Get Started

Requirements

We will need to install python3.6 with sqlite3 support. This can be done using the system package management, downloaded from http://www.python.org, or compiled from sources.

• Installing from the system package manager:
  • OSX: port install python36
  • FreeBSD: pkg install python36 py36-sqlite3
  • Linux: apt-get install ??? (not available yet?)
• Installing from source:
  • Download from http://www.python.org
  • unxz Python-3.6.tar.xz
  • tar xvf Python-3.6.tar
  • cd Python-3.6
  • ./configure --prefix=$HOME/.local/bin
  • make && make install

This will install python locally under ~/.local/bin. Make sure to add it to your PATH (edit ~/.profile in OSX or FreeBSD).

Next install pip (if not yet installed):

python3.6 -m ensurepip --user

This will install pip in your account under ~/.local/bin. In the end you should be able to run pip3 --version and python3 -c "import sqlite3" without errors (sometimes pip3 is pip, pip3.6 or pip-3.6).

Install additional python packages locally on the user area:

pip3 install --user \
    tornado \
    sqlalchemy \
    pyyaml \
    pygments \
    markdown \
    bcrypt \
    networkx

These are usually installed under

• OSX: ~/Library/python/3.6/lib/python/site-packages/
• Linux/FreeBSD: ~/.local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/

Note: If you want to always install python modules on the user account, edit the pip configuration file ~/.config/pip/pip.conf (FreeBSD, Linux) or Library/Application Support/pip/pip.conf (OSX) and add the lines

[global]
user = yes

Installation

Replace USER by your bitbucket username:

cd path/to/some/directory
git clone https://USER@bitbucket.org/mjsb/aprendizations.git

A directory aprendizations will be created with the software:

cd aprendizations

Configuration

Database

First we need to create a database:

./initdb.py                 # initialize user `0` and empty password
./initdb.py --pw alibaba    # initialize user `0` and given password
./initdb.py --help          # for the available options

SSL Certificates

We need certificates for https. Certificates can be self-signed or certificates validated by a trusted authority. Self-signed can be used for development, but browsers will complain. LetsEncrypt issues trusted and free certificates, but the served must have a fixed IP and a domain name (not dynamic).

Selfsigned

Generate selfsigned certificates using

openssl req -x509 -newkey rsa:4096 -keyout key.pem -out cert.pem -days 365 -nodes

and place them in aprendizations/certs.

LetsEncrypt

sudo pkg install py27-certbot       # FreeBSD

Shutdown any server running and the firewall, and then run the script to generate the certificate:

sudo pfctl -d                                   # disable pf firewall
sudo certbot certonly --standalone -d bit.xdi.uevora.pt
sudo pfctl -e; sudo pfctl -f /etc/pf.conf       # enable pf firewall

Certificates are saved under /usr/local/etc/letsencrypt/live/bit.xdi.uevora.pt/ which is readable only by root.

Copy them to aprendizations/certs with names cert.pem and key.pem. And change permissions to be readble (FIXME how to do it securily?)

Testing

Run a demonstration:

./serve.py demo/demo.yaml

and open a browser at https://127.0.0.1:8443.

Logging level can be adjusted in config/logger.yaml.

Firewall configuration

Ports 80 and 443 are only usable by root. For security reasons it is better to run the server as a regular user on higher ports like 8080 for http and 8443 for https. In this case, we should configure port forwarding in the firewall to redirect incoming tcp traffic from 80 to 8080 and 443 to 8443.

FreeBSD and pf

Edit /etc/pf.conf:

ext_if="em0"
rdr on $ext_if proto tcp from any to any port 80 -> 127.0.0.1 port 8080
rdr on $ext_if proto tcp from any to any port 443 -> 127.0.0.1 port 8443

or ext_if="vtnet0" for guest additions under virtual box.

Edit rc.conf

pf_enable="YES"
pf_flags=""
pf_rules="/etc/pf.conf"

# optional logging:
pflog_enable="YES"
pflog_flags=""
pflog_logfile="/var/log/pflog"

Reboot.

Troubleshooting

UnicodeEncodeError

The server should not generate this error, but when using external scripts to generate questions or to correct, these scripts can print unicode strings to stdout. If the terminal does not support unicode, python will generate this exception.

• FreeBSD fix: edit ~/.login_conf to use UTF-8, for example:

  me:\ :charset=UTF-8:\ :lang=en_US.UTF-8:

• Debian fix: check locale...

Useful sqlite3 queries

Which students did at least one topic?

sqlite3 students.db "select distinct student_id from studenttopic"

How many topics had each student done?

sqlite3 students.db "select student_id, count(topic_id) from studenttopic group by student_id order by count(topic_id) desc"

Which questions have more wrong answers?

sqlite3 students.db "select count(ref), ref from answers where grade<1.0 group by ref order by count(ref) desc"