Copyright (C) 2014, 2015 Jaguar Land Rover

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RVI BACKEND (RVI-BE) 0.1

This document is an overview of the RVI Backend (RVI-BE) project. RVI-BE is a database-backed web environment to interact with vehicles (or any device for that matter) via the RVI middleware framework. For details on RVI consult the documentation in the RVI respository.

DESCRIPTION

RVI-BE consists of two components:

• Web
• Server

Web is a web interface with database backend built using the Django framework.

Server is a daemon process that receives and processes asynchronous messages received via RVI from vehicles and other devices.

There are also various tools and integration files that help with development and deployment.

READER ASSUMPTIONS

To successfully install and utilize RVI-BE you are assumed to:

1. Know how to use a system running a mainstream Linux distribution such as Debian, Fedora, OpenSuse, Ubuntu.

2. Know how to install software packages on your system using your distribution's package management system e.g. apt-get, rpm, yum, zypper.

3. Have a basic understanding of Linux directory structures, how to create new directories, create and edit files.

PREREQUISITES

Verify if the following prerequisites are met by your system:

1. To check out the RVI-BE code you will need to have the Git SCM installed on your system.

2. Python v2.7 must be installed on your system. Python v3 or greater may work, however we have not yet tested it at this point. Virtually any mainstream Linux distribution installs Python by default.

3. RVI-BE requires additional Python packages that may not be installed by default. We use pip to install these packages. You may need to install pip on your system:

Fedora:

sudo yum install python-pip

OpenSuse:

sudo zypper install python-pip

Debian/Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install python-pip    

INSTALLATION AND SETUP

The following steps explain on how to set up the RVI Backend on your system.

Database Installation

RVI-BE requires a database. Django supports SQLite, MySQL, PostgreSQL and Oracle. Since the RVI-BE does a lot of writing to the database we recommend that you use a database server rather than SQLite. We use MySQL (or MariaDB) for our testing. MariaDB is the community-developed fork of the MySQL database. It is a drop-in replacement for MySQL. All mainstream Linux distributions now include MariaDB in their package repositories rather than MySQL. Many distributions install the MariaDB server by default. To check if MariaDB is already installed on your system:

Fedora:

yum list installed | grep mariadb

OpenSuse:

zypper se 'mariadb*'

Debian/Ubuntu:

dpkg --get-selections | grep mariadb

If the previous does not yield any output on your system you will need to install the MariaDB database server:

Fedora:

sudo yum install mariadb

OpenSuse:

sudo zypper in mariadb

Debian:

sudo apt-get install mariadb

Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install mysql-server

To access MySQL databases an API driver is required. There are several options. We are using MySQL Connector/Python which is a pure Python driver from Oracle that does not require the MySQL client library or any other Python modules outside the standard Python libraries. The mainstream distributions include this driver in their package repositories:

Fedora:

sudo yum install mysql-connector-python

OpenSuse:

sudo zypper in mysql-connector-python

Debian:

sudo apt-get install mysql-connector-python

Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install python-mysqldb

Database Server Startup

After installing the database server you will need to start the MariaDB server and enable it on system startup.

Fedora/OpenSuse (distributions using systemd):

sudo systemctl enable mariadb.service
sudo systemdtl start mariadb.service

Debian/Ubuntu (distributions using SysV Init):

sudo update-rc.d mysql defaults

Note: The command above for Debian/Ubuntu uses 'mysql' although the it is the MariaDB Server that will be started.

Database Server Setup

Next we need to prepare the database server. For the following steps when we use the notation shell> it means that you will have to enter the command in a Linux shell. When we use the notation mysql> then the command has to be issued from the MySQL shell typically as root user.

Note: SQL syntax requires that every command is terminated with a semicolon.

1. Load Timezone Definitions

    shell> mysql_tzinfo_to_sql /usr/share/zoneinfo | mysql -u root mysql
   

2. Set Root Password

    shell> mysql -u root
    mysql> select user, host, password from mysql.user;
    mysql> update mysql.user set password = PASSWORD('newpwd') where user = 'root';
    mysql> flush privileges;
   

3. Remove anonymous accounts

    mysql> drop user ''@'localhost';
    mysql> drop user ''@'hostname';
   

4. Drop test database

    mysql> drop database test;  
   

5. Create RVI Database

    mysql> create database rvi character set utf8;
   

6. Create User for RVI

    mysql> create user 'rvi_user'@'localhost' identified by 'rvi';
   

   These are the default user name and password. If you change them you will also have to change them in the mysql.cnf file (see section on RVI Backend Installation).

