Installation and deployment¶

Supported platforms¶

INGInious is intended to run on Linux (kernel 3.10+), but can also be run on macOS thanks to the Docker toolbox.

Note

While Docker is supported on Windows 10, INGInious does not provide support for Windows yet. If you are willing to contribute this, feel free to contact us on Github.

Dependencies setup¶

INGInious needs:

Python 3
Docker
MongoDB
Libtidy
LibZMQ

RHEL/Rocky/Alma Linux 8+, Fedora 34+¶

Danger

Due to compatibility issues, it is recommended to disable SELinux on the target machine.

The previously mentioned dependencies can be installed, for Cent OS 7+ :

# yum install -y epel-release
# yum install -y git gcc libtidy python3 python3-devel python3-pip zeromq-devel yum-utils
# yum-config-manager --add-repo https://download.docker.com/linux/centos/docker-ce.repo
# yum install -y docker-ce docker-ce-cli
# cat <<EOF > /etc/yum.repos.d/mongodb-org-7.0.repo
[mongodb-org-7.0]
name=MongoDB Repository
baseurl=https://repo.mongodb.org/yum/redhat/9/mongodb-org/7.0/x86_64/
gpgcheck=1
enabled=1
gpgkey=https://pgp.mongodb.com/server-7.0.asc
EOF
# yum install -y mongodb-org mongodb-org-server

Or, for Fedora 34+:

# yum install -y git gcc libtidy python3 python3-devel python3-pip zeromq-devel dnf-plugins-core
# dnf config-manager --add-repo https://download.docker.com/linux/fedora/docker-ce.repo
# dnf install -y docker-ce docker-ce-cli
# cat <<EOF > /etc/yum.repos.d/mongodb-org-7.0.repo
[mongodb-org-7.0]
name=MongoDB Repository
baseurl=https://repo.mongodb.org/yum/redhat/9/mongodb-org/7.0/x86_64/
gpgcheck=1
enabled=1
gpgkey=https://pgp.mongodb.com/server-7.0.asc
EOF
# yum install -y mongodb-org mongodb-org-server

You may also add xmlsec1-openssl-devel libtool-ltdl-devel for the SAML2 auth plugin.

You can now start and enable the mongod and docker services:

# systemctl start mongod
# systemctl enable mongod
# systemctl start docker
# systemctl enable docker

Ubuntu 18.04+¶

The previously mentioned dependencies can be installed, for Ubuntu 18.04+:

# apt-get update
# apt-get install git gcc tidy python3 python3-pip python3-dev libzmq3-dev mongodb apt-transport-https curl gnupg lsb-release
# curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg | gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/docker-archive-keyring.gpg
# echo "deb [arch=amd64 signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/docker-archive-keyring.gpg] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu $(lsb_release -cs) stable" | tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/null
# apt-get update
# apt-get install docker-ce docker-ce-cli

You may also add libxmlsec1-dev libltdl-dev for the SAML2 auth plugin

You can now start and enable the mongod and docker services:

# systemctl start mongodb
# systemctl enable mongodb
# systemctl start docker
# systemctl enable docker

macOS¶

Warning

While Docker supports both x86 and ARM containers on Apple silicon, compatibility hasn’t been tested yet. Feel free to contribute.

We use brew to install some packages. Packages are certainly available too via macPorts.

$ brew install mongodb
$ brew install python3

Follow the instruction of brew to enable mongodb.

The next step is to install Docker for Mac.

Installing INGInious¶

The recommended setup is to install INGInious via pip from PyPI. This allows you to use the latest supported version.

$ pip install --upgrade pip
$ pip install --upgrade inginious

This will automatically upgrade an existing version.

Note

You may want to enable the LDAP/SAML2 plugin. In this case, you have to install more packages: simply add [ldap] or [saml2] to the above command, depending on your needs:

$ pip install --upgrade inginious[saml2,ldap]

Configuring INGInious¶

INGInious comes with a mini-LMS web app that provides statistics, group management, and the INGInious studio, that allows to modify and test your tasks directly in your browser. It supports the LTI interface that allows to interface with Learning Management System via the LTI specification. Any LMS supporting LTI is compatible. This includes Moodle, edX, among many others.

It is recommended to create a folder for INGInious and subfolders for tasks and backup, e.g.:

$ mkdir -p /var/www/inginious
$ cd /var/www/inginious
$ mkdir tasks
$ mkdir backup

To configure the web app automatically, use the inginious-install CLI.

