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Tellina Task Interface

This repository contains experimental infrastructure for performing a controlled experiment of people using the Tellina tool to create and run bash commands.

Install dependencies

  1. Install VirtualBox.
  2. Install Vagrant.

Command to do so for Ubuntu: sudo apt-get install -y virtualbox vagrant

Run the server

"Host" will refer to the machine that runs vagrant up. "Guest" will refer to the VM created by vagrant up.

  1. Create data/config.json.
cp data/config.sample.json data/config.json

You can modify the configuration when necessary, the file specification is on this page.

  1. Start the VM which runs the web application:
cd tellina_task_interface
vagrant destroy -f # destroy the existing VM, if any
vagrant up

Running the vagrant command may throw an error message if you're missing the required plug-ins. In this case, install them with the following commands:

vagrant plugin install vagrant-reload
vagrant plugin install vagrant-vbguest
  1. SSH into the guest and start the server:
vagrant ssh
cd ~/tellina_task_interface
make run

  1. Wait until you see Quit the server with CONTROL-C. in the console output.

  2. Visit the task platform at http://127.0.0.1:10411/ using your browser.

  3. Stop the server with Ctrl-C in the guest terminal.

  4. View results in ~/tellina_task_interface/db.sqlite3 on the guest or host.

Developing

If you edit setup.bash, which installs things on the guest, you'll need to recreate the guest:

vagrant destroy -f
vagrant up

If you edit other files:

  1. The repo folder on the host is synced with /home/vagrant/tellina_task_interface on the guest.
  2. vagrant ssh into the guest and start the server again.

Below is an overview of the implementation of the infrastructure.

Architecture diagram

The task platform consists of four modules. The architecture is illustrated in the following diagram.

https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1fwFaJsSLYY8wY7DZC0EBBdU_tgJDlwl9MVl5PLmIu0k

I - Task Interface (Main) Server

The task interface server is implemented with Django. The core implementation can be found in website/models.py and website/views.py. It is connected to an SQLite database that stores the information of

The task interface server creates a "user study session" whenever a user starts a new task (initial login or task switch). A container that can be uniquely identified is created for a user study session.

While a user is working on a task, the task interface server periodically checks if the task times out.

When the user executes a command, the difference between the current stdout/file system and the goal is compared. If the task is [completed] (https://github.com/TellinaTool/tellina_task_interface/blob/master/website/views.py#L247), the user is redirected to the next one.

(The Django configuration files are in the folder tellina_task_interface/, which in general doesn't need to be changed.)

II - Terminal (File System) Server

An ext4 file system with the name {study_session_id}.ext4 is created for each study session. The file system is mounted to location /{study_session_id}/ on the VM. The script used to create the file system on the VM can be found here. The home directory /{study_session_id}/home on this physical location is bound to path /home/study_participant/ in the docker container of that study session.

The docker container server is implemented with Node.js. The core implementation can be found in backend_container_image/app.js.

III - WebSocket Proxy Server

The websocket proxy server is also implemented with Node.js. The core implementation can be found in proxy_image/app.js.

IV - Front-end

The terminal is implemented with the third-party plugin Xterm.js. The main custom implementation can be found here.

The front-end periodically (every 0.5s) polls the task interface server for

  • if task status shows complete or time-out, proceed to the next task.

Testing

  1. Run automated tests:
vagrant ssh
cd ~/tellina_task_interface
make test

Debugging

View proxy.log for a logs from the proxy server.

View container_{container_id}.log files for logs from backend containers.