odss2dash

General overview at: https://docs.mbari.org/tethysdash/odss2dash/.

odss2dash is a service that periodically retrieves the latest positions of specified assets from the Tracking DB (via ODSS API) to then relay them to any number of configured TethysDash instances (which in turn will push them to corresponding Dash UI instances via websockets).

• Configuration is captured in a local odss2dash.toml file.
• Multiple TethysDash instances can be configured, to which any new positions will be notified. We use this mechanism for the production TethysDash instance (visible through okeanids) as well as for instances running on our TethysDash staging server, tethystest.
• Each TethysDash instance configuration includes a corresponding API Key, which odss2dash uses to be able to make the relevant notification requests.
• The service will perform the following dispatch repeatedly according to the pollPeriod configuration setting:
  • Read in the desired assets to be dispatched from ./dispatched.json
  • Retrieve any newer positions of those platforms from TrackingDB/ODSS
  • Notify the new positions to the configured TethysDash instances
  • Update ./reported.json, which keeps track of the timestamp of the latest reported position for each dispatched platform.

The REST API allows clients to update the list of assets to be dispatched. The Dash UI, in particular, uses it to populate the TrackingDB platforms dropdown where the user can select the platforms to be included on the map.

Configuration

See odss2dash.toml for details. In particular, make sure to use the $EV mechanism to indicate the TethysDash API Keys. Set the corresponding environment variables accordingly, prior to running the program. You can put them in a .env file, which is automatically ingested.

Running

The primary command of the program is to launch the service itself:

odss2dash serve

Locally, you can then open http://localhost:3033/apidoc.

odss2dash serve is the command associated to the docker image.

Mainly for development/verification purposes, other commands are also available. Run odss2dash --help for more details.

Okeanids

Upon a new pushed git tag, odss2dash gets automatically updated on okeanids. Along with other TethysDash system components, it is included in our regular continuous deployment (CD) setup.

The odss2dash API is exposed at https://okeanids.mbari.org/odss2dash/api, with documentation available at https://okeanids.mbari.org/odss2dash/apidoc/.