$ inginious-install

This will help you create the configuration file in the current directory. When asked about the tasks folder, enter an absolute folder: /var/www/inginious/tasks . Similarly, when asked about the backup folder, enter an absolute folder: /var/www/inginious/backup .

For manual configuration and details, see Configuration reference. In particular, make sure to add smtp configuration into your configuration.yaml file, since INGInious must send email during new user registration.

The detailed inginious-install reference can be found at inginious-install.

Running INGInious¶

During the configuration step, you were asked to setup either a local or remote backend. In the former case, the frontend will automatically start a local backend and grading agents. Additionally, if you intend to have many simultaneous submissions, it is highly recommended to have a webserver, such as lighttpd or Apache – see below.

With local backend/agent – no webserver¶

To run the frontend, please use the inginious-webapp CLI. This will open a small Python web server and display the url on which it is bind in the console. Some parameters (configuration file, host, port) can be specified. Details are available at inginious-webapp.

With remote backend/agent – no webserver¶

To run INGInious with a remote backend (and agents), do as follows:

On the backend host, launch the backend (see inginious-backend) :
```
inginious-backend tcp://backend-host:2001 tcp://backend-host:2000
```
The agents will connect on tcp://backend-host:2001 and clients on tcp://backend-host:2000
Possibly on different hosts, launch the Docker and MCQ agents (see inginious-agent-docker and inginious-agent-mcq) :
```
inginious-agent-docker tcp://backend-host:2001
inginious-agent-mcq tcp://backend-host:2001
```
In your INGInious frontend configuration file (see Configuration reference), set backend to :
```
backend: tcp://backend-host:2000
```

Run the frontend using inginious-webapp.

inginious-webapp --config /path/to/configuration.yaml

With local backend/agent and a webserver¶

The following guides suggest to run the INGInious webapp on http port and WebDAV on port 8080 on the same host. You are free to adapt them to your use case (for instance, adding SSL support or using two hostnames).

Warning

In configurations below, environment variables accessible to the application must be explicitly repeated. If you use a local backend with remote Docker daemon, you may need to set the DOCKER_HOST variable. To know the value to set, start a terminal that has access to the docker daemon (the terminal should be able to run docker info), and write echo $DOCKER_HOST. If it returns nothing, just ignore this comment. It is possible that you may need to do the same for the env variable DOCKER_CERT_PATH and DOCKER_TLS_VERIFY too.

Using lighttpd¶

In production environments, you can use lighttpd in replacement of the built-in Python server. This guide is made for CentOS 7.x.

Install lighttpd with fastcgi:

# yum install lighttpd lighttpd-fastcgi

Add the lighttpd user in the necessary groups, to allow it to launch new containers and to connect to mongodb:

# usermod -aG docker lighttpd
# usermod -aG mongodb lighttpd

Create a folder for INGInious, for example /var/www/INGInious, and change the directory owner to lighttpd:

# mkdir -p /var/www/INGInious
# chown -R lighttpd:lighttpd /var/www/INGInious

Put your configuration file in that folder, as well as your tasks, backup, download, and temporary (if local backend) directories (see Configuring INGInious for more details on these folders).

Once this is done, we can configure lighttpd. First, the file /etc/lighttpd/modules.conf, to load these modules:

server.modules = (
    "mod_access",
    "mod_alias"
)

include "conf.d/compress.conf"
include "conf.d/fastcgi.conf"

You can then add virtual host entries in a /etc/lighttpd/vhosts.d/inginious.conf file and apply the following rules:

server.modules   += ( "mod_fastcgi" )
server.modules   += ( "mod_rewrite" )

$SERVER["socket"] == ":80" {
    alias.url = (
        "/static/" => "/usr/lib/python3.6/site-packages/inginious/frontend/static/"
    )

    fastcgi.server = ( "/inginious-webapp" =>
        (( "socket" => "/tmp/fastcgi.socket",
            "bin-path" => "/usr/bin/inginious-webapp",
            "max-procs" => 1,
            "bin-environment" => (
                "INGINIOUS_WEBAPP_HOST" => "0.0.0.0",
                "INGINIOUS_WEBAPP_PORT" => "80",
                "INGINIOUS_WEBAPP_CONFIG" => "/var/www/INGInious/configuration.yaml",
                "REAL_SCRIPT_NAME" => ""
            ),
            "check-local" => "disable"
        ))
    )

    url.rewrite-once = (
        "^/favicon.ico$" => "/static/icons/favicon.ico",
        "^/static/(.*)$" => "/static/$1",
        "^/(.*)$" => "/inginious-webapp/$1"
    )
}

