Setting up the Alert Production Database for ap_pipe

In its default configuration, the Alert Production Pipeline, as represented by lsst.ap.pipe.ApPipeTask (Gen 2) or pipelines/ApPipe.yaml (Gen 3), 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 make_apdb.py to set up their own database. This page provides an overview of how to use make_apdb.py.

Configuring the database

The database is configured using ApdbConfig. ap_pipe.py command line users can pass configuration information to the script through the --config and --configfile command-line options, using the prefix diaPipe.apdb. to distinguish APDB information from other pipeline configuration. make_apdb.py configures the database directly through --config and --config-file (different spelling, for consistency with pipetask), with no prefix.

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 and extra_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

Databases can be configured using direct config overrides (see Running the AP pipeline (Gen 2) for an explanation of the ap_pipe.py command line):

make_apdb.py -c db_url="sqlite:///databases/apdb.db"
ap_pipe.py -c diaPipe.apdb.db_url="sqlite:///databases/apdb.db" differencer.coaddName=dcr repo --calib repo/calibs --rerun myrun --id [optional IDs to process]

The user is responsible for making sure the two APDB configurations are consistent.

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

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

Warning

As in Gen 2, 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.

Databases can also be set up using config files:

Listing 1 myApdbConfig.py
config.db_url = "sqlite:///databases/apdb.db"

make_apdb.py -C myApdbConfig.py
ap_pipe.py repo --calib repo/calibs --rerun myrun -C myApPipeConfig.py --id [optional ID to process]

Further reading