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Installing Oppia (Mac OS; Python 3)

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Praneeth edited this page Dec 20, 2023 · 33 revisions

Table of Contents

Note: If you just want to create and share explorations, you may be able to use the hosted server at https://www.oppia.org (in which case you don't need to install anything).

These installation instructions were last tested on 11 Dec 2022. For more information on issues that may occasionally arise with the installation process, please see the Troubleshooting page.

Note: Be careful about trying to install Oppia if you have the Python Anaconda platform installed. We've received a bunch of reports that installation is tricky in that environment (there are lots of small things that get in the way), and that the solution is to use the standard python installation (via e.g. homebrew) instead.

Macs with M1 chips

To check whether your Mac has an M1 chip, navigate to the Apple menu and select "About This Mac." In the window that opens, check for a "Chip" section. If it says "Apple M1" then you have an M1 chip. Otherwise, you should see an Intel processor listed in the "Processor" section. This article explains in more detail with screenshots if you have trouble.

If your Mac has an M1 chip, follow these instructions first:

  1. If not yet done so, install Rosetta 2 with the following command: softwareupdate --install-rosetta. Rosetta 2 translates Intel-based apps to run on Apple silicon Macs.

    Rosetta is Apple's compatibility layer that lets you run apps written for Intel chips on Apple Silicon. You can install Rosetta 2 by running:

    softwareupdate --install-rosetta

    A graphical installer will launch and walk you through installing Rosetta 2.

    Now to run a command under Rosetta, prefix it with arch -x86_64 (x86_64 is the architecture of Intel chips). For example:

    $ arch -x86_64 echo 'hi'
hi

    You can also run your whole shell under Rosetta and use arch to check what chip architecture you're currently using:

    $ arch
arm64
$ arch -x86_64 $SHELL --login
$ arch
i386

    The arm64 indicates Apple Silicon, while the i386 indicates that we are running under Rosetta.

  2. Next, we will create a Rosetta terminal that emulate the Intel architecture. To do so, open a new terminal and run the following command (change "bash" to "zsh" if you're using a zsh terminal):

    $ /usr/bin/arch -x86_64 $SHELL --login

    This switches the architecture from Mac M1's ARM architecture to the emulated Intel architecture for the current session. To verify this, run arch in the terminal and you should see i386 being printed. You will need to switch the architecture to Intel for all Oppia development.

    If you use Homebrew to install any Python development dependencies for pyenv (discussed below), you will need to install and use Homebrew in this terminal as well. Note that while you can have a Homebrew installation for Apple Silicon and another for Intel architectures installed simultaneously, pyenv is not smart enough to pick the Intel dependencies if both are present, so we recommend using an Intel installation of Homebrew exclusively.

  3. Follow the installation instructions below in your Rosetta terminal.

Install prerequisites

Oppia relies on a number of programs and third-party libraries. Many of these libraries are downloaded automatically for you when you first run the start.py script provided with Oppia. However, you will need to manually install these dependencies first:

  1. Install version 8+ of the Java Runtime Environment (JRE).

  2. Install direnv.

    After finishing with the official installation instructions, you should also create a ~/.direnvrc file with the following content:

    use_python() {
  local python_root=$(pyenv root)/versions/$1
  load_prefix "$python_root"
  if [[ -x "$python_root/bin/python" ]]; then
    layout python "$python_root/bin/python"
  else
    echo "Error: $python_root/bin/python can't be executed."
    exit
  fi
}

  3. Download git, then run the package and follow instructions. This allows you to store the source in version control. Note that you can also install Apple's command line tools to get git instead.

Clone Oppia

  1. Create a new, empty folder that will hold your Oppia work. Here, we call the folder opensource.

  2. Navigate to the folder (cd opensource/).

  3. Navigate to https://github.com/oppia/oppia and click on the fork button. It is placed on the right corner opposite the repository name oppia/oppia.

    Screenshot with the fork button

    You should now see Oppia under your repositories. It will be marked as forked from oppia/oppia.

    Screenshot of repository list with Oppia

    For more information on forking, see GitHub's documentation.

  4. Clone the repository to your local computer (replacing the values in {{}}):

    $ git clone https://github.com/{{GITHUB USERNAME}}/oppia.git
Cloning into 'oppia'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 203313, done.
remote: Total 203313 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 203313
Receiving objects: 100% (203313/203313), 179.26 MiB | 3.12 MiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (155851/155851), done.
Updating files: 100% (4199/4199), done.

    Note that you will see slightly different output because the numbers change as Oppia grows.

  5. Now your origin remote is pointing to your fork ({{GITHUB USERNAME}}/oppia). To stay up to date with the main oppia/oppia repository, add it as a remote called upstream. You'll first need to move into the oppia directory that was created by the clone operation.