$SERVER["socket"] == ":8080" {
    fastcgi.server = ( "/inginious-webdav" =>
        (( "socket" => "/tmp/fastcgi.socket",
            "bin-path" => "/usr/bin/inginious-webdav",
            "max-procs" => 1,
            "bin-environment" => (
                "INGINIOUS_WEBDAV_HOST" => "0.0.0.0",
                "INGINIOUS_WEBDAV_PORT" => "8080",
                "INGINIOUS_WEBAPP_CONFIG" => "/var/www/INGInious/configuration.yaml",
                "REAL_SCRIPT_NAME" => ""
            ),
            "check-local" => "disable"
        ))
    )

    url.rewrite-once = (
        "^/(.*)$" => "/inginious-webdav/$1"
    )
}

In your lighttpd configuration /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf change these lines:

server.document-root = server_root + "/INGInious"

Also append this at the end of /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf:

include "/etc/lighttpd/vhosts.d/inginious.conf"

Note

Make sure that INGInious static directory path is executable by Ligttpd by giving the right permission with chmod

In some cases docker won’t be able to run INGInious containers due to invalid temp directory just make sure you append this in your INGInious configuration.yaml

local-config:
    tmp_dir: /var/www/INGInious/agent_tmp

The INGINIOUS_WEBAPP and INGINIOUS_WEBDAV prefixed environment variables are used to replace the default command line parameters. See inginious-webapp for more details.

The REAL_SCRIPT_NAME environment variable must be specified under lighttpd if you plan to access the application from another path than the specified one. In this case, lighttpd forces to set a non-root path /inginious-webapp, while a root access if wanted, in order to serve static files correctly. Therefore, this environment variable is set to an empty string in addition to the rewrite rule.

Note

The Default configuration doesn’t optimize Inginious for performance, please refer to https://redmine.lighttpd.net/projects/lighttpd/wiki/Docs_Performance for more about performance optimising you may also change ‘max-procs’ and append “PHP_FCGI_CHILDREN” => “someValue” inside “bin-environment” for more about these values check https://redmine.lighttpd.net/projects/lighttpd/wiki/Docs_PerformanceFastCGI

Finally, start the server:

# systemctl enable lighttpd
# systemctl start lighttpd

Using Apache on CentOS 7.x¶

You may also want to use Apache. You should install mod_wsgi. WSGI interfaces are supported through the inginious-webapp script.

Install the following packages (please note that the Python3.5+ version of mod_wsgi is required):

# yum install httpd httpd-devel
# pip3.5 install mod_wsgi

Add the apache user in the necessary groups, to allow it to launch new containers and to connect to mongodb:

# usermod -aG docker apache
# usermod -aG mongodb apache

Create a folder for INGInious, for example /var/www/INGInious, and change the directory owner to apache:

# mkdir -p /var/www/INGInious
# chown -R apache:apache /var/www/INGInious

Put your configuration file in that folder, as well as your tasks, backup, download, and temporary (if local backend) directories (see Configuring INGInious for more details on these folders).

Set the environment variables used by the INGInious CLI scripts in the Apache service environment file (see lighttpd for more details):

# cat  << EOF >> /etc/sysconfig/httpd
INGINIOUS_WEBAPP_CONFIG="/var/www/INGInious/configuration.yaml"
INGINIOUS_WEBAPP_HOST="0.0.0.0"
INGINIOUS_WEBAPP_PORT="80"
EOF
# rm /etc/httpd/conf.d/welcome.conf

Please note that the service environment file /etc/sysconfig/httpd may differ from your distribution and wether it uses systemd or init.

Append this in your INGInious configuration.yaml

local-config:
    tmp_dir: /var/www/inginious/agent_tmp

You can then add virtual host entries in a /etc/httpd/vhosts.d/inginious.conf file and apply the following rules:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName my_inginious_domain
    LoadModule wsgi_module /usr/lib64/python3.5/site-packages/mod_wsgi/server/mod_wsgi-py35.cpython-35m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so

    WSGIScriptAlias / "/usr/bin/inginious-webapp"
    WSGIScriptReloading On

    Alias /static /usr/lib/python3.6/site-packages/inginious/frontend/static

    <Directory "/usr/bin">
        <Files "inginious-webapp">
            Require all granted
        </Files>
    </Directory>

    <DirectoryMatch "/usr/lib/python3.6/site-packages/inginious/frontend/static">
        Require all granted
    </DirectoryMatch>
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:8080>
    ServerName my_inginious_domain
    LoadModule wsgi_module /usr/lib64/python3.6/site-packages/mod_wsgi/server/mod_wsgi-py35.cpython-35m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so

    WSGIScriptAlias / "/usr/bin/inginious-webdav"
    WSGIScriptReloading On

    <Directory "/usr/bin">
        <Files "inginious-webdav">
            Require all granted
        </Files>
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

Please note that the compiled wsgi module path may differ according to the exact Python version you are running.

