Installing pyobs

Setting up pyobs most of the time also requires an XMPP server, so here we show the complete installation of ejabberd and pyobs.

Setting up ejabberd

In case you already have a working XMPP server, skip this step.

  1. Download ejabberd from https://www.process-one.net/en/ejabberd/downloads/ and install it.

  2. Since the allowed packet sizes are by default a little too small, find the ejabberd config file ejabberd.yml and find and edit the “shaper” part:

    shaper:
      normal: 100000
      fast: 5000000
    
  3. Start ejabberd server using:

    ejabberdctl start
    
  4. Add a Shared Roster Group so that all clients are in each others roster (replace <host> with local hostname):

    ejabberdctl srg_create all <host> all all all
    ejabberdctl srg_user_add @all@ <host> all <host>
    
  5. Register users (may skip for now), e.g.:

    ejabberdctl register <name> <host> <password>
    

Install pyobs

First thing to decide is whether you want to install pyobs in a virtual environment. If you do, and most of the times you should, you can create one via:

python3 -m venv venv

Then you can activate it at any time using:

source ./venv/bin/activate

And deactivate it again with:

deactivate

Installation of pyobs is as simple as:

pip3 install pyobs-core

Install all other required packages (e.g. pyobs-sbig, pyobs-gui, …) the same way.

Alternatively, especially if you need the latest development version, you can clone the repository and install it from there:

git clone git@github.com:pyobs/pyobs-core.git
cd pyobs-core
pip3 install .

You now have the pyobs (see Module launcher pyobs) executable available to start pyobs modules.

Using the pyobsd tool

pyobs comes with its own little tool called pyobsd for starting and stopping pyobs modules (see pyobsd daemon). On Linux systems, you should create a new user “pyobs”:

adduser pyobs --home /opt/pyobs

Note that we’ve set the user’s home directory to /opt/pyobs.

Change into the new user, and create some directories:

su pyobs
mkdir -p /opt/pyobs/config
mkdir -p /opt/pyobs/log
mkdir -p /opt/pyobs/run

Every configuration YAML file in the config directory will now automatically show up in the pyobsd tool. Logs will be written into the log directory, and PID files for each process into run.