/atlas-web-bulk

Bulk Expression Atlas web application

Primary LanguageJavaApache License 2.0Apache-2.0

Expression Atlas

Prepare your development environment

TL;DR

./docker/prepare-dev-environment/gradle-cache/run.sh -r -l gradle-cache.log && \
./docker/prepare-dev-environment/volumes/run.sh -r -l volumes.log && \
./docker/prepare-dev-environment/postgres/run.sh -r -l pg.log && \
./docker/prepare-dev-environment/solr/run.sh -r -l solr.log

Requirements

  • Docker v20+ with the Compose plugin
  • 100 GB of available storage for the following Docker volumes:
    • Experiment files
    • Bioentity properties (i.e. gene annotations)
    • PostgreSQL
    • SolrCloud and ZooKeeper
    • Tomcat configuration files

Files written by Solr, PostgreSQL and Tomcat are kept in volumes which will be reused even if the containers are removed (e.g. when running docker-compose down). If you want to start afresh delete the old volume(s) (e.g. for Postgres docker volume rm gxa-pgdata) and re-run the necessary script to return to the initial state. You can find the volume names used by each service in the volumes section of its Docker Compose YAML file.

The full list of volumes is:

  • gxa_atlas-data-bioentity-properties
  • gxa_atlas-data-gxa
  • gxa_atlas-data-gxa-expdesign
  • gxa_gradle-ro-dep-cache
  • gxa_gradle-wrapper-dists
  • gxa_pgdata
  • gxa_solrcloud-1-data
  • gxa_solrcloud-2-data
  • gxa_zk-1-data
  • gxa_zk-1-datalog
  • gxa_zk-2-data
  • gxa_zk-2-datalog
  • gxa_zk-3-data
  • gxa_zk-3-datalog
  • gxa_tomcat-conf
  • gxa_webapp-properties

Code

Clone the repository of Bulk Expression Atlas with submodules:

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/ebi-gene-expression-group/atlas-web-bulk.git

If you have already cloned the project ensure it’s up-to-date:

  git pull
  git submodule update --remote

Create a Gradle read-only dependency cache

To speed up builds and tests it is strongly encouraged to create a Docker volume to back a Gradle read-only dependency cache.

./docker/prepare-dev-environment/gradle-cache/run.sh -r -l gradle-cache.log

Prepare volumes

In order to run integration tests and a development instance of Bulk Expression Atlas you will need a few Docker volumes first. They will be populated with data that will be indexed in Solr and Postgres. Bulk Expression Atlas needs all three of: file bundles in the volumes, Solr collections and Postgres data. This step takes care of the first requirement:

./docker/prepare-dev-environment/volumes/run.sh -r -l volumes.log

You can get detailed information about which volumes are created if you run the script with the -h flag.

This script, unless it’s run with the -r flag, can be interrupted without losing any data. The container mirrors directories via FTP, and can resume after cancellation. It can be re-run to update the data in the volumes should the contents of the source directories change. This is especially useful when experiments are re-analysed/re-annotated, or the bioentity properties directory is updated after a release of Ensembl, WormBase ParaSite, Reactome, Gene Ontoloy, Plant Ontology or InterPro.

How to add a private experiment bundle

Private experiments are not available to download from our FTP site. You can download them from the codon-cluster by using the following steps:

  1. These steps should be done before the PostGreSQL and Solr steps.
  2. After logged in to the codon-cluster check if the experiment bundle can be found under this path: /nfs/production/irene/ma/experiments/.
  3. If it is there, then go to the folder on your local computer where you would like to download the bundle.
  4. Download it by this command: scp -r codon-login:/nfs/production/irene/ma/experiments/<EXPERIMENT_ACCESSION_ID> ..
  5. Create a temp container with mounting the already existing data volume for our local experiments: docker container create --name expVol -v gxa_atlas-data-exp:/atlas-data/exp ubuntu:jammy
  6. Copy the file bundles of the downloaded private experiment into the volume: docker cp <EXPERIMENT_ACCESSION_ID> expVol:/atlas-data/exp/magetab/
  7. Add <EXPERIMENT_ACCESSION_ID> into the PRIVATE_EXP_IDS variable. It is in to test-data.env file under the docker/prepare-dev-environment folder. If it is not there, then please create it.
  8. The experiment accession IDs in that variable should be separated by SPACE.

