ESciDoc Admin
Overview[edit]
eSciDoc admin is a a solution for the management of master data in an installation of the eSciDoc framework. Currently it is implemented as TurboGears web application talking to the framework's REST interface.
It implements (parts of) the use cases specified in
- PubMan_Func_Spec_Organizational_Unit_Management
- PubMan_Func_Spec_Collection_Administration
- PubMan_Func_Spec_User_Management
Repository URL: https://subversion1.escidoc.mpg.de/admin/
Installation/Deployment[edit]
Requirements[edit]
- Python (>= 2.4),
- TurboGears (>= 1.0.1) (see http://docs.turbogears.org/1.0/Install for details),
- SQLAlchemy (0.3.x) (install with easy_install),
- it may be necessary to upgrade to a newer version of pysqlite,
- httplib2
Download[edit]
You may download the application as egg appropriate for your architecture:
TODO
Or run eSciDoc admin from a repository checkout: run
svn co https://subversion1.escidoc.mpg.de/admin/trunk/escidocadmin
in a suitable directory.
Deployment[edit]
Configuration[edit]
You need to supply some basic configuration settings for the application by adding the following lines to the global section of the configuration file.
Configure the framework to which to talk
framework.host="host[:port]"
and a default user account to use
framework.user="username" framework.password="password"
When deploying the web application behind a proxy (e.g. apache), make sure to set
server.webpath="http://your.domain/escidoc/admin/path/"
Controlling the Application[edit]
You may use the start-escidocadmin.py script to start the application from the commandline.
Running eSciDoc admin behind Apache HTTPD[edit]
To run eSciDoc admin behind Apache HTTPD add the following to your apache configuration:
RewriteRule ^/escidoc/admin/path/(.*) http://127.0.0.1:8080/$1 [proxy,L] <Location /escidoc/admin/path> Order allow,deny Allow from all </Location>
Technical Documentation[edit]
Overview[edit]
eSciDoc admin manages framework resources of the following kinds:
- Organizational Units, abbreviated ou,
- Contexts, abbreviated ctx,
- User Accounts (and Grants), subsumed under aa (for authentication and authorization).
Architecture[edit]
eSciDoc admin - as a web interface to the framework's CRUD services for its resources - has a very simple architecture:
- All communication with the framework is implemented in a framework client library
- As a !TurboGears aplication, escidocadmin subscribes to the MVC pattern, or better the VC pattern, because the persistence layer is implemented by the framework.
- The management logic for each resource is implemented in one controller class.
- The views for each resource are implemented in one (or several) templates.
Framework Client Library[edit]
The framework client library provides a client class which mediates access to a framework installation much like a database connection mediates access to a database.
Since resources are transferred between framework and client as xml representations, the client library treats resources basically as (wrapped) xml dom objects (more precisely as etree.Element instances). A Resource instance is initialized with an appropriate Element of a parsed framework response, and can be serialized for passing it back to the framework.
User Management[edit]
eSciDoc admin uses framework user accounts to access the framework. After successful authentication with the external identity provider the admin application receives a token which is subsequently used to authenticate requests to the framework (see login_finish).