Ecosyste.ms: Awesome

An open API service indexing awesome lists of open source software.

Awesome Lists | Featured Topics | Projects

https://github.com/mvdoc/psiturk-docker

A docker-compose configuration file to run psiturk with MySQL support and a NGINX reverse proxy.
https://github.com/mvdoc/psiturk-docker

docker-compose jspsych mechanical-turk mysql nginx psiturk psychology-experiments

Last synced: 3 days ago
JSON representation

A docker-compose configuration file to run psiturk with MySQL support and a NGINX reverse proxy.

Awesome Lists containing this project

README 

        
# psiturk-docker: a docker-compose configuration file to run psiturk with MySQL support.



The docker-compose file runs a standard nginx container, a standard

MySQL container, and an ad-hoc psiturk container. It links them all up,

so that the nginx container serves all the files it can to the

participant of the experiment (delegating what it cannot serve to the

Gunicorn server run by psiturk inside the psiturk container) and so that

psiturk can record data to the MySQL server container.



DISCLAIMER: this is very experimental, it can be improved (see known

issues below), but for the moment it works for me (at least testing it).

Feel free to play with it (and maybe submit PRs so we all benefit from

it? ;) )



## HOW TO



First, make sure that you change `config.txt` as necessary. Importantly,

you'll need to set `adserver_revproxy_host` to either the static IP

address of the machine that your experiment is deployed on or a fully

qualified domain name (without the protocol) that resolves to that IP

address. You'll also need to set `adserver_revproxy_port` to 80. While

psiturk normally runs on port 22362, nginx is a reverse proxy that sits

in front of psiturk since it does a better job of handling traffic and

serving static files, and nginx runs on port 80. It delegates everything

else to psiturk, running on port 22362.



**Important**: If you're only just testing things on a local computer

(*i.e.*, a computer that is not the deployment computer with a static IP

address), you should leave the `adserver_revproxy_host` value set to the

loopback IP address of `127.0.0.1`, which is just another way of

pointing to the computer that you're currently using. This will allow

you to succesfully test and debug the experiment without having to

deploy it on the computer with the static IP address. However, when you

do deploy the experiment, *make sure* that you change

`adserver_revproxy_host` to either the static IP address of the

deployment machine or a fully qualified domain name (without the

protocol) that resolves to that IP address.



Next, install docker and docker-compose. Then run



```

docker-compose up -d

```



This should download the relevant images, build the psiturk image, run

the containers, and link them. By default they are launched in "daemon"

mode (`-d`).



Then, you need to log in into the psiturk container to use the psiturk

shell:



```

docker attach psiturkdocker_psiturk_1

```



or change `psiturkdocker_psiturk_1` with whatever name shows up for the

psiturk container.  After that command, you should be logged into the

container. To test that everything works, try



```

cd psiturk-example psiturk

```



this should launch the psiturk shell. Then cross your fingers and run



```

server on

debug -p

```



if your server is visible in the network, copying and pasting the URL on

the browser should let you try the experiment.



Note: to detach from the container **do not type `exit`**; this will

kill the container (although it might restart automatically, it's not

nice). Instead, press the sequence `ctrl+p ctrl+q` to detach.



## Data and experiments



By default `docker-compose.yml` maps `./exp` in the host to `/psiturk`

in the psiturk container.  (This folder is also mapped to

`/var/www/psiturk-example` in the nginx container, but it is mapped as

read only inside of that container; this is so nginx can serve the

static files from the experiment, delegating the rest to the psiturk

container.) This means that you can put any experiment directory into

`./exp`, then cd into `/psiturk` from within the psiturk container, and

run the psiturk shell.



The global psiturk configuration file is in `./exp/.psiturkconfig`, and

the env variable is set to point there inside the container.



Also, the mysql database is saved under `./data/db`, and the user and

password can be changed by changing the environment variables in

`docker-compose.yml` (remember to change the `database_url` in the

`config.txt` of the example if you do change it).



## Accessing the database through adminer



The `docker-compose.yml` installs `adminer` as a service, which allows

you to check the database

through webpage. You should be able to open the browser and visit

`localhost:8080` to see the page. Insert the username and password, and

you can check when new subjects's data is recorded.



## Known issues



- if you run `server log` from the psiturk shell, it crashes miserably because psiturk wants

xterm installed, but we're not installing it. If you do want to see the log, you can always

log in the container and `cat` or `tail` the `server.log` file.