Accessing Node Manager and Registering Components

[Anthony Barricelli]

Hello,

I've been experimenting with OpenMPF and have been trying to get a mock detector integrated within the OpenMPF pipeline but I am failing to upload/connect my component with OpenMPF Workflow Manager.

When using the Workflow Manager, I do not see the Nodes tab nor am I able to drag and drop components on the Components Registration page.

I cannot find anything relating to my problem in the documentation, but this issue seems to allude to the node manager being separate from the Docker build (which I am using).

Could I be pointed toward where/how I can get the Node Manager/Component Registration up and running so that I may try to integrate components with OpenMPF?

Thanks,

Anthony

[Jeffrey Robble]

Hi Anthony,

We've recently had some other folks reach out to us about the inability to upload a component .tar.gz through the web UI, which motivated us to update our documentation. Here are the recent commits I landed to master today:

- https://github.com/openmpf/openmpf.github.io/commit/121e8225be0f0725b5438b3d14f1bf4d5ab56696
- https://github.com/openmpf/openmpf-components/commit/e21259741d5fcb821f4fe1507f5ead7dacf547af
- https://github.com/openmpf/openmpf-contrib-components/commit/3e10b7963804937d74c3a91692382f071ea8e80f

These changes are now reflected in the github.io site. The issue you linked to is resolved by these changes.

We recommend that you build your component into a Docker image and deploy it along with the rest of OpenMPF using Docker. Start here by clicking the appropriate link for your component type. You will then be linked to a section of the API doc that contains a link to the README describing how to create your Docker image. This page links to other resources on using OpenMPF with Docker.

We do not recommend using the Node Manager or component registration UI. Doing so will require you to set up a complete build environment on your local machine, which is not trivial. We do have a doc for that, but it's incomplete. We recently moved the component registration UI section to that doc.

In general, as a component developer, you shouldn't have to worry or care about building the rest of OpenMPF, including the Workflow Manager and other components. That's one of the advantages of Docker. You can just pull that stuff from Docker Hub.

Minimally, you should only need to build the component SDK on your local machine, which requires OpenCV, to develop your component outside of Docker before you are ready to Docker-ize it. Some people feel comfortable building their component entirely within Docker and don't need the SDK locally. We use IntelliJ and CLion mostly, but one developer has used Visual Studio Code for Docker-first development. 

- Jeff