Thumbnail Generation

We use Sorl-Thumbnail to generate image thumbnails for uploaded files (with bucket application) at a desired size. By default, the engine used to do this is GraphicsMagick (see in dataserver.settings.py: THUMBNAIL_CONVERT = 'gm convert'). This requires you to install GraphicsMagick package, but you can use other engines as explained in Sorl-Thumbnail docs

Licenses

This software is licensed under the AGPLv3 (See COPYING file for more information).

The media (pictures, sounds, videos, ...) are licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA (See MEDIA_COPYING for more information).