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Installing Online Lab

Currently Online Lab is available only from its git repository hosted at GitHub. To get a copy of this repository, issue:

$ git clone git://github.com/hpfem/femhub-online-lab.git

or, alternatively:

$ git clone http://git.hpfem.org/git/femhub-online-lab.git

to clone via HTTP protocol (in case of e.g. firewall issues).

Prerequisites

Online Lab runs under any Unix-like operating system that implements non-blocking polling functionality, e.g. epoll (Linux), kqueue (BSD) or select (universal, worst case scenario). To obtain best performance, Linux operating system distribution with epoll support should be used (kernel 2.6 or better is required).

The required packages for Online Lab are:

and smaller, but not less important, are:

For example, in Ubuntu Lucid issue:

$ sudo apt-get install python
$ sudo apt-get install python-django
$ sudo apt-get install python-pyinotify
$ sudo apt-get install python-argparse
$ sudo apt-get install python-lockfile
$ sudo apt-get install python-daemon
$ sudo apt-get install python-psutil

to get those packages installed. Note that Tornado didn't manage to get into software package management systems yet (e.g. apt-get or portage), so you have to install it manually, either by downloading its source code tarball from Tornado's website:

$ wget http://github.com/downloads/facebook/tornado/tornado-1.1.tar.gz

or by cloning its git repository that is hosted at GitHub. Make sure that all required packages are available on PYTHONPATH before running Online Lab.

If you use Python 2.7 or better, then you don't need to install argparse module, because it is included in Python standard library since 2.7 (see PEP 389 for details).

You can also run Online Lab in FEMhub numerical software distribution, where all necessary packages were included in appropriate versions, together with Online Lab it self.

Setting up Online Lab

Suppose Online Lab's repository was cloned into /home/lab:

$ cd /home/lab/femhub-online-lab

We have to create two work environments, one for Online Lab core server and the other for Online Lab services:

$ bin/onlinelab core init --home=../core-home --ui-path=ui
$ bin/onlinelab service init --home=../service-home

onlinelab script automatically adds current directory to PYTHONPATH so you don't have to worry about module visibility issues. The directories with work environments will contain some configuration files and additional subdirectories for storing runtime data (logs, PID files, blobs, etc.). In the case of the core server, a database is also created and user interface (UI) is set up.

Running Online Lab

Now open two terminals in parallel and run the following commands:

$ bin/onlinelab core start --no-daemon --home=../core-home
$ bin/onlinelab service start --no-daemon --home=../service-home

These will start two servers listening on localhost (8000, 9000). Now go to your browser (preferably Firefox or Chrome) and redirect to:

http://localhost:8000

Login screen will appear, where you can create an account and finally proceed to Online Lab's desktop. Click 'Help' icon to show a tutorial about main features of the system.

If you are not interested in watching the output from Online Lab, the you may consider running both core server and services as daemons (just remove --no-daemon from the commands above). In this case, you still will be able to read the logs that are stored in Online Lab home directories.

To stop Online Lab simply press Ctrl+C in terminals in which core and services are running. In daemon mode use the following commands:

$ bin/onlinelab core stop --home=../core-home
$ bin/onlinelab service stop --home=../service-home

Note that the order of running servers is relevant and core server must be started before services are started. However, stopping can done in any order.

Extending PYTHONPATH

If you have auxiliary Python modules that you would like to expose in Online Lab (e.g. SymPy) and those modules aren't available on system-wide PYTHONPATH for some reason (e.g. you would like to expose a certain branch of a development repository), then add paths to those modules via --python-path command-line option, e.g.:

$ bin/onlinelab service start --python-path=/devel/sympy

assuming that SymPy's module is located in /devel/sympy. You can also use colon-syntax to add multiple paths:

$ bin/onlinelab service start --python-path=/devel/sympy:../numpy

You can also add multiple --python-path options and/or store them in services' configuration files.

Installing Mesh Editor

To install Mesh Editor (Flex) in Online Lab, clone its repository:

http://github.com/hpfem/mesheditor-flex

and follow its build instructions (see README). Next copy MeshEditor.swf into static/external in core server's home directory, e.g.:

$ cp MeshEditor.swf /home/lab/core-home/static/external

and reload Online Lab user interface in your web browser. Next time you double-click Mesh Editor icon on the desktop, the plug-in will be loaded.

Importing Sage worksheets

Go to http://localhost:8000, open Browser and click 'Import'. Copy plain text from Sage worksheet, e.g.:

{{{id=0|
some code
///
output
}}}

and click 'OK'. A new window will appear with all cells imported.