Setting up the Alert Production Database for ap_pipe

In its default configuration, the Alert Production Pipeline, as represented by pipelines/ApPipe.yaml, relies on a database to save and load DIASources and DIAObjects. When running as part of the operational system, this database will be provided externally. However, during testing and development, developers can run apdb-cli to set up their own database. This page provides an overview of how to use apdb-cli. Note that this document applies to APDB implementation backed by SQL database (SQLite or PostgreSQL), Cassandra-based implementation will use different set of options.

Configuring the database

The database is configured using ApdbConfig.

For pipetask users, the APDB is configured with the --config and --config-file options. APDB configuration info uses the prefix diaPipe:apdb., with a colon, but is otherwise the same.

Note that the db_url field has no default; a value must be provided by the user.

Additionally, the default set of observed bands allowed to be used in the pipeline are set by the columns available in the Apdb schema specified by schema_file. Should the user wish to use the pipeline on data containing bands not in the ugrizy system, they must add the appropriate columns to the Apdb schema and add the bands to the validBands config in DiaPipelineConig.

Examples

In Gen 3, this becomes (see Running the AP pipeline (Gen 3) for an explanation of pipetask):

apdb-cli create-sql sqlite:///databases/apdb.db apdb_config.py
pipetask run -p ApPipe.yaml -c diaPipe:apdb.db_url="sqlite:///databases/apdb.db" differencer:coaddName=dcr -b repo -o myrun

Warning

Make sure the APDB is created with a configuration consistent with the one used by the pipeline. Note that the pipeline file given by -p may include APDB config overrides of its own. You can double-check what configuration is being run by calling pipetask run with the --show config="apdb*" argument, though this lists all configuration options, including those left at their defaults.

The apdb_config.py argument to apdb-cli specifies the name of the created configuration file that will contain serialized ApdbConfig for the new database. This file is not used yet by the pipetask options, but it will be used in the future.

A Postgres database can be set up and used with the following:

apdb-cli create-sql --namespace='my_apdb_name' 'postgresql://rubin@usdf-prompt-processing-dev.slac.stanford.edu/lsst-devl' apdb_config.py
pipetask run -p ApPipe.yaml -c diaPipe:apdb.db_url='postgresql://rubin@usdf-prompt-processing-dev.slac.stanford.edu/lsst-devl' -c diaPipe:apdb.namespace='my_apdb_name' -d "my_data_query" -b repo -i my/input/collection -o my/output/collection

A Postgres database can be set up and used within bps yaml files by adding this to a submit yaml:

extraQgraphOptions: "-c diaPipe:apdb.db_url='postgresql://rubin@usdf-prompt-processing-dev.slac.stanford.edu/lsst-devl' -c diaPipe:apdb.namespace='my_apdb_name'"

apdb-cli create-sql --namespace='my_apdb_name' 'postgresql://rubin@usdf-prompt-processing-dev.slac.stanford.edu/lsst-devl' apdb_config.py

Note that apdb-cli must be run with the same namespace prior to submitting this bps yaml.

Further reading