chorus hub without server access

[Kent Rasmussen]

Hi,

I'm trying to set up a collaborative environment for a field methods class, and I'm wondering if it would work to have everyone send receive to a local LAN folder, if we don't have the capability to run chorus hub on that same server (as university IT hasn't gotten to that yet, yes or no). Ultimately it would be nice to have the server running chorus hub, but we need to get started now, and sharing USB drives won't work for us, after our first meeting (since we want to update before and after each work session, and we're not all on campus).

Anyway, I look forward to hearing back, especially if there are any problems with this approach that might not be immediately evident.

thanks and Grace,

--
Kent Rasmussen
SIL Eastern Congo Group Linguistics Consultant / Conseiller en Linguistique de SIL au Congo de l'Est
Orthographies for eastern DRC / Orthographes pour la RDC de l'est
+1-541-357-7276

[Randy Regnier]

Chorus used to support a shared LAN folder option, but it proved to have
too many problem, so Chorus Hub was created to replace it.

Currently, Chorus supports Send/Receive (SR) using any (or all) of these
options: Internet, Chorus Hub, or USD drives. It looks like you can only
use that Internet option on a server such as Language Depot. I may have
missed something, but if the reason the USB option can't work is "we're
not all on campus", then I'm not sure how the Chorus Hub option would
work even if it was running on the university's server. Users would
still need to be connected to the network to use Chorus Hub (or that
older shared LAN option).

Randy Regnier

[Kent Rasmussen]

I would put the data on a public facing server. We would also have an option (if it mattered) to connect to the university through a VPN.
Frankly, the larger barrier to using USB drives is the fact that, with ten people actively working on one fieldworks project, we will need to be frequently updating each other to keep from having a merge nightmare on our hands. We can't all have constant access to a single USB drive (which we would need to not have lots of complex merges), unless that were to be stored somewhere on campus which we all had access to (another issue in itself). We could, however expect that each of us synchronize several times a day with the same repository if it were available through a network.

I tried using the "other server" option, but it seems to balk at a server that doesn't have username:password authentication. I do recall using Chorus on a LAN; I recall that being an elegant solution for some of our needs (we had a lot of USB drive corruption issues, and this got around them), so I'm sorry that's gone --but I'll trust you guys know what you're doing.

Thanks for your work, and Grace,

Kent

On 01/16/2017 07:07 PM, Randy Regnier wrote:
> Currently, Chorus supports Send/Receive (SR) using any (or all) of these options: Internet, Chorus Hub, or USD drives. It looks like you can only use that Internet option on a server such as Language Depot. I may have missed something, but if the reason the USB option can't work is "we're not all on campus", then I'm not sure how the Chorus Hub option would work even if it was running on the university's server. Users would still need to be connected to the network to use Chorus Hub (or that older shared LAN option).

[Randy Regnier]

It is not trivial to set up a server for SR purposes (that "other
server" Internet option). Authentication and authorization are issues,
but there are other issues that must also be addressed. For instance, a
server won't naturally know how to 'talk' with Chorus on the user's
computer, even if that username & password issue were resolved.
Additional software would need to be installed and configured on the
server to support that communication API. Even if you had Chorus Hub
installed on the server, that won't then let you select the "Internet"
option and use it from afar, because Chorus Hub does not know about or
support that "other server" Internet API.

I suspect your best option is to use the Language Depot server, since it
supports that "other server" Internet option and it knows how to 'talk'
with user machines, when doing FLEx SR operations.

Randy Regnier

[Kent Rasmussen]

I know that languagedepot would work, but as this is a University class, I understand that university rules require that the data be stored on university servers.
To be clear, are you saying that you don't think I could install Chorus Hub on a university networked server, or are you just talking about the "Internet" option? I'm working on getting Chorus Hub installed, but if that won't work for us, I'll stop.

Grace,
Kent

On 01/16/2017 07:54 PM, Randy Regnier wrote:
> I suspect your best option is to use the Language Depot server, since it supports that "other server" Internet option and it knows how to 'talk' with user machines, when doing FLEx SR operations.

[Randy Regnier]

Chorus Hub is now a service(Windows)/daemon(Linux). Chorus Hub was
created as a replacement for that older shared LAN folder option on some
local network. It wasn't developed in a way that requires it to be
installed on a formal server computer, as it can be installed on any
computer that is connected to the network. (The FLEx developers run it
on a normal non-server machine that is on a domain, when they test S/R.)
Only one instance of Chorus Hub can be running at a time. Anyone using
it must be connected to the network/domain (wifi or wire). I'm not sure
if using a VPN connection as a substitute for wifi/wire has been tested.
I know Chorus Hub wasn't developed with VPN access in mind. Please
report your findings back to the list, as others may want to know.

As far as the 'Internet' option goes.... I wanted to be very clear that
Chorus Hub cannot be used on one end, where the user then selects the
"Internet" option for Send/Receive on the other end.

Randy

[Kent Rasmussen]

I have a question about the visibility of Chorus to other computers. When I wrote the question below, I thought it would have a straightfoward answer, but not I'm not sure. I have flex running in a VM on my computer, and it is able to sync with a Chorus Hub instance on itself. While I'm not yet able to get FLEx working outside of a VM on my computer (another issue in progress), I do seem to have a Chorus Hub instance running. So I killed the instance in the VM (to have just one on the network), and restarted the one on my physical computer, but FLEx in my VM doesn't see the Chorus Hub instance, though it is running. I can ping from my VM to my physical computer, though not the other way around…
OK, I changed my settings so my VM is no longer behind a NAT, and my physical computer can now ping it, and FLEx in the VM can sync with my Chorus instance running on my physical computer.
So the answer to my question (IIUC) is that the computer running Chorus Hub needs to be able to see the client computer, in order to advertise it's services. Does that sound right? Anything else to look out for?

Grace,

Kent

On 01/17/2017 11:12 AM, Kent Rasmussen wrote:
> To be clear, are you saying that you don't think I could install Chorus Hub on a university networked server, or are you just talking about the "Internet" option? I'm working on getting Chorus Hub installed, but if that won't work for us, I'll stop.

[Randy Regnier]

On 1/17/2017 11:14 AM, Kent Rasmussen wrote:

> So the answer to my question (IIUC) is that the computer running
> Chorus Hub needs to be able to see the client computer, in order to
> advertise it's services. Does that sound right?

Technically, no. Chorus Hub will be running and waiting to do its thing,
whether any user computer is present/visible, or not. The user-side
computer will do the looking, and if I read today's code right, the
Chorus Hub S/R button will be enabled, if Chorus Hub can be found
running. AFAIK, the user computer will only look in the network/domain
it is connected to.

> Anything else to look out for?

The original Chorus Hub system did not run as a service/daemon, but it
was a regular program. I then changed Chorus Hub to be that
service/daemon application, but I don't remember when it was released,
or which version of FLEx/FLEx Bridge first used it. By that release
time, I had moved on to developing the next version of something, or other.

Randy