Back-End Server

The SUFST back-end server. This server acts as a Web-Socket server and has 2 main purposes.

• The intermediate-server connects to it to distribute all the data from the Xbee module.
• The front-end clients connect to it to perform all authentication operations, CRUD actions and retrieve live sensor data.

Running Locally

Prerequisites:

• Git
• Python 3.9

Please note that only Python3.9 can be used to build the server. If you have another version of python installed locally, you won't be able to run the server locally from your computer but only from docker container.

Now follow the steps below:

1. Clone the Repository

Open a terminal window, navigate to a folder of your choice and run the following command to clone the repository from GitHub.

git clone https://github.com/sufst/back-end.git

When this is done, change directory into the cloned folder using cd back-end.

2. Run Installation Script

You can now run the installation script to install all requirements to your computer. You can do this with:

bash install.sh

A virtual environment (venv) is now created locally on your computer. You can use that to run the server locally using the following:

source venv/bin/activate
python server.py

Note: If - in the end - you want to exit the venv you need to run deactivate.

Running Locally with Docker

To run the server you first need to have Docker installed on your machine. The recommended way to do this in Windows and macOS is with the Docker Desktop application. Installing this will also install the docker command on your machine.

If you use macOS, you can also install Docker with Homebrew.

You also need to have git installed on your machine. Instructions for how to do this on all major Operating Systems are provided in the SUFST Documentation website.

Now follow the steps below:

1. Clone the Repository

Open a terminal window, navigate to a folder of your choice and run the following command to clone the repository from GitHub.

git clone https://github.com/sufst/back-end.git

When this is done, change directory into the cloned folder using cd back-end.

2. Launch Docker

From within the back-end folder, simply run the run_docker.sh script. This will build a Docker image and launch a container with that image. For this, run:

bash run_docker.sh

You can also run the script using ./run_docker.sh however make sure to first give it the appropriate permissions using chmod.