Installation#

Note

Migrating from ASReview version 1 to version 2? Follow the Migration guide.

ASReview LAB Server is a web application that allows you to run ASReview LAB on your own server. It is designed to be easy to install and configure, and provides the same functionality as the ASReview LAB application with extra features like user authentication and crowd screening.

The software can be installed in a similar way as ASReview LAB. However, for production environments, we recommend using ASReview Server Stack. This is a Docker Compose setup that packages the main components of ASReview—such as the AI engine (task server), the React front end, reverse proxy server, and a database layer—into separate, containerized services.

Prerequisites#

  • Docker and Docker Compose installed on your server. See the Docker installation instructions.

  • A server with sufficient resources to run the ASReview LAB application and database. We recommend at least 8 GB of RAM and 4 CPU cores for a production environment.

  • A domain name or IP address for your server. This is required for the reverse proxy configuration.

Optional

  • Git installed on your server so that you can clone the ASReview Server Stack repository from GitHub. If you don’t have Git installed, you can download the repository as a ZIP file and extract it to your server.

  • A valid SSL certificate for your domain name. This is required for secure communication between the server and the client. You can use Let’s Encrypt to obtain a free SSL certificate.

  • A PostgreSQL database. You can use the PostgreSQL database provided by the ASReview Server Stack, or you can use your own PostgreSQL database. If you use your own database, make sure to configure the connection settings in the Server configuration file.

Deploy to production#

To deploy ASReview LAB Server to production, follow these steps:

  1. Clone the ASReview Server Stack repository from GitHub:

    git clone git@github.com:asreview/asreview-server-stack.git

  2. Change to the ASReview Server Stack directory:

    cd asreview-server-stack

  3. Configure the environment file if needed. In the .env file, you find parameters of the Docker Compose file only:

    nano .env

  4. Edit the asreview_config.toml file to configure the ASReview LAB application. You can use the example configuration file provided in the repository as a starting point.

  5. Change the secrets in the asreview_config.toml file. The secrets are used to encrypt sensitive data, such as password salt and the session key. You can use the openssl command to generate a random secret key:

    openssl rand -hex 32

SSL Configuration#

For secure communication, it is recommended to use SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) for your ASReview LAB Server. This ensures that all data transmitted between the server and the client is encrypted and secure. SSL is especially important if you are handling sensitive data, such as user credentials or personal information.

Note

This documentation is not fully ready yet. For an example of SSL configuration, please refer to the ASReview Server Stack repository.

PostgreSQL database#

You can replace the SQLite database used for authentication with a PostgreSQL database. This requires an extra step during installation and an extra step in the configuration file:

  1. Install the psycopg2 package. At the time of this writing, two versions of this package exist: psycopg2 and psycopg2-binary. According to the documentation, the binary version works on most operating systems. You can skip this step if you use the Docker image provided by the ASReview Server Stack.

  2. Then add the SQLALCHEMY_DATABASE_URI key to the config file:

SQLALCHEMY_DATABASE_URI = "postgresql+psycopg2://username:password@host:port/database_name"