Installing Helioviewer

To Use

Simply visit Helioviewer.org

However, if you wish to install the Helioviewer Project on your own machine this document has been created to aid you in this process.

Run With Docker

This is the preferred way to run Helioviewer on your system. Follow the README instructions here

Manual Installation

Use these instructions if you need more control over what’s running on your server, for example if you plan on hosting a Helioviewer mirror.

Specific distro instructions are not listed here. Helioviewer will run on any linux distro as long as these dependencies are met.

Dependencices

  • = PHP 8.0

  • Following PHP modules: mysqli redis imagick bcmath mbstring curl openssl sockets. (Some of these are php defaults, others need to be installed via package manager.)
  • Redis & php-redis (pecl install redis)
  • Image Magick >= 6.9.12 & php-imagick (pecl install imagick)
  • MySQL

  • = Python 3.8 (lower versions of Python 3 may be ok)

  • Following python libraries: numpy sunpy matplotlib scipy glymur mysqlclient
  • tcsh
  • Apache Ant
  • Web server that runs PHP (nginx/apache/etc)
  • Ruby & the Resque gem
  • ffmpeg

Clone source-code

Clone the api repository into webroot usually located in “/var/www”

git clone https://github.com/Helioviewer-Project/api.git api.helioviewer.org

Clone the front-end repository into webroot usually located in “/var/www”

git clone https://github.com/Helioviewer-Project/helioviewer.org.git

cd into the helioviewer.org folder and run the following command to pull in project dependencies

git submodule update --init

Setup Kakadu

Kakadu binaries and shared libraries for 32-bit and 64-bit linux can be found in the install/kakadu directory. Select the appropriate archive based on your architecture and extract the files:

cd install/kakadu

tar zxvpf Kakadu_v6_4_1-00781N_Linux-64-bit-Compiled.tar.gz

Next, copy the Kakadu shared libraries and binaries to a known path, e.g.:

sudo cp lib/* /usr/local/lib/

sudo cp bin/* /usr/local/bin

Update dynamic linker cache:

sudo -s # enter root shell

ldconfig

exit # exit root shell

Now try running one of the Kakadu tools to make sure everything was set up properly:

kdu_merge

Setup the Database

The next step is to process your JPEG 2000 (JP2) images and enter their information into the database for efficient querying. If you don’t already have a JP2 dataset, you can download a sample dataset, e.g.:

wget http://helioviewer.org/jp2/archives/sample-data.tgz

mkdir /var/www/jp2/

tar zxvpf sample-data.tgz -C /var/www/jp2

If the MySQL daemon is not already running, start it:

sudo service mysql start

If you intend to have mysql start automatically when the system powers on, then also run: sudo systemctl enable mysql

Change to the “api/install” directory and run the Helioviewer installation script:

python3 install.py

Follow the steps shown on screen. Processing the JPEG 2000 archive may take anywhere from several minutes to many hours depending on the size of the archives, and the number of files to be processed. For a small dataset like the sample one provided above, processing should only be a matter of minutes.

Create Caching/Logging Directories

In order to function properly, Helioviewer requires write-access to several directories. Tiles, screenshots, and movies are stored in a “cache” directory and logs are stored in a “log” directory. Additionally, if you plan to use a JPIP server in conjunction with Helioviewer, a “movies” directory must be created within the JPEG 2000 archive so that generated JPX files may be accessed over JPIP.

mkdir -p log cache jp2/movies

Enable Apache to write to the directories:

chgrp www-data log cache jp2/movies

chmod 755 log cache jp2/movies

Modify Config File

Both the front-end and back-end of Helioviewer.org use a single configuration file named “Config.ini”, in addition to a separate database configuration file, “Private.php.” Both of these files are located in the api/settings directory. Example files, “Config.Example.ini” and “Private.Example.php,” are provided which are intended to be used as a basis for your own configuration.

Copy or rename these example files to “api/settings/Config.ini” and “api/settings/Private.php”, respectively.

Modify the “Config.ini” file so that the information (filepaths, etc) accurately reflect your server configuration.

By default, the “compress_js” and “compress_css” parameters are set to “true” and Helioviewer will expect to find minified versions of the javascript code and cascading stylesheets. Either set these parameters to “false”, or run Apache Ant on the “scripts/build.xml” file to build the necessary products:

cd helioviewer/resources/build

ant

Modify the database credentials in the “Private.php” file with the values you entered in the installation GUI.

It is recommended to use a virtual host configuration within apache to direct requets to the api under a subdomain.

All done!

To test the installation, open your web browser of choice and navigate to the location where Helioviewer is installed. If you installed Helioviewer to /var/www/helioviewer, you can view the website at http://localhost/helioviewer/.