7. Grant User All Rights to Database

    mysql> grant all on rvi.* to 'rvi_user'@'localhost';
   

Django Installation

To install Django you need to have pip installed on your system as explained earlier. We are using Django version 1.7.

sudo pip install django==1.7

Verify installation with:

python -c "import django; print(django.get_version())"

which should print 1.7 to the console.

Python Modules

The RVI Backend requires additional Python modules to function:

1. Pillow Imaging Library

   sudo pip install pillow

2. JSONField Module

   sudo pip install jsonfield

3. Django Leaflet

   sudo pip install django-leaflet

4. Django GeoJSON

   sudo pip install django-geojson

5. Python World Timezone Definitions

   sudo pip install pytz

6. Python JSON-RPC Library

   sudo pip install jsonrpclib

7. Django Bootstrap3 Library

   sudo pip install django-bootstrap3

RVI Backend Installation

1. Clone the RVI Backend Repository from GitHub

    git clone https://github.com/PDXostc/rvibackend.git rvibackend
   

2. Set PYTHONPATH

   For the RVI Backend to find the Python modules you will need to set the environment variable PYTHONPATH. Add to the .bashrc file in your home directory:

    PYTHONPATH="${PYTHONPATH}:/<path>/<to>/rvibackend"
    export PYTHONPATH
   

   Source the file to make the setting become active for your current terminal:

    source ~/.bashrc
   

3. Change into the rvibackend/web Directory

    cd rvibackend/web
   

4. Create the Tables for the RVI Backend Database

    python manage.py migrate
   

   This will access the MariaDB database server. If you set the database up according to the above instructions this will work right out of the box. If you did change user name and/or password when setting up the database then you will need to modify the file rvibackend/settings.py accordingly.

5. Create the Admin User for the RVI Backend

    python manage.py createsuperuser
   

6. Start the Development Server

   For development purposes and to test the RVI Backend it is easiest to use the built-in web server. Executing

    python manage.py runserver
   

   will start the development server listening on localhost:8000. The development server will perform a couple of system checks, read the settings file and then listen to incoming HTTP requests:

    Performing system checks...
   
    System check identified no issues (0 silenced).
    November 07, 2014 - 02:17:21
    Django version 1.7, using settings 'settings'
    Starting development server at http://127.0.0.1:8000/
    Quit the server with CONTROL-C.
   

   You can now use your web browser and point it to http://localhost:8000 to see the login prompt for the RVI Backend administrative user interface.

   If you want access your RVI Backend from other computers on the web and/or have it listen on a different port use

    python manage.py runserver <ip>:<port>
   

   replacing : with the IP address of your system and the desired port. Using

    python manage.py runserver 0.0.0.0:80
   

   will cause the server to listen on port 80 of all configured network interfaces.

Start the RVI Backend Server Daemon

Before you can start the RVI Backend Server Daemon you will need to have the RVI Middleware Server running on your system. Please consult the instructions at RVI on how to setup and start the server.

The RVI Backend Server Daemon connects to the RVI Middleware Server on the service edge at localhost:8801. If you configured your RVI Middleware Server to listen to a different host/port you will have to change the setting

