Server

Server software for our UTK 2022-2023 Senior Design project - Chatting with a Robot

setup

The server provides both a requirements.txt file as well as a pyproject.toml (pyproject.toml) for multiple build workflows. The recommended build workflow is either plain python venvs or to use Poetry. Additionally, the server requires ffmpeg to be installed and in the PATH. Instructions on how to do this are in the ffmpeg section.

requirements.txt and venv

1. Create a virtual environment by running py -m venv venv (Windows) or python3 -m venv venv (MacOS/Linux).
2. Activate the virtual environment by running .\venv\Scripts\activate (Windows) or source ./venv/bin/activate (MacOS/Linux).
3. Install all dependencies via pip install -r requirements.txt.

To run the server, just execute the server module via Python.

pyproject.toml and Poetry

If you do not have Poetry installed, follow the steps located here. Then, run poetry install in the server root (/Server) to create a virtual environment and install all dependencies.

To run the server, use poetry run python server.

docker

The preferred way to run the server in a non-development environment is to use Docker.

1. Download and install Docker on the target machine and clone the repo.
2. To build the container, run docker build --tag chatting-with-a-robot-server ..
3. To run the container, run docker run -d -p 5000:5000 chatting-with-a-robot-server. The -p option here specifies host_port:internal_port. The internal port of the server defaults to 5000, so the second option here will usually be 5000. However the first option is whatever is most convenient for the host machine.
4. To stop the container, use docker ps to get the process name. Then run docker stop <process name> to stop the container.

ffmpeg

ffmpeg can be obtained on their download page. Choose the build for your system and install it if you're on Linux/MacOS. For Windows builds, download the correct executable from one of the mirrors provided, extract it, and add that folder to the PATH.

formatting

We have black as a code formatter. Run either black server/ or poetry run black server/ to format all the code in the server directory.