Web Framework

This document describes the interaction between web enabled agents and the Platform Web Service agent.

The web framework enables agent developers to expose JSON, static, and websocket endpoints.

Web SubSystem

Enabling

The web subsystem is not enabled by default as it is only required by a small subset of agents. To enable the web subsystem the platform instance must have an enabled the web server and the agent must pass enable_web=True to the agent constructor.

class WebAgent(Agent):
    def __init__(self, **kwargs):
        super(WebAgent, self).__init__(enable_web=True,**kwargs)

MANIFEST File

The MANIFEST.in file is used to package additional files needed for your web enabled agent. Please read the python packaging documentation on the MANIFEST.in file. For most cases, i.e. when you only need to include a webroot directory for html and javascript, the manifest file only needs to include the recursive-include command. For example, the entirety of the VolttronCentral MANIFEST.in file is:

recursive-include volttroncentral/webroot *

The MANIFEST.in file should be located in the root directory of the agent. All pathing for the MANIFEST.in file commands are relative to this root directory.

Routes

The web subsystem allows an agent to register three different types of routes; file paths, endpoints, and websockets.

Note

For all routes the first match wins. Therefore ordering which routes are registered first becomes important.

File Path

A path-based route that allows the agent to specify a prefix and a static path on the file system to serve static files. The prefix can be a regular expression.

Note

The static path should point to a location within the installed agent’s agent-data directory. You MUST have read access to the directory.

The below example is based on the registered route in VolttronCentral.

@Core.receiver('onstart')
def onstart(self, sender, **kwargs):
    """
    Allow serving of static content from 'webroot'
    """
    # Sets WEB_ROOT to be the path to the webroot directory
    # in the agent-data directory of the installed agent..
    WEB_ROOT = os.path.abspath(p.abspath(p.join(p.dirname(__file__), 'webroot/')))
    # Serves the static content from 'webroot' directory
    self.vip.web.register_path(r'^/vc/.*', WEB_ROOT)

Endpoint

JSON endpoints allows an agent to serve data responses to specific queries from a web client’s non-static responses. The agent will pass a callback to the subsystem which will be called when the endpoint is triggered.

def jsonrpc(env, data):
"""
The main entry point for jsonrpc data
"""
    return {'dyamic': 'data'}

@Core.receiver('onstart')
def onstart(self, sender, **kwargs):
"""
Register the /vc/jsonrpc endpoint for doing json-rpc based methods
"""
    self.vip.web.register_endpoint(r'/vc/jsonrpc', self.jsonrpc)

Websocket

Websocket endpoints allow bi-directional communication between the client and the server. Client connections can be authenticated during the opening of a websocket through the response of an open callback.

def _ws_opened(self, fromip, endpoint):
    _log.debug("OPENED ip: {} endpoint: {}".format(fromip, endpoint))

def _ws_closed(self, endpoint):
    _log.debug("CLOSED endpoint: {}".format(endpoint))

def _ws_received(self, endpoint, message):
    _log.debug("RECEIVED endpoint: {} message: {}".format(endpoint,
                                                          message))

@Core.receiver('onstart')
def onstart(self, sender, **kwargs):
    self.vip.web.register_websocket(r'/vc/ws', self._ws_opened, self._ws_closed, self._ws_received)