PostGreSQL

To create our PostGreSQL database and run the schema migrations up to the latest version please execute this script:

./docker/prepare-dev-environment/postgres/run.sh -r -l pg.log

Solr

To create the collections, their schemas and populate them, please run the following scripts.

Currently, this step is separated into 2 sub-steps by Solr collections. There is an inconsistency in our web apps and various shell scripts - that we use together with the Data Prod Team - how we use the SOLR_HOST and SOLR_HOSTS variables. We need to sort this out, but while it is not solved we probably have to keep this 2 sub-steps, unless we find a way to merge them.

To create and populate the bioentities collection:

./docker/prepare-dev-environment/solr-bioentities/run.sh -r -l solr-bioentities.log

To create and populate the bulk-analytics collection:

./docker/prepare-dev-environment/solr-analytics/run.sh -l solr-analytics.log

Run the script with the -h flag for more details.

You may want to speed up the process by raising the value of the environment variable NUM_DOCS_PER_BATCH (L81 of the run.sh script). On a fairly powerful laptop at the time of writing 20,000 has been found to be a reliable number via painstaking trail and error, but your mileage may vary. Ensure that there are no errors in the script logs, or update your test data by add the necessary species names and experiment accessions in the test-dev.env file and rebuild the development environment. Some tests may fail due to incomplete annotations; grep for DistributedUpdatesAsyncException in particular, which signals a problem storing the document batch, which in turn stops processing the current file. If found, try again with a lower value for NUM_DOCS_PER_BATCH.

Update test data

Add or change the necessary species names and experiment accessions in the test-data.env file and rebuild the development environment.

Testing

TL;DR

./execute-all-tests.sh      
./execute-single-test.sh TEST_NAME 
./debug-single-test.sh TEST_NAME
./stop-and-remove-containers.sh

Execute all tests

The gxa-gradle service in docker/docker-compose-gradle.yml executes all tests and writes reports to atlas-web-core/build and app/build in the host machine. It requires the SolrCloud service described earlier, and a Postgres container with the following differences compared to the development service, gxa-postgres: it doesn’t use named volumes to ensure the database is clean before running any tests, and its name (as well as the dependency declared in docker-compose-gradle.yml) has been changed to gxa-postgres-test. We don’t want to use gxa-postgres by mistake and wipe the tables from the dev instance when cleaning fixtures... such an unfortunate accident is known to have happened.

The job is split in the following six phases:

  1. Clean build directory
  2. Compile test classes
  3. Run unit tests
  4. Run integration tests
  5. Run end-to-end tests
  6. Generate JaCoCo reports

You will eventually see these log messages:

gxa-gradle         | BUILD SUCCESSFUL in 2s
gxa-gradle         | 3 actionable tasks: 1 executed, 2 up-to-date
gxa-gradle exited with code 0

Press Ctrl+C to stop the container and clean any leftovers:

docker-compose \
--env-file ./docker/dev.env \
-f ./docker/docker-compose-gradle.yml \
-f ./docker/docker-compose-postgres-test.yml \
-f ./docker/docker-compose-solrcloud.yml \
down

Or run ./stop-and-remove-containers.sh.

You will find very convenient to use the script execute-all-tests.sh.

./execute-all-tests.sh

The script uses docker-compose run, and control returns to your shell once the tasks have finished, but you’ll need to clean up the service containers anyway.

