Remrob application setup

Pre-requisites

• Server running Ubuntu 20.04 or 24.04
• Ansible >=2.16

  sudo apt install ansible

OS	Supported ROS containers
Ubuntu 20.04 Focal Fossa	ROS Noetic
Ubuntu 24.04 Noble Numbat	ROS Noetic ROS2 Jazzy

Installation with Ansible

Step 1: run the install script

# requires sudo privileges
bash ./install.sh

The install script will prompt for the DB password, and JWT secret key. The source code will be placed in $HOME/remrob-app.

Step 2: setup of Docker images

If Docker was not installed prior to starting installation, then the playbook in previous step will have installed it. However, in scenario where this happens please do a system restart so that the user the ansible script was run as gets properly evaluated as part of the docker user group and the script below runs successfully.

1. Run remrob-docker ansible playbook

   ansible-playbook ansible/install.yaml --tags remrob-docker

2. Run image build script

   ROS1 Noetic:

   bash ./image-build.sh --target noetic

   ROS2 Jazzy:

   bash ./image-build.sh --target jazzy

Ubuntu 24.04 additional steps

For successfully starting systemd containers disable unified cgroup architecture in grub boot loader (restart to take effect).

# /etc/default/grub
# GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash systemd.unified_cgroup_hierarchy=0"

sudo update-grub

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The app will be available at http://127.0.0.1 after the installation is complete 🚀

Default user email: admin

Default user password: admin

Plugging in robots

Instructions on how to add physical robots to the Remrob system are available at robots/README.md

(optional) Hardware acceleration

For running hardware accelerated containers, see NVIDIA_HWA.md

(optional) Inotify instances

Higher container load (9+ simultaneous containers) can cause overstepping of inotify limits leading to new containers being unable to start.

To support high container load on the server change default inotify settings in /etc/sysctl.conf.

# Example of increased default limits

fs.inotify.max_user_watches=131072
fs.inotify.max_user_instances=1024

Application structure

There are three main services to the Remrob application:

• remrob-server (the container orchestrating backend)
• remrob-webapp (the frontend app + Flask booking server)
• remrob-docker (Docker image build files)

Here are listed ports in use by the Remrob app (make sure there are no conflicts).

Port	Application
80	nginx HTTP
5000	Frontend server & Flask API
5432	PostgreSQL server
5901-5909	Container VNC ports mapped to host
6085	Websockify
9000	Node Container API

Checking service status/logs

remrob-server

pm2 status remrob

remrob-webapp

journalctl -e -u remrob-flask.service

websockify

journalctl -e -u websockify.service