Quick start - Demo

The quickest way to validate your build is to start with a demonstration HTTP setup, so you don’t need to configure credentials and certificates to use the app. This section will guide you through it.

  1. Install Docker

Instructions available here.

  1. Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/weiss-controls/weiss.git

  1. Configure your environment.

First, create your .env file. You can start by just copying .env.example from the root folder:

cp .env.example .env

If you want to see PVs outside of localhost, adjust DEFAULT_PROTOCOL and EPICS_XXX_ADDR_LIST accordingly.

Important

If running outside of your localhost, make sure to set APP_HOSTNAME to your server’s IP address or DNS name. This is used by nginx to accept requests for the right hostname and by the API’s CORS policy to allow requests from the frontend - all other origins are blocked.

The whole behaviour of the app is configured via environment variables. For this tutorial, most of the times you don’t need to change anything unless you want to. Take a look at the other variables to get familiarized with the options.

  1. Build and start the system. From the root of the repo, run:

docker compose up -d

Once built, three services should be running (plus an internal storage volume container):

  • weiss-epicsws: the EPICS communication layer.

  • weiss-api: the backend API for file and git interaction.

  • weiss: WEISS front-end application - accessible at http://localhost (or your server address, if applicable).

Hint

If you do not have an IOC available for testing, you can run the demonstration IOCs. A set of OPIs using the appropriate PVs for these can be imported from weiss-demo-opis using WEISS file browser.

You should now be able to import public repositories and explore the tool. For a production-grade setup (HTTPS, enabling git write and login credentials), see Production setup section, starting with Environment variables.