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https://github.com/huridocs/uwazi is a open-source solution for building and sharing document collections. Used by human rights and humanitarian organisations. https://uwazi.io/. It can also be a public website

It is a flexibile systems where

  • Entity (eg Leadership) has properties (eg Gender)
  • Entity has primary documents and or supporting files (eg photo)

  • Entity has have relationships to other Entities (eg State Entity - Ghana)

  • Template describes an Entity (eg Gender - drop down, Tenure as UN Secretary-General - date, State - relationship)
  • Thesauri - custom lists eg Gender - Male, Female, N/A
  • Relationship Types - (eg Leadership is related to another Entity called State)

https://demo.uwazi.io/ is the screenshot demo above

Dev version

update 5th Feb 24 - have given up using Dev as very slow to start up, and getting lock up errors when starting. My test environment on an ubuntu server is more reliable.

https://github.com/huridocs/uwazi?tab=readme-ov-file#production

Runs Docker for all dependencies.

I had to install on my bare metal WSL instance

Node using https://github.com/nvm-sh/nvm then

nvm install 20

yarn https://classic.yarnpkg.com/en/docs/install#debian-stable

npm install --global yarn - 10.3.0

git clone https://github.com/huridocs/uwazi.git
cd uwazi

# docker spinning up Mongo, Redis, S3, Elasticsearch
./run start

# install - can take a while
# 437s (on v.fast desktop)
yarn install

# 1. careful this does a blank state
#yarn blank-state

# 2. if you've done a pull to update a current install

# 64 seconds
yarn migrate 
# 38 seconds
yarn reindex

# spin up dev environment 
# many minutes
# sometimes it totally locks ups needing a wsl --shutdown
# try again a few times and it generally works
yarn hot

# http://localhost:3000/
# u: admin
# p: change this password now

# webpack-server (ie don't need filewatch)
yarn webpack-server

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Running application locally.

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Terminal showing output of yarn hot

Updating Problems

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When updating the codebase I’ve had segfaults in the terminal which required a reboot. Also no errors, but terminals have all become unresponsive and can’t restart a terminal. Full reboot required.

While waiting for yarn hot to start, I can’t save from other processes in WSL.

Perhaps for testing using the production branch may be more stable.

Perhaps try production settings if more stable.

# open as admin
# takes 30 secs to shutdown
# sometimes need to do twice before it works
wsl --shutdown

[nodemon] app crashed - waiting for file changes before starting…

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After doing a run start (is docker wasn’t up) I tried to run.. and it locked up wsl. Tried again and it worked.

Test and Prod

https://github.com/huridocs/uwazi/issues/6423 shows beginning of build script.

See main notes in OneNote section uwazi20

https://uwazi.readthedocs.io/en/latest/sysadmin-docs/index.html Sys Admin guide

Run as a systemd service to survive a reboot

cd /etc/systemd/system/
sudo vim uwazi.service

[Unit]
Description=uwazi backend service for your-instance
After=network.target

[Service]
Environment=DBHOST=localhost
Environment=NODE_ENV=production
Environment=DATABASE_NAME=uwazi_development
Environment=ELASTICSEARCH_URL=http://localhost:9200
#Environment=INDEX_NAME=uwazi20
Environment=PORT=3000
Environment=UPLOADS_FOLDER=/home/dave/uwazi/uploaded_documents
Environment=LOGS_DIR=/home/dave/uwazi/log

WorkingDirectory=/home/dave/uwazi/latest
ExecStart=/home/dave/.nvm/versions/node/v20.11.0/bin/node server.js

Restart=always
RestartSec=30s
TimeoutSec=60s
User=dave

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

then


sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable uwazi.service
sudo systemctl start uwazi.service

It should survive a reboot now.

Migrating Data

As I’ve got multiple instances (including hosted where I’ve got no shell access), here is how I easily move the structure and data between instances:

Thesauri

Add thesaurus, name it, then import

category.csv

English
Incident
Individual
etc..

Relationship Types

  • Content-Case
  • Content-Source

Templates (Entities)

Drag and drop (+ button is better) the desired properties. Make sure they are named exactly the same. Do and save 1 at a time (I’ve seen it crash out and lose changes)

Do this first and get a successful save before doing property attributes

Data

Make sure date format is set to the same as the original instance.

  • Sources
  • Cases
  • Content

API Automation

I’ve been asked to integrate the https://auto-archiver.com/ with Uwazi. Essentially when a new link is archived, and when a tickbox is checked, then it should be automatically imported into Uwazi.

https://github.com/huridocs/python_uwazi_API is a handy wrapper to help in authentication and adding entities.

https://uwazi.readthedocs.io/en/latest/admin-docs/analysing-and-visualising-your-collection.html#how-to-access-the-api-for-your-instance API documentation

https://github.com/huridocs/uwazi/issues/5915

I can create a new entity:

I want to search for an entity based on a parameter

/api/templates - can give me the mongoid’s of Content or CASES

CSV manual import export

asdf

Prod

https://github.com/huridocs/uwazi/issues/6381 is an open issue I’ve submitted about dependency versions of Mongo which stopped a bare metal install