REMP Beam Skeleton

This is a pre-configured skeleton of REMP Beam application with simple installation.

Beam Admin serves as a tool for configuration of sites, properties and segments. It's the place to see the stats based on the tracked events and configuration of user segments.

Dependencies

To run Beam you have to integrate skeleton application with other REMP tools listed below.

Note: All the dependencies mentioned below are already provided in Docker Compose, so you don't have to install them manually. Use of the Docker Compose and images provided in this repository is not recommended in the production environment and is intended for testing/development purposes.

Sso

As a default authentication method for secured routes Beam is using middleware Remp\LaravelSso\Http\Middleware\VerifyJwtToken, which authenticates user against preconfigured SSO service running on http://sso.remp.press url.

You can run SSO from the Docker Compose provided in this repository. By default, SSO is exposed at http://sso.remp.press:9494. See docker-compose.override.yml for more information.

You can also run SSO locally by installing it manually. Please follow SSO documentation. To change the SSO URL edit .env variable REMP_SSO_ADDR. To properly configure Docker network to access locally-running SSO, you should edit docker-compose.override.yml and make your SSO instance accessible to the network of Beam's Docker compose via extra_hosts directive:

services:
# ... 
  beam:
    extra_hosts:
      - "sso.remp.press:172.17.0.1" # usual IP of the Docker host machine

SSO documentation.

Tracker API

Tracker API is a gateway for storing both user and system events. Tracker validates the request and posts Influx-formatted set of data to a message broker implementation (either Kafka or Pub/Sub).

You can run Tracker API and its dependencies from the Docker Compose provided in this repository. By default, Tracker API is exposed at http://tracker.remp.press:9494. See docker-compose.override.yml for more information.

If you want to run Tracker API locally, please follow tracker documentation and possibly edit configured address of tracker in .env configuration REMP_TRACKER_ADDR.

Tracker documentation.

Segments API

Segments API (also known as Journal API) is read-only API to acquire aggregations over the tracked data.

You can run Segments API and its dependencies (Elasticsearch) from the Docker Compose provided in this repository. By default, Segments API is exposed at http://segments.remp.press.

If you want to run Segments API locally, please follow segments documentation. and edit configured address of tracker in .env configuration REMP_SEGMENTS_ADDR.

Segments documentation.

Installation

Docker

The simplest possible way is to run this application in Docker containers. Docker Compose is used for orchestrating. Except of these two applications, there is no need to install anything on host machine.

Recommended (tested) versions are:

• Docker - 24.0.2, build cb74dfc
• Docker Compose - v2.18.1

Steps to install application within docker

1. Get the Beam Skeleton:

   git clone https://github.com/remp2020/beam-skeleton.git

   cd beam-skeleton

2. Prepare environment & configuration files

   # Configuration of Beam web admin
   cp .env.example .env

   # Configuration of other dependencies Beam requires (databases, other REMP tools)
   cp docker-compose.override.example.yml docker-compose.override.yml

   No changes are required if you want to run application as it is.

   Note: Nginx web application runs on the port 9494 by default. Make sure this port is not used, otherwise you will encounter error like this when initializing Docker:

   ERROR: for nginx  Cannot start service nginx: Ports are not available: listen tcp 0.0.0.0:9494: bind: address already in use
   

   In such case, change port mapping in docker-composer.override.yml. For example, the following setting maps nginx's internal port 80 to external port 7979, so the application will be available at http://beam.remp.press:7979.

   services:
   # ...
     nginx:
       ports:
         - "8080:80"

3. Setup hosts

   Default host used by application is http://beam.remp.press. This domain should point to localhost (127.0.0.1), so add it to local /etc/hosts file.

   echo '127.0.0.1 beam.remp.press' | sudo tee -a /etc/hosts
   echo '127.0.0.1 tracker.remp.press' | sudo tee -a /etc/hosts
   echo '127.0.0.1 segments.remp.press' | sudo tee -a /etc/hosts
   echo '127.0.0.1 sso.remp.press' | sudo tee -a /etc/hosts

4. Start Docker containers

   docker compose up

   You should see logs of starting containers. This may include errors, because application was not yet initialized.

