Parsec Server installation

This guide covers the installation procedure for the Parsec server.

Requirements

• Docker and the docker-compose plugin.

• Parsec client (Linux).

Preamble

The Parsec server depends on the following external components in order to work properly:

• A PostgreSQL database to store the metadata.

• An S3 object storage to store the data blocks.

  Note

  The Parsec server need access to an S3 object storage-like service, not necessarily AWS S3

• An SMTP server for sending emails.

• A TSL/SSL server certificate for HTTPS communication with the clients.

• (Optional) A Sentry DSN for telemetry report.

Warning

For security reasons, the installation of these components is outside the scope of this guide. In order to securely configure and manage them, please refer to their official documentations.

This guide provides instructions for quickly settings up mock-ups or basic installs of those components. Keep in mind that these instructions are provided for convenience and should not be used in production.

Parsec testing infra

With Docker

Generating the required TLS certificates

For this guide, the required TLS certificates will be generated with a custom Certificate Authority (CA) created for this purpose.

#!/usr/bin/env bash

function generate_cert_conf() {
    local name=$1
    local san=$2

    echo "Generating $name.crt.conf"

    cat << EOF > $name.crt.conf
[req]
distinguished_name = req_dist_name
req_extensions = req_ext
prompt = no

[req_dist_name]
CN = $name

[req_ext]
subjectAltName = $san
EOF
}

function generate_certificate_request() {
    local name=$1
    echo "Generate certificate request $name.csr"
    openssl req -batch \
        -new -sha512 -noenc -newkey rsa:4096 \
        -config $name.crt.conf \
        -keyout $name.key -out $name.csr
}

function sign_crt_with_ca() {
    local ca_crt=$1
    local ca_key=$2
    local name=$3

    echo "Sign certificate request $name.crt"

    openssl x509 -req -in $name.csr \
        -CA $ca_crt -CAkey $ca_key \
        -extfile $name.crt.conf \
        -extensions req_ext \
        -CAcreateserial -out $name.crt \
        -days 10 -sha512
}

if [ ! -f custom-ca.key ]; then
    echo "Generate a mini Certificate Authority"
    openssl req -batch \
        -x509 -sha512 -nodes -days 10 -newkey rsa:4096 \
        -subj "/CN=Mini Certificate Authority" \
        -keyout custom-ca.key -out custom-ca.crt
fi

for service in parsec-{s3,server}; do
    if [ ! -f $service.crt.conf ]; then
        generate_cert_conf $service DNS:$service,DNS:localhost,IP:127.0.0.1
    fi

    if [ ! -f $service.key ]; then
        generate_certificate_request $service
    fi

    if [ ! -f $service.crt ]; then
        sign_crt_with_ca custom-ca.{crt,key} $service
    fi
done

if [ "$(stat -c %g parsec-server.key)" -ne 1234 ]; then
    echo "Changing group id of parsec-server.key to 1234"
    sudo chown $USER:1234 parsec-server.key
fi

if [ "$(stat -c %a parsec-server.key)" -ne 640 ]; then
    echo "Changing permission of parsec-server.key to 640"
    chmod 640 parsec-server.key
fi

The script will:

1. Generate the CA key & self-signed certificate (custom-ca.{key,crt}).

2. For parsec-s3 and parsec-server services:

   1. Generate the service key & Certificate Signing Request (CSR) parsec-{service}.{key,csr}.

   2. Generate the certificate using the CSR and the CA.

3. For the service parsec-server:

   1. Change the group id of the key file to 1234 (That is the GID used by the parsec-server container).

   2. Change the file mode to give read permission to the group 1234.

   Note

   This is required because docker-compose does not allow to mount the file with the correct permissions in the container.

Warning

For production, you should use certificates issued from a trusted CA

The env files

We split the configuration of the parsec server into multiple env files so it’s simpler to understand how to configure each part.

The administration token

To be able to perform admin tasks (like creating an organization) on the server, an administration token is required. Below you will find a simple script to generate a token:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

ENV_FILE=parsec-admin-token.env
if [ ! -f $ENV_FILE ]; then
    TOKEN=$(openssl rand 63 | base64 --wrap=86)
    echo "PARSEC_ADMINISTRATION_TOKEN=$TOKEN" > ENV_FILE
    echo "Parsec administration token generated in: $ENV_FILE"
else
    echo "Parsec administration token already exists in: $ENV_FILE"
fi

The script will generate a random token (openssl rand 63 | base64 --wrap=86) and create the env file parsec-admin-token.env

Note

The step TOKEN=$(openssl rand 63 | base64 --wrap=86) could also be replaced by a value generated by a password-generator for example.

It doesn’t need to be encoded in base64 (we encode it in the script just to have printable characters).