    $ cd oppia
$ git remote add upstream https://github.com/oppia/oppia.git
$ git remote -v
origin     https://github.com/{{GITHUB USERNAME}}/oppia.git (fetch)
origin     https://github.com/{{GITHUB USERNAME}}/oppia.git (push)
upstream   https://github.com/oppia/oppia.git (fetch)
upstream   https://github.com/oppia/oppia.git (push)

    The git remote -v command at the end shows all your current remotes.

    Now you can pull in changes from oppia/oppia by running git pull upstream {{branch}} and push your changes to your fork by running git push origin {{branch}}.

    We have established a clean setup now. We can make any changes we like and push it to this forked repository, and then make a pull request for getting the changes merged into the original repository. Here's a nice picture explaining the process (image source).

    Diagram of the fork-and-clone workflow

    For making any changes to original repository, we first sync our cloned repository with original repository. We merge develop with upstream/develop to do this. Now we make a new branch, do the changes on the branch, push the branch to forked repository, and make a PR from Github interface. We use a different branch to make changes so that we can work on multiple issues while still having a clean version in develop branch.

Setup a virtual environment

For your vitual environment, we recommend you use pyenv. Here are some instructions for doing so, but you can use another virtual environment tool if you wish:

  1. Make sure you install the Python build dependencies for your operating system. These are specified here. If you don't do this it might lead to problems further on.

  2. Install pyenv. Note that if you use zsh as your shell (check by running echo $SHELL) you should replace bash with zsh below:

    $ curl pyenv.run | bash
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
100   270  100   270    0     0    630      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--   632
Cloning into '/home/user/.pyenv'...
...
WARNING: seems you still have not added 'pyenv' to the load path.
...

    If you see the warning at the end, add the following lines to your .bash_profile (or ~/.zshrc if you use zsh):

    export PYENV_ROOT="$HOME/.pyenv"
export PATH="$PYENV_ROOT/bin:$PATH"
eval "$(pyenv init --path)"

eval "$(pyenv init -)"
eval "$(pyenv virtualenv-init -)"

  3. Reload your shell or open a new terminal window to load your updated ~/.bash_profile or ~/.zshrc.

  4. Install Python 3.8.15:

    $ pyenv install 3.8.15
Installing openssl-1.1.1k..
Installed openssl-1.1.1k to /Users/user/.pyenv/versions/3.8.15

Installing readline-8.1...
Installed readline-8.1 to /Users/user/.pyenv/versions/3.8.15

Downloading Python-3.8.15.tar.xz...
-> https://www.python.org/ftp/python/3.8.15/Python-3.8.15.tar.xz
Installing Python-3.8.15...
patching file Misc/NEWS.d/next/Build/2021-10-11-16-27–38.bpo-45405.iSfdw5.rst
patching file configure
patching file configure.ac
python-build: use zlib from xcode sdk
Installed Python-3.8.15 to /Users/user/.pyenv/versions/3.8.15

  5. Install Python 2.7.18:

    $ pyenv install 2.7.18
...
Installed Python-2.7.18 to ~/.pyenv/versions/2.7.18

    This is needed because App Engine's dev_appserver.py requires Python 2.7 to be installed.

  6. Make both Python 3 and Python 2 available globally on your system:

    pyenv global 3.8.15 2.7.18

    Note that you can use a different version of Python 3 if you prefer--we'll specify Python 3.8.15 as our version for Oppia development later.

  7. Create a virtual environment for oppia by making a file .envrc in the opensource/ directory with the following contents:

    use python 3.8.15

    Then run direnv allow in the opensource/ directory to allow direnv to run there. Whenever you are within the opensource/ directory (or any of its subdirectories, or any of their subdirectories, etc.) the virtual environment will be active. You can confirm this by running:

    $ which python
.../opensource/.direnv/python-3.8.15/bin/python

Running Oppia on a development server

  1. In a terminal, navigate to oppia/ and run:

    python -m scripts.start

    The first time you run this script, it will take a while (about 5 - 10 minutes when we last tested it in Dec 2018, though this depends on your Internet connection). Subsequent runs should be much faster. The start.py script downloads and installs the required dependencies (such as Google App Engine) if they are not already present, and sets up a development server for you to play with. The development server logs are then output to this terminal, so you will not be able to enter further commands in it until you disconnect the server.

    [!CAUTION] Please don't use sudo while installing. It's not required, and using it may cause problems later. If you face permissions issues, ensure that you have the necessary permissions for the directory in which you're trying to set up Oppia. If you run into any other installation problems, please read these notes

    [!NOTE] The script will create a number of files and folders that are siblings of the oppia/ root directory (e.g. oppia_tools). This is done so that these files and folders will not be uploaded to App Engine when the application is deployed to the web.

    [!NOTE] If you run into errors while installing Oppia, please try running python -m scripts.clean and then running start.py again.

