Server Side Scripting

The administrator may store regularly needed scripts, e.g. for computing a standardized analysis, on the same machine as the LinkAhead server, “on the server side”, where they can be run directly by the server.

The execution of those scripts can be initiated using the Python client, or the web interface.

Call a Script

If you have access to the server and sufficient permissions to run the script, execution is fairly simple:

from linkahead.utils.server_side_scripting import run_server_side_script
response = run_server_side_script('scriptname.py')
print(response.stderr,response.stdout)

This makes the server run the script scriptname.py. The output of the script (stderr and stdout) is returned within an response object.

If the script requires additional arguments, those can be provided after the script’s name.

Note that by default the script runs with your LinkAhead account. It has your permissions and changes are logged as if they were done by you directly.

Testing it

You can try this out using for example the diagnostics.py script (it is part of the LinkAhead server repository and is also available on https://demo.indiscale.com). The script returns information about the server in JSON format. You can do for example the following:

import json
from linkahead.utils.server_side_scripting import run_server_side_script
response = run_server_side_script('administration/diagnostics.py')
print("JSON content:")
print(json.loads(response.stdout))
print("stderr:")
print(response.stderr)

Further Information

Additionally, you might want to have a look at https://docs.indiscale.com/caosdb-server/specification/Server-side-scripting.html