PEP

PEP is an acronym for "Polymorphic Encryption and Pseudonymization". The software provides a data repository featuring secure and privacy friendly data storage and dissemination. More information is available on the project home page, which also contains a link to the user documentation.

Building

Building on *nix

1. Install required packages (ubuntu packages in monospace)

   • git
   • conan (e.g. via pipx)
   • cmake 3.28 or newer (see https://apt.kitware.com/ for how to get this for older versions of debian-based OSs)
   • ninja (ninja-build)
   • clang (v18 is known to work (01-2024); see https://apt.llvm.org/ for how to get recent versions for older versions of debian-based OSs) (g++ supported but not recommended for compiler performance reasons related to templates & RxCpp)
   • C++ STL, e.g. libstdc++-dev (v13 is known to work (01-2024), see https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-toolchain-r/+archive/ubuntu/test for how to get recent versions like libstdc++-13-dev on older Ubuntu-based OSs)
   • For Qt GUI: APT packages can be installed via Conan, or pass -o'&:use_system_qt=False' to conan install to use Conan package instead
   • For Go watchdog:

     • Install the golang package (version 1.21 or newer. See https://launchpad.net/%7Elongsleep/+archive/ubuntu/golang-backports, if you use a linux distro based on Ubuntu 22.04)

     • set environment variables (e.g. in .bashrc or .zshrc):

       export GOPATH="$HOME/go"
       export PATH="$GOPATH/bin:$PATH"

     • install the Go protobuf compiler:

       go install google.golang.org/protobuf/cmd/protoc-gen-go@latest

2. Clone repository including submodules (--recurse-submodules)

3. Create Conan profile:

   CC=clang CXX=clang++ ./docker-build/builder/conan/init_conan_profile.sh

   Note: Conan <2.3 may not pick up your default compiler (cc/c++) without CC/CXX.

4. Build dependencies and generate CMake presets:

   conan install ./ --build=missing -s:a build_type=Debug

   • This creates a build folder like ./build/Debug on your system. Debug may also be e.g. Release. See ./conanfile.py for options that you can pass via -o name=value, e.g. -o with_assessor=False to disable the Qt GUI. These options can also be put in your profile under [options] as e.g. pep/*:with_assessor=False.
   • If you are not going to use windeployqt/maydeployqt, you can also pass -s build_type=Debug instead of -s:a ..., to build tools like protoc as Release.
   • It is also possible to build dependencies as Release but PEP as Debug. For this, use conan install ./ --build=missing -s:a build_type=Release -s "&:build_type=Debug" (& means the consuming package, so pep).
   • You only need to repeat this command if you: delete the build folder, change conanfile.py, change your compiler, or want to update dependencies (pass --update).
   • If this fails, you can try using the lockfile that the CI uses, via --lockfile=./docker-build/builder/conan/conan-ci.lock.

5. Configure using cmake:

   cmake --preset conan-debug

   (or e.g. conan-release). If you have an older CMake version, you can instead use the CMake configure command that Conan prints at the end.

   • Make sure you see CMake print that the Conan toolchain is used. If it's not, delete build/Debug/CMakeCache.txt and reconfigure; this can happen if you configured before without using the Conan preset/toolchain.

6. Build:

   cmake --build --preset conan-debug

   (Use --target <...> [...] to specify targets to build, e.g. just pepcli). If you have an older CMake version, you can specify the build folder (e.g. ./build/Debug) instead of the preset. You could also e.g. call ninja in the build folder.

7. Run servers locally:

   cd ./build/Debug/cpp/pep/servers/ && ./pepServers

8. Interact with cli:

   ./build/Debug/cpp/pep/cli/pepcli --help

9. To enable autocompletion for the CLI tools, see autocomplete/README.md.

Separate build folders

You can create separate build folders using -o subbuild_name <...>, for example:

conan install ./ --build=missing -o subbuild_name=ppp -o cmake_variables="CASTOR_API_KEY_DIR=~/pep/ops/keys/;PEP_INFRA_DIR=~/pep/ppp-config/config/acc/;PEP_PROJECT_DIR=~/pep/ppp-config/config/acc/project/"

Building on Windows

Building on Windows can be done very similar to on *nix.

1. Install prerequisites such as git and a toolchain.
2. Install Conan: see Conan documentation, or via winget install conan
3. Optionally (recommended for ease of use) enable creation of symbolic links:
   1. First in the Windows settings by enabling 'Developer Mode'
   2. Then in git via git config --global core.symlinks true (if you did this with an existing repo, you may need to remove the --global flag and do a git restore ./conanfile.py after)
   3. Alternatively: use ./docker-build/builder/conan/conanfile.py instead of ./ in conan install (or just use .\scripts\cmake-vs.bat)
4. Clone repository including submodules (--recurse-submodules)
5. When using Visual Studio, you may use .\scripts\cmake-vs.bat inside a Visual Studio command prompt and open the generated solution. Otherwise, proceed like on *nix
   • To update dependencies, pass --update as the Conan args when invoking the cmake-vs.bat frontend.

If the (Conan-based) meson build fails because your Python executable "is not a valid python or it is missing distutils", then run "python -m pip install --upgrade setuptools" to fix things. See https://stackoverflow.com/a/78050586 .

Multiconfig builds (using the same folder for Debug & Release) are currently not supported, so always pass a build type.

Useful git config options

To ease the job of working with the docker-build submodule, you may want to execute these git commands:

git config --global submodule.recurse true
git config --global submodule.propagatebranches true
git config --global status.submodulesummary true

Contributing

See the separate instructions and guidelines if you wish to contribute to the PEP project.