    [!NOTE] Oppia uses the npm tool to install some packages. This tool accesses both ~/tmp and ~/.npm, and has been known to occasionally encounter permissions issues with those directories. You may need to either delete these directories and all their contents (if they do not contain anything else that needs to be preserved), or change their permissions so that they are owned by you, which you can do by running

    sudo chown -R {{YOUR_USERNAME}} ~/tmp
sudo chown -R {{YOUR_USERNAME}} ~/.npm

    where {{YOUR_USERNAME}} should be replaced by your username.

  2. The start.py script will start a development server at http://localhost:8181. (If this doesn't happen automatically, try navigating directly to http://localhost:8181 in a browser once stuff stops being printed to the terminal.) It should look something like this:

    Image showing the default splash page.

    You can also view the App Engine admin console at http://localhost:8000.

    Note: There may be a few warnings that appear after running start.py. Don’t worry about these so long as you see the page once you go to http://localhost:8181. The script should continue to run so long as the development server is on (you’ll see a lot of lines that start with "INFO") and you’re able to navigate to the page.

  3. When you're done, you can shut down the development server by typing Ctrl+C into the terminal. Then wait for a command prompt to appear. Oppia has to shut down all the services it's started, and if you abort the graceful shutdown steps (e.g. by typing Ctrl+C many times), you may have trouble re-starting the server.

    Example of shutdown output 
    ^CINFO     2021-07-17 21:50:08,043 shutdown.py:50] Shutting down.
INFO     2021-07-17 21:50:08,043 stub_util.py:377] Applying all pending transactions and saving the datastore
INFO     2021-07-17 21:50:08,044 stub_util.py:380] Saving search indexes

i  emulators: Received SIGINT (Ctrl-C) for the first time. Starting a clean shutdown.
i  emulators: Please wait for a clean shutdown or send the SIGINT (Ctrl-C) signal again to stop right now.
i  Automatically exporting data using --export-on-exit "/opensource/oppia/../firebase_emulator_cache" please wait for the export to finish...


Servers are shutting down, please wait for them to end gracefully!


i  Found running emulator hub for project dev-project-id at http://localhost:4400
i  Creating export directory /opensource/firebase_emulator_cache
i  Exporting data to: /opensource/firebase_emulator_cache
i  emulators: Received export request. Exporting data to /opensource/firebase_emulator_cache.
✔  emulators: Export complete.
✔  Export complete
i  emulators: Shutting down emulators.
i  ui: Stopping Emulator UI
⚠  Emulator UI has exited upon receiving signal: SIGINT
i  auth: Stopping Authentication Emulator
i  hub: Stopping emulator hub
i  logging: Stopping Logging Emulator
Stopping Web Browser(name="open", pid=29306)...
Stopping GAE Development Server(name="python2.7", pid=29289)...
Stopping Webpack Compiler(name="node", pid=29234)...
Stopping Firebase Emulator(name="node", pid=29216)...
Stopping ElasticSearch Server(name="java", pid=29148)...
Stopping Redis Server(name="redis-server", pid=29147)...


Done! Thank you for waiting.


Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/Users/user/.pyenv/versions/3.8.15/lib/python3.8/runpy.py", line 174, in _run_module_as_main
    "__main__", fname, loader, pkg_name)
  File "/Users/user/.pyenv/versions/3.8.15/lib/python3.8/runpy.py", line 72, in _run_code
    exec code in run_globals
  File "/opensource/oppia/scripts/start.py", line 205, in <module>
    main()
  File "/opensource/oppia/scripts/start.py", line 201, in main
    dev_appserver.wait()
  File "/opensource/oppia/../oppia_tools/psutil-5.7.3/psutil/__init__.py", line 1350, in wait
    ret = super(Popen, self).wait(timeout)
  File "/opensource/oppia/../oppia_tools/psutil-5.7.3/psutil/__init__.py", line 1259, in wait
    self._exitcode = self._proc.wait(timeout)
  File "/opensource/oppia/../oppia_tools/psutil-5.7.3/psutil/_psosx.py", line 342, in wrapper
    return fun(self, *args, **kwargs)
  File "/opensource/oppia/../oppia_tools/psutil-5.7.3/psutil/_psosx.py", line 550, in wait
    return _psposix.wait_pid(self.pid, timeout, self._name)
  File "/opensource/oppia/../oppia_tools/psutil-5.7.3/psutil/_psposix.py", line 115, in wait_pid
    retpid, status = os.waitpid(pid, flags)
KeyboardInterrupt

Tips and tricks

  • To preserve the contents of the local datastore between consecutive runs, use the --save_datastore argument when starting up the dev server:

    python -m scripts.start --save_datastore

  • The default Oppia installation comes with a set of demo explorations. On startup, none of these are loaded. To load them, log in to your server as an admin, then click your username in the top-right corner and choose 'Admin Page'. This will open the admin page, from which you can load the demo explorations.

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