Server Installation and Setup¶

The fastest way to install Natural Log and its dependencies is with virtualenv/pip:

virtualenv ln_env
source ln_env/bin/activate
cd ln_env
pip install ln

The included REST server is built with the Flask microframework.

Configuring the Server¶

Once Natural Log is installed, you need to create a server configuration file, which uses the JSON format. Here is an example ln_local.json config file for a local test server we will use elsewhere in the documentation:

{
    "host" : "127.0.0.1",
    "port" : 6283,
    "url_base" : "http://localhost:6823/",

    "resampling_intervals" : [1, 60, 3600, 86400],

    "storage" : {
                    "backend" : "memory"
                }
}

The required fields in the server configuration are:

Field Name	JSON Type	Description
`host`	String	IP address to which to bind
`port`	Number	Port number to which to listen
`url_base`	String	Base URL for this server. Used to construct URLs for responses.
`resampling_intervals`	List of numbers	The server will resample data with these intervals (in seconds).
`storage`	Object	An object describing the storage backend to use. See Storage Backends for more details.

Storage Backends¶

Natural Log supports multiple storage backends as a way to experiment with different ways to store time series data. Each backend and its configuration parameters are described below.

In-memory Backend¶

This backend stores all data in memory, so memory usage will grow without bound and all data is lost when the server is shutdown. The in-memory backend is intended for testing and development purposes only. Do not ever use this backend on a production deployment! The storage configuration fields are:

Field Name	JSON Type	Description
`backend`	String	Set to `memory`

SQLite¶

This backend stores the data in an SQLite file. Data is saved to disk and SQLite’s ACID guarantees make this a production-worthy option. It is not particularly fast.

Field Name	JSON Type	Description
`backend`	String	Set to `sqlite`
`filename`	String	Name of sqlite file on disk.

Starting the Server¶

Before starting the Natural Log server, we first need to initialize the storage backend:

$ ln-server -c ln_local.json init
Natural Log 0.1
Initializing "memory" storage backend...
Done.

Then we can start the server:

$ ln-server -c ln_local.json start
Natural Log 0.1
Opening "memory" storage backend...
Listening on 127.0.0.1:6283
Base URL is http://localhost:6283/