Database configuration

Create the file parsec-db.env with the following content to configure the access to the PostgreSQL database:

# The Database url.
PARSEC_DB=postgresql://DB_USER:DB_PASS@parsec-postgres:5432/parsec
# The minimum number of connections to the database.
PARSEC_DB_MIN_CONNECTIONS=5
# The maximum number of connections to the database.
PARSEC_DB_MAX_CONNECTIONS=7

SMTP configuration

Create the file parsec-smtp.env to configure the access to the SMTP server (mailhog in this case).

We need to set the connection informations, the sender information, in which the default language the emails are sent:

# The SMTP host to use for sending email.
PARSEC_EMAIL_HOST=parsec-smtp
# The port to use when connecting to the SMTP server.
PARSEC_EMAIL_PORT=1025
# The username to use for the SMTP server.
PARSEC_EMAIL_HOST_USER=SMTP_USER
# The password to use for the SMTP server.
PARSEC_EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD=SMTP_PASS
PARSEC_EMAIL_SENDER=parsec@test.xyz

# PARSEC_EMAIL_USE_SSL
# PARSEC_EMAIL_USE_TLS
PARSEC_EMAIL_LANGUAGE=en

S3 service configuration

Create the file parsec-s3.env with the following content to set the URL for the S3-like service:

# The blockstore URL.
# Can be S3, Switch or POSTGRESQL URL
PARSEC_BLOCKSTORE=s3:parsec-s3\:9000:region1:parsec:S3_ROOT_USER:S3_ROOT_PASS

Note

We need to escape the : with a \ when specifying the port of the service.

Parsec server configuration

Create the file parsec.env with the following content to configure the parsec-server service:

# Host to listen to.
PARSEC_HOST=0.0.0.0

# The SSL key file.
PARSEC_SSL_KEYFILE=/run/secrets/parsec-pem-key

# The SSL certificate file.
PARSEC_SSL_CERTFILE=/run/secrets/parsec-pem-crt

# Enforce HTTPS by redirecting HTTP request.
PARSEC_FORWARD_PROTO_ENFORCE_HTTPS=X-Forwarded-Proto:https

# The granularity of Error log outputs.
PARSEC_LOG_LEVEL=WARNING

# The log formatting to use (`CONSOLE` or `JSON`).
PARSEC_LOG_FORMAT=CONSOLE

# The log file to write to (default to `stderr`).
# PARSEC_LOG_FILE

# The URL to reach Parsec server.
PARSEC_SERVER_ADDR=parsec3://127.0.0.1:6777

# Keep SSE connection open by sending keepalive messages to client (pass <=0 to disable).
PARSEC_SSE_KEEPALIVE=30

# Sentry Data Source Name for telemetry report.
# PARSEC_SENTRY_DSN

# Sentry environment for telemetry report.
PARSEC_SENTRY_ENVIRONMENT=production

Note

To see the full list of environment variables that you can use to configure Parsec, you can run:

python -m parsec.cli backend run --help

Look for the sections [env var: VARIABLE] next to each configuration option. For example:

--administration-token TOKEN    Secret token to access the Administration API
                                [env var: PARSEC_ADMINISTRATION_TOKEN; required]

The docker-compose file

You can use the following docker-compose file (parsec-server.docker.yaml) to deploy the Parsec server for testing:

version: "3.8"

services:
  parsec-postgres:
    image: postgres:14.10-alpine
    container_name: parsec-postgres
    environment:
      POSTGRES_USER: DB_USER
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: DB_PASS
      POSTGRES_DB: parsec
    volumes:
      - parsec-db-data:/var/lib/postgresql/data

  parsec-s3:
    image: quay.io/minio/minio:RELEASE.2023-09-20T22-49-55Z
    container_name: parsec-s3
    command: server --console-address ":9090" --certs-dir /opts/certs /data
    environment:
      MINIO_ROOT_USER: S3_ROOT_USER
      MINIO_ROOT_PASSWORD: S3_ROOT_PASS
    ports:
      # Admin console exposed to https://127.0.0.1:9090
      - 127.0.0.1:9090:9090
    volumes:
      - parsec-object-data:/data
      - ./parsec-s3.key:/opts/certs/private.key:ro
      - ./parsec-s3.crt:/opts/certs/public.crt:ro
      - ./custom-ca.crt:/opts/certs/CAs/ca.test.crt:ro

  parsec-smtp:
    image: mailhog/mailhog:v1.0.1
    container_name: parsec-smtp
    ports:
      - 1025:1025
      # Web interface exposed to http://127.0.0.1:8025
      - 127.0.0.1:8025:8025

