Help:Toolforge/Web
Overview
Every Toolforge tool can run a dedicated website under "https://toolname.toolforge.org". Toolforge provides the webservice command which is used to start and stop the web server for each tool. Toolforge supports websites written in several programming languages including PHP, Python, Node.js, Java, Ruby and others. Toolforge also provides some support services which can help you make your website’s visitors safe from tracking by third party services.
The webservice command uses convention over configuration for some aspects of how the website is deployed. You’ll find details for different programming languages below.
Using the webservice command
You can use the webservice command to start, stop, restart, and check the status of a webserver.
webservice command example$ ssh login.toolforge.org
$ become my_cool_tool
$ webservice start
Use webservice --help to get a full list of arguments.
Without any additional arguments or configuration files, webservice start will currently start a PHP 7.3 Kubernetes container serving content from your tool's $HOME/public_html directory using lighttpd as the web server software.
Webservice templates
The webservice command has the concept of a "template" file which can be used to store arguments (and eventually other structured content) for starting a webservice. The code will look for a --template=... command line argument and fallback to looking for a $HOME/service.template file. The $HOME/service.template file is what most tools will be expected to use, but we may find interesting uses for multiple templates in a single tool as well.
A webservice template file is a YAML document. It can contain these settings:
- backend: the backend to use (equivalent to
--backend=...) - cpu: the CPU reservation to ask for on Kubernetes (equivalent to
--cpu=...) - mem: the memory reservation to ask for on Kubernetes (equivalent to
--mem=...) - release: the operating system to ask for on Grid Engine (equivalent to
--release=...) - replicas: the number of Pod replicas to use (equivalent to
--replicas=...) - type: the type of webservice to start (equivalent to
TYPE) - extra_args: extra arguments to pass to the backend (not used by most backends)
By saving desired startup state in a file, the user can use simple webservice stop; webservice start commands again!
| Example $HOME/service.template |
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# Toolforge webservice template
# Provide default arguments for `webservice start` commands for this tool.
#
# Uncomment lines below and adjust as needed
# Set backend cluster to run this webservice (--backend={gridengine,kubernetes})
backend: kubernetes
# Set Kubernetes cpu limit (--cpu=...)
#cpu: 500m
# Set Kubernetes memory limit (--mem=...)
#mem: 512Mi
# Set ReplicaSet size for a Kubernetes deployment (--replicas=...)
#replicas: 2
# Runtime type
# See "Supported webservice types" in `webservice --help` output for valid values.
#type: {{toolforge latest image|python3}}
# Extra arguments to be parsed by the chosen TYPE
#extra_args:
# - arg0
# - arg1
# - arg2
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Features
Toolforge has an Nginx server configured as a proxy server which handles all inbound requests to your tool's web server. This proxy server takes care of providing TLS termination and then reverse proxies the inbound request to your tool's web service. Web servers running on Kubernetes have a second Nginx proxy server running as the "Ingress" component inside the Kubernetes cluster. See Portal:Toolforge/Admin/Kubernetes/Networking and ingress for detailed information about the network and web request routing used by the Toolforge Kubernetes cluster.
Toolforge also includes a 404 handler service which will respond to HTTP requests for tools which do not exist and tools which are not currently running a web service. This service is implemented as the fourohfour tool which runs on the Kubernetes backend.
Switching between Kubernetes and Grid Engine
 | WMCS is deprecating grid engine and replacing it with Kubernetes. Run your tool on the Kubernetes platform instead of grid engine. |
From Kubernetes to Grid Engine
$ webservice --backend=kubernetes stop
$ webservice --backend=gridengine start
From Grid Engine to Kubernetes
$ webservice --backend=gridengine stop
$ webservice --backend=kubernetes <type> start
Default web server (lighttpd + PHP)
See: Help:Toolforge/Web/Lighttpd
PHP
Python
See: Help:Toolforge/Web/Python
Node.js web services
See: Help:Toolforge/Web/Node.js
Java
Other / generic web servers
You can run other web servers that are not directly supported. This can be accomplished using a runtime specific type on the Kubernetes backend.
