Web User Interface for MBMS Modem, MBMS Middleware and Application

Introduction

The 5G-MAG Reference Tools Webinterface (rt-wui) provides an optional graphical webinterface with a control display for each 5G-MAG Reference Tools process (MBMS Modem, MBMS Middleware, Application). Its main purpose is to collect and display useful information from the MBMS Modem, MBMS Middleware and Application Process. It also enables use cases where the 5G-MAG Reference Tools can be used for simple measurements (e.g., mobile measurements) or as a standalone device (e.g., set-top box, mobile phone/tablet showcase). The rt-wui consists of three tabs, one for each process. Data from the processes are collected using their respective RestAPI.

Being accessible over http(s) makes rt-wui ideal for remote monitoring related 5G-MAG Reference Tools processes.

Install dependencies

For the webinterface an additional package to the dependencies in MBMS Modem (see here) has to be installed for building:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install npm nginx

Downloading

cd ~
git clone https://github.com/5G-MAG/rt-wui

Installing

cd rt-wui
npm install 

As a last step you have to enable the nginx site, to allow requests to the 5G-MAG Reference Tools Webinterface over http.

Creating a symbolic link

Change to the sites-enabled directory and create a symbolic link from the rt-wui file in sites-available. After that, delete the default sym link:

cd /etc/nginx/sites-enabled
sudo ln -s ../sites-available/5gmag-rt-wui 5gmag-rt-wui
sudo rm default

Restart and enable autostart for nginx

After creating the symbolic links, nginx has to be restarted. To always have the Webinterface available at startup, you can enable autostart via systemctl:

sudo systemctl restart nginx.service
sudo systemctl enable nginx.service

Running

Manual start/stop

cd ~
cd rt-wui
node app.js 

You can access the rt-wui interface through the nginx server on port 80 in your browser: http://<ip address>. If rt-modem is running. Click here for an example screenshot.

Background process (recommended)

The rt-wui can also be configured to run in background (as a daemon). Therefore, the ExecStart path needs to be adjusted to the right app.js application.

Step 1: Get the right path to your app.js file

Go to your 5G-MAG Reference Tools Webinterface repo:

cd ~
cd rt-wui
pwd

This will output you the path to your folder. For example:

/home/my-user-name/rt-wui

Step 2: Change the ExecStart path

Navigate to the rt-wui.service file:

cd ~
cd rt-wui/supporting_files/

open the rt-wui.service file with an editor, it should look like this:

[Service]
< ... >
ExecStart=/usr/bin/node /home/user-name/rt-wui/app.js
< ... >

Replace the path to the app.js file with the path from the first step, e.g.:

[Service]
< ... >
ExecStart=/usr/bin/node /home/my-user-name/rt-wui/app.js
< ... >

save and exit.

Step 3: Copy to systemd

Copy the file to the systemd folder:

sudo cp rt-wui.service /lib/systemd/system/

Step 4: Reload the daemon

sudo systemctl daemon-reload

You can now run the Webinterface in the background. The standard systemd mechanisms can be used to control the webinterface:

Command	Result
systemctl start rt-wui.service	Manually start the process in background
systemctl stop rt-wui.service	Manually stop the process in background
systemctl status rt-wui.service	Show process status
systemctl disable rt-wui.service	Disable autostart, rt-wui will no be started after reboot
systemctl enable rt-wui.service	Enable autostart, rt-wui will be started automatically after reboot

Running example

Docker Implementation

An easy to use docker Implentation is also available. The wui and nginx folder contains all the essential files for running the process in independent containers. Please check into the wiki page for a detailed description on how to run the processes in docker containers.