RVI_SERVICE_EDGE_URL = 'http://127.0.0.1:8801'

in the file rvibackend/settings.py. This file is the common configuration file for the RVI Backend. After that you can start the RVI Backend Server Daemon in console or foreground mode with

python rviserver.py foreground

If everything is configured correctly you will see

INFO RVI Server: Starting...
INFO RVI Server: Configuration: RVI_SERVICE_EDGE_URL: http://127.0.0.1:8801, RVI_SOTA_CALLBACK_URL: http://127.0.0.1:20001, RVI_SOTA_SERVICE_ID: /sota, RVI_SOTA_CHUNK_SIZE: 65536, MEDIA_ROOT: ../web/../files/
INFO RVI Server: Starting SOTA Callback Server on http://127.0.0.1:20001 with service id /sota.
INFO RVI Server: SOTA Callback Server started.
INFO RVI Server: Setting up outbound connection to RVI Service Edge at http://127.0.0.1:8801
INFO RVI Server: Initiate download service name: jlr.com/backend/sota/initiate_download
INFO RVI Server: Cancel download service name: jlr.com/backend/sota/cancel_download
INFO RVI Server: Download complete service name: jlr.com/backend/sota/download_complete
INFO RVI Server: Starting SOTA Transmission Server.
INFO RVI Server: SOTA Transmission Server started.

Every 10 seconds the RVI Backend Server will issue a heartbeat message:

DEBUG RVI Server: Heartbeat.

Your RVI Backend is now ready for use.

USING THE RVI BACKEND

This pre-release of the RVI Backend does not yet include any customized pages but uses the administration pages that are automatically created by Django. The root URL is automatically forwarded to the administration pages. Loggin into your server from a web browser using

http://localhost:8000

will take you to the front page of the administrative UI which is divided into the applications

• Authentication and Authorization
• Dblog
• Sota
• Vehicles

Authentication and Authorization

This application allows the administration of Users and Groups. By default, after using createsuperuser only the super user exists who has full rights to any of the applications. There are no groups created. The UI and its capabilities are similar to virtually any user/group administration system.

Dblog

The RVI Backend writes log messages into the database. This makes it easy to verify operation from the web browser. There are two logging categories General Log and SOTA Log. The former logs all messages. The latter logs messages that are associated with Software Over The Air (SOTA) activities.

Vehicles

This application let's you manage vehicles that is adding, modifying and deleting Vehicles. A Vehicle has these data fields:

• Vehicle Name
• Vehicle Make
• Vehicle Model
• Vehicle VIN
• Vehicle Model Year
• Vehicle RVI Basename

All, excpet Vehicle Model Year, are required fields. Vehicle Name, Vehicle Make, Vehicle Model and Vehicle Model Year are self explanatory.

Vehicle Name is a unique alphanumeric identifier under which the RVI Backend identifies the Vehicle.

Vehicle VIN is the unique RVI identifier for the Vehicle. This can be an actual VIN or any alphanumeric string.

The Vehicle RVI Basename is the domain of the vehicle. The values have to match the node_service_prefix of the RVI middleware framework configuration of the vehicle (or target system):

{ node_service_prefix, "<Vehicle RVI Basename>/vin/<Vehicle VIN> }

That is all that is required to setup a vehicle in the RVI Backend.

SOTA

This application manages Software Over The Air (SOTA). There are two components to SOTA:

• Packages
• Updates

Packages defines software packages and lets you upload actual software package files to the RVI Backend server. A Package has the data fields:

• Package Name
• Package Description
• Package Version
• Package Architecture
• Package File

Package Name is a unique identifier used by the RVI Backend server to identify the software package.

Package Description is a more detailed description of the software package. It is optional.

Package Version the version string of the software package.

Package Architecture the architecture of the software package.

Package File is the actual software package. Choose a file from your local file system to upload to the RVI Backend server.

Updates assign Packages to Vehicles for an over-the-air update. When creating an Update you first select:

• Vehicle
• Package

from the previously defined Vehicles and Packages. The + next to the combo boxes lets you create them on-the-fly. Then select

• Valid Until
• Maximum Retries

to set a deadline and a maximum number of update attempts.

Now that you defined an Update you can start it by checking the checkbox next to its name and choosing Start selected Updates from the Action combo box and clicking the Go button.

Shortly after sending the update notice to the vehicle the home screen should show a dialog box with the name of the software package to be udpated and buttons to either accecpt or cancel the update.

Starting an Update will ceate a Retry which logs the status and messages of the Update. Clicking on the Update link in the Update overview will take you to the detail page of the Update. The Retries table will now contain an entry (and if you restart the Update multiple time, multiple entries) with the current status. If you click on Messages in the Log column you will be taken to a page showing the log messages.