Using Apache on Ubuntu 18.04¶

Change the owner to the inginious folder and its contents to the Apache2 user:

chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/inginious

Set the global server name: add the line ServerName localhost in /etc/apache2/conf.d/httpd.conf

Set the environment variables used by the INGInious CLI scripts in the Apache service environment file, /etc/apache2/envvars :

export INGINIOUS_WEBAPP_CONFIG="/var/www/inginious/configuration.yaml"
export INGINIOUS_WEBAPP_HOST="0.0.0.0"
export INGINIOUS_WEBAPP_PORT="80"

Add them also inside the file /lib/systemd/system/apache2.service, as follows:

Environment=INGINIOUS_WEBAPP_CONFIG="/var/www/inginious/configuration.yaml"
Environment=INGINIOUS_WEBAPP_HOST="0.0.0.0"
Environment=INGINIOUS_WEBAPP_PORT="80"

Append this in your INGInious configuration.yaml

local-config:
    tmp_dir: /var/www/inginious/agent_tmp

Add virtual host entries in a /etc/apache2/sites-available/inginious.conf file with the following rules:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    WSGIScriptAlias / "/usr/local/bin/inginious-webapp"
    WSGIScriptReloading On

    Alias /static /usr/local/lib/python3.6/dist-packages/inginious/frontend/static

        <Directory "/usr/local/bin">
            <Files "inginious-webapp">
                Require all granted
            </Files>
        </Directory>

        <DirectoryMatch "/usr/local/lib/python3.6/dist-packages/inginious/frontend/static">
            Require all granted
        </DirectoryMatch>

    ServerAdmin erelsgl@gmail.com
    DocumentRoot /var/www/inginious
</VirtualHost>


<VirtualHost *:8080>
        WSGIScriptAlias / "/usr/local/bin/inginious-webdav"
        WSGIScriptReloading On

        <Directory "/usr/local/bin">
            <Files "inginious-webdav">
                Require all granted
            </Files>
        </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

Please note that the static files path may differ according to the exact Python version you are running.

Then, enable the new site and reload apache2:

a2enmod wsgi
a2dissite 000-default
a2ensite inginious
systemctl reload apache2

Apache will automatically start the frontend.

To check that the various parts of the system are correctly installed, you can use the following commands.

1 Check that docker is active:

# systemctl status docker

2 Check that mongo db is active:

# systemctl status mongodb

3 Check that Apache 2 is active:

# systemctl status apache2

All of them should be in status “active (running)”.

4 Check that wsgi is installed:

# source /etc/apache2/envvars # apache2 -M

The last line should be “wsgi_module (shared)”.

# apache2 -S

There should be two lines under VirtualHost configuration: referring to inginious.conf.

5 Check access to a file in the static folder, e.g.:

# curl http://localhost/static/icons/wb.svg

6 Check access to the courselist folder:

# curl http://localhost/courselist

7 Finally, open the URL to your website in a browser, and login as superadmin; you should see the INGInious homepage.

Optional apps¶

WebDAV setup¶

An optional WebDAV server can be used with INGInious to allow course administrators to access their course filesystem. This is an additional app that needs to be launched on another port or hostname. Run the WebDAV server using inginious-webdav.

inginious-webdav --config /path/to/configuration.yaml --port 8000

In your configuration file (see Configuration reference), set webdav_host to:

<protocol>://<hostname>:<port>

where protocol is either http or https, hostname and port the hostname and port where the WebDAV app is running.

Webterm setup¶

An optional web terminal can be used with INGInious to load the remote SSH debug session. This rely on an external tool.

To install this tool :

$ git clone https://github.com/INGInious/xterm
$ cd xterm && npm install

You can then launch the tool by running:

$ npm start bind_hostname bind_port debug_host:debug_ports

This will launch the app on http://bind_hostname:bind_port. The debug_host and debug_ports parameters are the debug paramaters on the local (see Configuration reference) or remote (see inginious-agent-docker) Docker agent.

To make the INGInious frontend aware of that application, update your configuration file by setting the webterm field to http://bind_hostname:bind_port (see Configuration reference).

For more information on this tool, please see INGInious-xterm. Please note that INGInious-xterm must be launched using SSL if the frontend is launched using SSL.