Metalnx is a web application designed to work alongside iRODS. It is a graphical user interface and serves as a client that authenticates to an existing iRODS Zone.

The preferred method of deployment is via Docker.

Deploying Packaged Metalnx via docker-compose

docker-compose.yml

version: '3'

services:

  db:
    image: postgres:11
    restart: always
    environment:
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: superdupersecret
      POSTGRES_USER: metalnxuser
      POSTGRES_DB: metalnxdb

  metalnx:
    image: irods/metalnx:latest
    restart: always
    volumes:
      - ./metalnx-configuration:/etc/irods-ext
    ports:
      - 80:8080

and then the ./metalnx-configuration/metalnx.properties file requires rodsadmin iRODS connection credentials and points to the docker-compose database (alias db) with:

db.url=jdbc:postgresql://db:5432/metalnxdb
db.username=metalnxuser
db.password=superdupersecret

Metalnx will be available on port 80 of the docker host machine at /metalnx.

This configuration could be supplemented with an nginx (or other) reverse-proxy to put Metalnx port 80 (and the subpath /metalnx) behind https on 443.

Examples of the metalnx-configuration can be found in docker-test-framework/etc/irods-ext.

Deploying Packaged Metalnx via Docker Hub directly

Prepare the database

First, create and configure a database for Metalnx's use (this is for caching and other local information).

$ (sudo) su - postgres
postgres$ psql
psql> CREATE USER metalnx WITH PASSWORD 'changeme';
psql> CREATE DATABASE "IRODS-EXT";
psql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON DATABASE "IRODS-EXT" TO metalnx;

Prepare the application

Configuration of the default application can change many things about how Metalnx looks and behaves.

• Configuration of Zone information, and features to display
• Theming with custom CSS/Logo

Create a copy of the default docker-test-framework/etc/irods-ext directory and update metalnx.properties and metalnxConfig.xml, and then run a container with the new configuration, probably with --add-host information due to Docker:

docker run -d \
  -p 8080:8080 \
  -v `pwd`/mylocal-irods-ext:/etc/irods-ext \
  --add-host hostcomputer:172.17.0.1 \
  --name metalnx \
  irods/metalnx:latest

To map a local directory with SSL certificates (self-signed or from a CA), the container will look in /tmp/cert:

 -v `pwd`/mylocal-certs:/tmp/cert \

The login screen should appear when requested in a web browser:

http://x.x.x.x:8080/metalnx

Or...

Building Metalnx

From source, the package will 'just build':

make

This will result in a new Docker image named myimages/metalnx:latest on your machine.

Deploying Built Metalnx

If you're deploying your own image (built just above):

docker run -d \
  -p 8080:8080 \
  -v `pwd`/mylocal-irods-ext:/etc/irods-ext \
  --add-host hostcomputer:172.17.0.1 \
  --name metalnx \
  myimages/metalnx:latest

More information

More documentation can be found in the Docs directory.

Copyright and License

Copyright © 2018-2021 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; 2015-2017, Dell EMC.

This software is provided under the BSD-3 License.