Execute a single test

Many times you will find yourself working in a specific test case or class. Running all tests in such cases is impractical. In such situations you can use Gradle’s continuous build execution. See the example below for e.g. GenePageControllerIT.java:

docker-compose \
--env-file ./docker/dev.env \
-f ./docker/docker-compose-gradle.yml \
-f ./docker/docker-compose-postgres-test.yml \
-f ./docker/docker-compose-solrcloud.yml \
run --rm --service-ports \
gxa-gradle bash -c '
./gradlew :app:clean &&
./gradlew \
-PdataFilesLocation=/atlas-data \
-PexperimentFilesLocation=/atlas-data/gxa \
-PjdbcUrl=jdbc:postgresql://${POSTGRES_HOST}:5432/${POSTGRES_DB} \
-PjdbcUsername=${POSTGRES_USER} \
-PjdbcPassword=${POSTGRES_PASSWORD} \
-PzkHosts=${SOLR_CLOUD_ZK_CONTAINER_1_NAME}:2181,${SOLR_CLOUD_ZK_CONTAINER_2_NAME}:2181,${SOLR_CLOUD_ZK_CONTAINER_3_NAME}:2181 \
-PsolrHosts=http://${SOLR_CLOUD_CONTAINER_1_NAME}:8983/solr,http://${SOLR_CLOUD_CONTAINER_2_NAME}:8983/solr \
app:testClasses &&
./gradlew --continuous :app:test --tests GenePageControllerIT
'

After running the test Gradle stays idle and waits for any changes in the code. When it detects that the files in your project have been updated it will recompile them and run the specified test again. Notice that you can specify multiple test files after --tests (by name or with wildcards).

Again, a convenience script can be used:

./execute-single-test.sh TEST_NAME

Debug tests

If you want to use a debugger, add the option -PremoteDebug to the command of the test. For instance:

./gradlew -PremoteDebug :app:test --tests GenePageControllerIT

Be aware that Gradle won’t execute the tests until you attach a remote debugger to port 5005. It will notify you when it’s ready with the following message:

> Task :app:test
Listening for transport dt_socket at address: 5005
<===========--> 90% EXECUTING [5s]
> IDLE
> IDLE
> IDLE
> IDLE
> IDLE
> IDLE
> IDLE
> :app:test > 0 tests completed
> IDLE
> IDLE
> IDLE
> IDLE

You can combine --continuous with -PremoteDebug, but the debugger will be disconnected at the end of the test. You will need to start and attach the remote debugger every time Gradle compiles and runs the specified test.

To attach a remote debugger to your gradle test you can add following configuration in your IntelliJ:

RMoIhF.md.png

The script debug-single-test.sh is a shortcut for this task. It takes the same arguments as executing a single test.

./debug-single-test.sh TEST_NAME

Run web application

Please check this first in the troubleshooting session: Known Build Issue

The web application is compiled in two stages:

  1. Front end JavaScript packages are transpiled into “bundles” with Webpack
  2. Bundles and back end Java code are built as a WAR file

Lastly, Tomcat deploys the WAR file according to app/src/main/webapp/META-INF/context.xml; other Java EE web servers might work but no testing has been carried out in this regard.

For the first step you can run the following script:

 ./compile-front-end-packages.sh -iu

The second step is simply:

./gradlew :app:war

The script build-and-deploy-webapp.sh puts it altogether and will eventually launch a Tomcat container with a running dev instance of Single Cell Expression Atlas. The script before launching the web application can build only the back-end or front-end component or both.

Here is the usage of this script:

  • -n Use this flag if you would not like to do any build, just execute the application.
  • -f Use this flag if you would like to build the front-end javascript packages.
  • -b Use this flag if you would like to build the back-end of the web application.
  • -h Displaying the help file of this script.

If you don't give any flags, or you add both then the script is going to build both front and back-end part of the web application.

Troubleshooting

Known Build Issue

This current version of our developer env has a bug when we build and execute the application with the build-and-deploy-webapp.sh script. We have a ticket to fix this in our backlog: Update bulk with the latest webpack and its dependencies

You can build a working WAR with the following steps:

  1. Manually build the UI:
./compile-front-end-packages.sh -iu
  1. Manually build the backend:
./gradlew :app:war
  1. Use this script to start up the web app on your local environment:
./build-and-deploy-webapp.sh -n

SolrCloud nodes shut down on macOS

Docker for macOS sets fairly strict resource limits for all Docker containers. If your containers require e.g. more memory you need to increase the available amount in the Docker Dashboard. For bulk Expression Atlas, please set Memory to between 8-12 GB and disk image to 100 GB or more. Please see the screenshot below for reference:

Screenshot-2021-02-18-at-18-27-40