Userman
Simple user account handling system for use with web services. Built on top of Tornado and CouchDB.
API
A number of code examples for using the API can be found in the
nosetest test_*.py files.
Note that each call to the API must include an API token which is the only mechanism used for authentication in the API. The API token is specific for the user account, and is available in the user page for the account.
Design notes
The API is designed such that all data sent to and received from the interface is JSON containing pure application data. Metadata, such as the API access token, is passed as a HTTP header item, so as not to clutter up the data namespace. This also allows for sending other types of data as body content, such as images, which cannot contain API access tokens.
Tip: Use the requests package for all HTTP client code. It is much better than the urllib2 package in the standard Python distribution.
Packacke notes
Create the text variant of the README:
pandoc -o README.txt -f markdown -t rst README.md
Development server
The development server is at http://userman-dev.scilifelab.se/ . It is currently reachable only from within SciLifeLab Stockholm.
Installation
The development server is installed as an ordinary Python package on the ngi-internal-dev server under the ngi.web user using the userman_env conda environment. The controlling configuration
file userman-dev.yaml is located in /home/ngi.web/conf. It is currently running on Python 2.7.
The development server is upgraded thus:
$ pip install --upgrade --no-deps git+https://github.com/NationalGenomicsInfrastructure/userman
The Apache server handles the redirect from the domain name to the Tornado
server which runs on port 8881. See /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf.
The log file written by the Tornado server is specified as the first command line argument.
Production server
The source code used in production is located in:
/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/userman
The configuration file tools.yaml is located in:
/var/local/userman
The log file userman.log is located in:
/var/log/userman
The production server is upgraded thus:
$ pip install --upgrade --no-deps git+https://github.com/pekrau/userman
The production server is currently started manually by Per Kraulis under the account genomics.www using the following command:
$ cd /usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/userman
$ sudo -b -u genomics.www python2.6 app_userman.py /var/local/userman/tools.yaml
Yes, this is awful! But the /etc/init.d stuff has not been written yet...