webservice --backend=kubernetes golang start|stop|restart|shell SCRIPTwebservice --backend=kubernetes jdk11 start|stop|restart|shell SCRIPTwebservice --backend=kubernetes perl5.32 start|stop|restart|shell SCRIPTwebservice --backend=kubernetes ruby25 start|stop|restart|shell SCRIPT
Your script will be passed an HTTP port to bind to in an environment variable named PORT. This is the port that the Nginx proxy will forward requests for https://YOUR_TOOL.toolforge.org/ to. When using the Kubernetes backend, PORT will always be 8000.
Common tasks and guides
Hosting large files
Toolforge storage uses NFS which has limited storage and network bandwidth. If your tool requires a static file larger than 1GB (for example serving up a container image or tarball), please store that file in the 'Download' project rather than storing it in your tools home directory.
The Download project hosts https://download.wmcloud.org, a public read-only web server for large file storage. If you would like a file added, create a Phabricator ticket or contact WMCS staff directly to have the file added.
Serving static files
Files placed in a tool's $HOME/www/static directory are available directly from the URL tools-static.wmflabs.org/toolname. This does not require any action on the tool's part — putting the files in the appropriate folder (and making the directory readable) should 'just work'.
You can use this to serve static assets (CSS, HTML, JS, etc) or to host simple websites that don't require a server-side component.
Load external assets using our CDN services
To preserve the privacy of our users, avoid embedding assets (images, CSS, JavaScript) from servers outside of Wikimedia Foundation control.
- Libraries (Browse libraries)
- Toolforge provides an anonymizing reverse proxy to cdnjs.
- Fonts (Search fonts)
- Toolforge provides an anonymizing reverse proxy to Google Fonts.
- Maps (Documentation)
- Wikimedia provides maps servers with data from OpenStreetMap.
Runtime memory limits
- Kubernetes: 2GiB for most runtimes (Java's limit is 4GiB).
Assigning a custom domain
At the moment all Toolforge websites must be available under the domain toolforge.org. So, it's not possible to assign a custom domain, pointing DNS records to Toolforge servers, etc.
This also allows the origin of the tools to be very clear.
Requesting additional tool memory
Kubernetes web servers start with a default limit on both runtime memory and cpu power. These limits vary slightly based on which runtime language (PHP, Python, Java, etc) you are using. The --cpu and --mem command line arguments can be used to increase these defaults up to the quota limit for your tool's Kubernetes namespace. See Kubernetes#Quotas and Resources for instructions on requesting an increased quota for your tool.
Response buffering
An Nginx proxy sits between your webservice and the user. By default this proxy buffers the response sent from your server. For some use cases, including streaming large quantities of data to the browser, this can be undesirable. Buffering can be disabled on a per-request basis by sending an X-Accel-Buffering: no header in your response.[1]
/favicon.ico
A default image will be served by the shared proxy layer if your webservice returns a 404 Not Found response when asked for /favicon.ico. This default icon is the same as the one found at https://tools-static.wmflabs.org/toolforge/favicons/favicon.ico.
/robots.txt
A default response will be served by the shared proxy layer if your webservice returns a 404 Not Found response when asked for /robots.txt. The default robots.txt response denies access to all compliant web crawlers. We decided that this "fail closed" approach would be safer than a "fail open" telling all crawlers to crawl all tools.
Any tool that does wish to be indexed by search engines and other crawlers can serve their own /robots.txt content. Please see https://www.robotstxt.org/ for more information on /robots.txt in general.
Communication and support
Support and administration of the WMCS resources is provided by the Wikimedia Foundation Cloud Services team and Wikimedia Movement volunteers. Please reach out with questions and join the conversation:
- Chat in real time in the IRC channel #wikimedia-cloud connect, the bridged Telegram group, or the bridged Mattermost channel
- Discuss via email after you subscribed to the cloud@ mailing list