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Autolab + Tango OneClick Installation

Attention

The OneClick installation is currently broken. We are in the midst of migrating to Docker for installation. Please treat this page as legacy reference.

OneClick is the fastest way to install Autolab and Tango on an Ubuntu VM. The installation uses packages Autolab, MySQL, and Tango into seperate Docker containers with specific exposed ports for communication.

There are two types of installations. A local development setup and a real-world ready setup that requires SSL certificates, email service configuration, and domain name registration. Use the local setup for experimentation before deploying in a real-world scenario on such apps like Heroku, EC2, or DigitalOcean, among others.

Local OneClick Setup

1. Prepare an Ubuntu VM

These installation instructions are for Ubuntu. If you're on other operating system, we recommend you set up an Ubuntu virtual machine first with Virtual Box.

About the System Configuration:

To set up, Install Ubuntu on Virtualbox may help you.

Optional:

For better experience, we also recommend you to "insert guest additional CD image" for your virtual machine to enable full screen. (If you installed Ubuntu 16+, you can skip this)

Devices > Insert guest additional CD image

Also enable clipboard share for easier copy and paste between host and VM.

Settings > Advanced > Shared Clipboard > Bidrectional

You need to restart your virtual machine to validate these optional changes.

2. Download

Root is required to install Autolab:

sudo -i

Clone repo:

git clone https://github.com/autolab/autolab-oneclick.git; cd autolab-oneclick

3. Installation

Run the following in the autolab-oneclick folder

./install.sh -l

This will take a few minutes. Once you see Autolab Installation Finished, ensure all docker containers are running:

docker ps
# CONTAINER ID        IMAGE               COMMAND                  CREATED             STATUS                    PORTS                     NAMES
# c8679844bbfa        local_web           "/sbin/my_init"          3 months ago        Exited (0) 3 months ago                             local_web_1         721 kB (virtual 821 MB)
# 45a9e30241ea        mysql               "docker-entrypoint..."   3 months ago        Exited (0) 3 months ago   0.0.0.0:32768->3306/tcp   local_db_1          0 B (virtual 383 MB)
# 1ef089e2dca4        local_tango         "sh start.sh"            3 months ago        Exited (0) 3 months ago   0.0.0.0:8600->8600/tcp    local_tango_1       91.1 kB (virtual 743 MB)

Now Autolab is successfully installed and running on your virtual machine. Open your browser and visit localhost:3000, you will see the landing page of Autolab.

Follow the instructions here to test out your set up.

Server/Production OneClick Setup

1. Provision a Server

Server

If you don't already have a server, we recommend a VPS (virtual private server). Here are a couple popular VPS providers:

Domain name

(A domain name is both required by SSL and email service.)

In your DNS provider:

  • Add www and @ records pointing to the ip address of your server.
  • Add DKIM and SFF records by creating TXT records after you finish the email service part.

SSL

You can run Autolab with or without HTTPS encryption. We strongly recommend you run it with HTTPS.

Here are a few options to get the SSL certificate and key:

  1. Go through your school/organization

    Many universities have a program whereby they'll grant SSL certificates to students and faculty for free. Some of these programs require you to be using a school-related domain name, but some don't. You should be able to find out more information from your school's IT department.

  2. Use paid service: SSLmate

    You can follow this simple guide to get your paid SSL with SSLMate in the simplest way.

Email Service

Autolab uses email for various features, include sending out user confirmation emails and instructor-to-student bulk emails. You can use MailChimp + Mandrill to configure transactional email.

  1. Create a MailChimp account here

  2. Add Mandrill using these instructions

  3. Go to the settings page and create a new API key

  4. From the Mailchimp/Mandrill Domains settings page, add your domain

  5. Configure the DKIM and SFF settings by creating TXT records with your DNS provider (they link to some instructions for how to do this, but the process will differ depending on which DNS provider you are using. Try Google!).

2. Download and Configuration

  1. Use root to install Autolab

    sudo -i

  2. Clone the installation package

    git clone https://github.com/autolab/autolab-oneclick.git; cd autolab-oneclick

  3. Generate a new secret key for Devise Auth Configuration:

    python -c "import random; print hex(random.getrandbits(512))[2:-1]"

    Update the values in server/configs/devise.rb

    config.secret_key = <GENERATED_SECRET_KEY>
config.mailer_sender = <EMAIL_ADDRESS_WITH_YOUR_HOSTNAME>

  4. With SSL:

    Copy your SSL certificate and key file into the server/ssl directory.

    Without SSL:

    Comment out the following lines in server/configs/nginx.conf

    # EFF recommended SSL settings
# ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;
# ssl_ciphers ECDH+AESGCM:ECDH+AES256:ECDH+AES128:ECDH+3DES:RSA+AES:RSA+3DES:!ADH:!AECDH:!MD5:!DSS;
# ssl_protocols TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2;
# add_header Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains";

    Comment out the following line in server/configs/production.rb

    # config.middleware.use Rack::SslEnforcer, :except => [ /log_submit/, /local_submit/ ]

  5. Configure Nginx in server/configs/nginx.conf

    server_name <YOUR_SERVER_DOMAIN>
ssl_certificate /path/to/ssl_certificate/file
ssl_certificate_key /path/to/ssl_certificate_key/file

  6. Configure Email in server/configs/production.rb. Update the address, port, user_name, password and domain with your email service informations. For Mandrill, go to "SMTP & API Info" to see the informations.

3. Installation

  1. Start Installation

    cd autolab-oneclick
./install.sh -s

    Answer the prompts and wait until you see Autolab Installation Finished.

  2. Ensure docker containers are running

    docker ps
# CONTAINER ID        IMAGE               COMMAND                  CREATED             STATUS                    PORTS                     NAMES
# c8679844bbfa        local_web           "/sbin/my_init"          3 months ago        Exited (0) 3 months ago                             local_web_1         721 kB (virtual 821 MB)
# 45a9e30241ea        mysql               "docker-entrypoint..."   3 months ago        Exited (0) 3 months ago   0.0.0.0:32768->3306/tcp   local_db_1          0 B (virtual 383 MB)
# 1ef089e2dca4        local_tango         "sh start.sh"            3 months ago        Exited (0) 3 months ago   0.0.0.0:8600->8600/tcp    local_tango_1       91.1 kB (virtual 743 MB)

Now Autolab is successfully installed and running on your virtual machine. Open your browser and visit https://yourdomainname, to see the landing page of Autolab.

Follow the instructions here to test out your set up.

Testing

Login with the following credentials:

email: admin@foo.bar
password: adminfoobar

We have populated dummy data for you to test with.

Run the following commands to cleanup the dummy data:

cd local
docker-compose run --rm -e RAILS_ENV=production web rake autolab:depopulate