5. If you run SSO from the Docker Compose (default), we need to initialize it first. Run the following set of commands:

   # run from anywhere in the project
   docker compose exec mysql mysql -uroot -psecret -e 'CREATE DATABASE IF NOT EXISTS sso'
   docker compose exec sso make install
   docker compose exec sso php artisan key:generate
   docker compose exec sso php artisan jwt:secret

6. Now we are ready to initialize Beam's web app:

   # run from anywhere in the project
   docker compose exec beam make install
   docker compose exec beam php artisan key:generate

7. Seed the demo data (optional)

   docker compose exec beam php artisan db:seed DemoSeeder

8. Visit http://beam.remp.press:9494.

9. Visit testing article to feed data to Beam (optional):

If you seeded demo data (optional step 6), you can visit http://beam.remp.press:9494/test-article.html. The article automatically tracks pageviews and provides sample implementation of API calls that your systems should implement.

First, upsert the information about article to Beam by calling Beam's API in the first green box. Once Beam knows the article information, you should start seeing article stats in the Beam dashboard.

Second, you can track conversion for this article. Each call tracks new conversion to Beam.

Updating

If you use docker compose, update the images to their latest versions first:

# stop the containers if they're running
docker compose stop

# download the latest versions of images
docker compose pull

# rebuild the containers with the new images
docker compose up --force-recreate --build 

If Beam is running now, connect to the Docker container (if you use it), update Composer (PHP) dependencies, and repeat the installation process:

# install latest version of beam
docker compose exec beam composer update

# run service commands (migrations, cache generation, etc.)
docker compose exec beam make install

Manual installation

Dependencies

• PHP 8.1
• MySQL 8
• Redis 6.2

Installation

Clone this repository, go inside the folder and run the following to create configuration files from the sample ones:

cp .env.example .env

Edit .env file and set up all required values such as database and Redis connections.

Now run the installation:

make install

Set the application key

php artisan key:generate

Updating

When the new version is released, just update Composer (PHP) dependencies and repeat the installation process:

composer update
make install

Known issues

After the first events are tracked to the Tracker API, the data is not yet readable from the Segments API due to the schema changes. You can see this if the Beam Dashboard doesn't display any data even if it should. The browser's developer tools display message similar to this:

Server error: `POST http://segments.remp.press:9494/journal/concurrents/count` resulted in a `500 Internal Server Error` response:\n"elastic: Error 400 (Bad Request): all shards failed [type=search_phase_execution_exception]"\n\n'

In order to fix this issue, please restart Segments API, so it can populate it's in-memory cache again.

Customization

Beam-skeleton is Laravel application with standard directory structure and whole Beam functionality is provided as Laravel package. Beam-module provides own routes, commands, UI, database migrations.

So for the further information please follow official Laravel documentation on corresponding version.

Configuration

All of the configuration files for the Laravel framework are stored in the config directory. Also configuration files from Beam package are published into config folder during project initialization. Most configuration values could be overwritten in environment .env file.

For further information about configuration see official Laravel documentation.

Commands

Along the commands provided by Beam package you could add own commands by manual adding into folder app/Console/Commands/ or by Artisan command make:command. If you would like to change the behaviour of Beam command you could register own version of command with the same signature.

For example see App\Console\Commands\TestCommand which can be call by php artisan test.

For further information about commands see official Laravel documentation.

Routes

Routes registered by Beam package could be replaced by own routes in files routes/web.php for web interface or in routes/api.php for API calls.

Two routes are provided as example. Web route /test and API route /api/test/create.

For further information about routing see official Laravel documentation.

Views

To edit views from Beam package add the own version of view into folder structure resources/views/vendor/beam/. Laravel will first check if a custom version of the view has been placed in the folder otherwise will use view from Beam package.

As an example you can see /resources/views/test/index.blade.php as the view file for TestController::index action.

For further information about views overriding see official Laravel documentation.

Observers

To listen for model changes (Eloquent events) you can use the observers. New observer can be added by using command php artisan make:observer ModelNameObserver --model=ModelName or manually added into folder app/Observers and registered in AppServiceProvider.

As an example is registered observer App\Observers\AccountObserver for model Remp\BeamModule\Model\Account.

For further information about observers overriding see official Laravel documentation.

Database

Non-breaking database changes you could provide by adding own migrations into folder database/migrations or by Artisan command make:migrations.

For further information about migrations see official Laravel documentation.