Usage

General usage

ovmm is a complement to the oTree Virtual Machine Image provided by Felix Albrecht and Holger Gerhardt. Therefore, until now it is only tested on this specific image. But, we do provide information (Requirements) on how to create a similar image which can use ovmm.

Always run ovmm with sudo or some commands might not work.

If you need more information on the commands, run ovmm --help

First run

  1. When using ovmm for the first time, run sudo ovmm initialise to configure your system.

    Note

    The process leads you through the installation of required dependecies and creates necessary content files for ovmm.

    1. Enter administrator’s password.

    2. Enter account information of the PostgreSQL superuser.

      By default, the superuser for a PostgreSQL database is called postgres. You also have to set a password for this account. This password can be new and will be set to the user by request.

  2. After running the command, there is a folder called /home/<user>/ovmm_sources/ which contains ovmm_conf.yml. Perform the following checks:

    1. Check whether the login information for the PostgreSQL database is correctly set.
    2. Define the ranges of port numbers, e.g. OVMM_DAPHNE_RANGE. Port ranges are stored in lists. Insert distinct values or use list comprehension for bigger ranges.
  3. Next, go back to your home folder. You should see a file called nginx_template. Read the commentary to adjust the file to your network configuration.

    This file will be reused every time a new user is created. The process will fill out the user specific values and place it under /etc/nginx/sites-avalaible. Then, a symlink will link this file to /etc/nginx/sites-enabled, so that Nginx takes care of it.

  4. Forelast, try out one of the innocent lookup commands like sudo ovmm count_user or list_user. If they succeed, you have correctly set up ovmm.

  5. Last, set up a test account and verify whether everything is working including oTree by running one of the example experiments.

Command line options

Command line options are entered used with sudo ovmm <command>

Commands

Since command expansion is implemented, the commands after the forward slash are also available.

initialise / i

Adjust your system to the needs of ovmm. It installs Ubuntu dependencies as well as configuration files for the Administrator.

Warning

  1. This command should be executed on first run in advance of any other command.
  2. An internet connection is needed
add_user / a
Add a new user to the configuration. Several prompts will ask you about user specific information. Please, fill out the forms in accordance with the provided examples.
delete_user / d
Delete a user from the configuration. Her account including her home folder is completely removed. Make sure you have a backup of all files in advance.
backup_user / b
Create a backup for a given user and save it in the administrator’s home directory under /home/<admin>/ovmm_sources/user_backups. Choose from one of three options, all, db, home, whether you want to make a backup of the database or the home folder. all is a shortcut to run a backup of both, database and home folder.
count_user / c
Return the number of existing accounts and the number of possible, additional accounts.
list_user / l
Give a list of user names of all currently installed users.
route_port / r
Change nginx default config to route port 80 (HTTP) and port 443 (HTTPS) to specific user account in addition to user specific port. Intended for running experiments where router settings prevent the access to non-standard web-ports like 780x.