  parsec-server:
    depends_on:
      - parsec-smtp
      - parsec-s3
      - parsec-postgres
    image: ghcr.io/scille/parsec-cloud/parsec-server:2023-10-11-v2.16.0-rc.5.dev-b33d909
    container_name: parsec-server
    env_file:
      - parsec.env
      - parsec-blockstore.env
      - parsec-db.env
      - parsec-email.env
      - parsec-admin-token.env
    environment:
      AWS_CA_BUNDLE: /run/secrets/mini-ca-crt
    secrets:
      - mini-ca-crt
      - parsec-pem-crt
      - parsec-pem-key
    ports:
      - 127.0.0.1:6777:6777

volumes:
  parsec-db-data: {}
  parsec-object-data: {}

secrets:
  parsec-pem-crt:
    file: ./parsec-server.crt
  parsec-pem-key:
    file: ./parsec-server.key
  mini-ca-crt:
    file: ./custom-ca.crt

It will setup 4 services:

Service name	Description
parsec-postgres	The PostgreSQL database
parsec-s3	The Object Storage service
parsec-smtp	A mock SMTP server
parsec-server	The Parsec server

Starting the services

The docker containers can be started as follow:

docker compose -f parsec-server.docker.yaml up

Initial configuration

On the first start, a one-time configuration is required for the database and s3 services.

Applying the database migration

(optional) Check that the database is accessible with:

set -a
source parsec-db.env
docker exec -t parsec-postgres psql 'postgresql://DB_USER:DB_PASS@0.0.0.0:5432/parsec' -c "\conninfo"

Note

You should have something like display on your console:

You are connected to database "parsec" as user "parsec" on host "0.0.0.0" at port "5432".

To bootstrap the database we just need to apply the migrations with:

docker compose -f parsec-server.docker.yaml run parsec-server migrate

Create the S3 Bucket

Access the console at https://127.0.0.1:9090, you will need to use the credential specified in the docker-compose file at services.parsec-s3.environment.MINIO_ROOT_{USER,PASSWORD}.

Go to https://127.0.0.1:9090/buckets/add-bucket to create a new bucket named parsec with the features object locking toggled on.

After that you will need to restart the parsec-server (that likely exited because it wasn’t able to access the S3 bucket):

docker compose -f parsec-server.docker.yaml restart parsec-server

Test the SMTP configuration & server

You can test mailhog with:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

set -a
source parsec-email.env

curl \
    --url "smtp://127.0.0.1:$PARSEC_EMAIL_PORT" \
    --user "$PARSEC_EMAIL_HOST_USER@localhost:$PARSEC_EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD" \
    --mail-from $PARSEC_EMAIL_SENDER \
    --mail-rcpt rcpt@test.com \
    --upload-file <(date --rfc-3339=seconds)

You can then check if the email is present in the web interface at http://127.0.0.1:8025

On Bare Metal

If you don’t want to install Parsec server via Docker, you can install it on bare metal.

Requirements

• Python v3.12 with pip and venv modules

• A S3 like object storage endpoint.

• A postgres-14 database endpoint.

• A TLS certificate & key for the server.

Configure the environment

1. Configure the env files, follow the env files.

Installation

1. Set up a virtual env:

python -m venv venv

2. Configure your shell to use the virtual env:

source venv/bin/activate

3. Install parsec-server

The parsec-server is available as a python package hosted on https://pypi.org/project/parsec-cloud/.

You need to install it with the extra backend enabled.

pip install 'parsec-cloud[backend]==3.0.0-b.6+dev'

4. Prepare the database by applying the migrations:

source venv/bin/activate
set -a
source parsec-db.env
python -m parsec.cli backend migrate

Start the server

1. Create a wrapper script run-parsec-server

#!/bin/bash

# Load the virtualenv.
source venv/bin/activate

# Load the env file into the environment table.
set -a
source parsec-admin-token.env
source parsec-db.env
source parsec-smtp.env
source parsec-s3.env
source parsec.env
set +a

# Start the parsec server.
python -m parsec.cli backend run

2. Execute the wrapper script run-parsec-server

Note

To run the wrapper with only run-parsec-server you need to have set the executable mode on the script file (chmod +x run-parsec-server). Otherwise, you need to execute it with the bash shell (bash run-parsec-server).

Start using Parsec server

Create the first organization

set -a
source parsec-admin-token.env
export SSL_CAFILE=$PWD/custom-ca.crt
parsec.cli core create_organization --addr parsec3://127.0.0.1:6777 <orgname>

Note

Change <orgname> to the organization’s name that suit you.

Save the link after Bootstrap organization url: you will need it to create the first user (owner) of the organization.

Add the first user to the organization

First, start parsec with the custom CA:

export SSL_CAFILE=$PWD/custom-ca.crt
parsec

After that go to Menu/Join an organization (or CTRL+O) and paste the link from before (should already be filled in the text field). Follow the instructions to create the first user of the organization.