Common Metadata Repository

Visit the CMR at https://earthdata.nasa.gov/about/science-system-description/eosdis-components/common-metadata-repository

About

The Common Metadata Repository (CMR) is an earth science metadata repository for NASA EOSDIS data. The CMR Search API provides access to this metadata.

Client-facing Components

• Search

  • Allows the user to search by collections, granules, and concepts with a myriad of different query types
  • Search API Docs

• Ingest

  • Ingest refers to the process of validating, inserting, updating, or deleting metadata in the CMR system. It affects only the metadata for the specific Data Partner. The CMR allows Data Partners to ingest metadata. records through a RESTful API
  • Ingest API Docs

• Access Control

  • Access Control Lists (ACLs) are the mechanism which grants users access to perform different operations in the CMR. CMR ACLs follow the same design as ECHO ACLs, which are a superset of the generic ACL design pattern used in many other systems. An ACL is a mapping of actors (subjects) to resources (object) to operations (predicate).
  • Two quick examples of a CMR ACL could be:
    • All registered users have READ access to ASTER data
    • A provider's operations team may ingest data for that provider
  • Access Control API Docs

Prerequisites

• Java 17
• Leiningen
• Maven
• gcc and libc
• Docker

Obtaining the Code

You can get the CMR source code by cloning the repository from GitHub:

git clone https://github.com/nasa/Common-Metadata-Repository.git cmr

Building and Running the CMR

The CMR is a system consisting of many services. The services can run individually or in a single process. Running in a single process makes local development easier because it avoids having to start many different processes. The dev-system project allows the CMR to run from a single REPL or JAR file. If you are developing a client against the CMR you can build and run the entire CMR with no external dependencies from this JAR file and use that instance for local testing. The sections below contain instructions for running the CMR as a single process or as many processes.

Using the cmr CLI Tool

This project has its own tool that is able to do everything from initial setup to running builds and tests on the CI/CD infrastructure. To use the tool as we do below, be sure to run the following from the top-level CMR directory:

export PATH=$PATH:`pwd`/bin
source resources/shell/cmr-bash-autocomplete

(If you use a system shell not compatible with Bash, we accept Pull Requests for new shells with auto-complete.)

To make this change permanent:

echo "export PATH=\$PATH:`pwd`/bin" >> ~/.profile
echo "source `pwd`/resources/shell/cmr-bash-autocomplete" >> ~/.profile

Building and Running CMR Dev System in a REPL with CMR CLI tool

1. cmr setup profile and then update the new ./dev-system/profiles.clj file. it will look something like this:

   {:dev-config {:env {:cmr-metadata-db-password "<YOUR PASSWORD HERE>"
                       :cmr-sys-dba-password "<YOUR PASSWORD HERE>"
                       :cmr-bootstrap-password "<YOUR PASSWORD HERE>"
                       :cmr-ingest-password "<YOUR PASSWORD HERE>"
                       :cmr-urs-password "<YOUR PASSWORD HERE>"}}}

2. cmr setup dev

3. cmr start repl

4. Once given a Clojure prompt, run (reset)

Note that the reset action may take a while, not only due to the code reloading for a large number of namespaces, but for bootstrapping services as well as starting up worker threads.

Building and Running CMR Dev System from a JAR

Assuming you have already run the above steps (namely cmr setup dev), to build and run the default CMR development system (dev-system) from a .jar file:

1. cmr build uberjars
2. cmr build all
3. cmr start uberjar dev-system will run the dev-system as a background task

See CMR Development Guide to read about specifying options and setting environment variables

Building and Running separate CMR Applications

The following will build every application but will put each JAR into the appropriate target directory for each application. The command shown in step 3 is an example. For the proper command to start up each application, see the Applications section below. Note: You only need to complete steps 1 and 2 once.

1. cmr build uberjar APP
2. cmr run uberjar APP

Where APP is any supported CMR app. You can double-tap the TAB key on your keyboard to get the cmr tool to show you the list of available apps after entering uberjar in each step above.

Note: building uberjars will interfere with your repl. If you want to use your repl post-build you will need to, rm -f ./dev-system/target/

Checking Dependencies, Static Analysis, and Tests

There are several lein plugins within the CMR for performing various tasks either at individual subproject levels or at the top-level for all subprojects.

Dependency Versions

To check for up-to-date versions of all project dependencies, you can use cmr test versions PROJ, where PROJ is any CMR sub-project under the top-level directory.

You may run the same command without a project to check for all projects: cmr test versions.

Note that this command fails with the first project that fails. If many subprojects are failing their dependency version checks and you wish to see them all, you may use your system shell:

for PROJ in `ls -1d */project.clj|xargs dirname`
do
  "Checking $PROJ ..."
  cmr test versions $PROJ
  cd - &> /dev/null
done

Dependency Ambiguities and .jar File Conflicts

To see if the JVM is having problems resolving which version of a dependency to use, you can run cmr test dep-tree PROJ. To perform this against all projects: cmr test dep-trees.

Static Analysis and Linting

To perform static analysis and linting for a project, you can run cmr test lint PROJ. As above with dependency version checking, by not passing a project, you can run for all projects: cmr test lint.

Dependency Vulnerability Scanning

You can see if your currently installed version of CMR has any reported Common Vulnerabilities and Exploits (CVEs) by running the helpful alias lein check-sec that you can use in each application, or at the root folder to scan all CMR apps together.

You will find the vulnerability summary in ./target/dependency-check-report.html in each application.

Testing CMR

Test files in CMR should follow the naming convention of ending in -test.

There are two modes of testing the CMR:

• From the REPL
• Utilizing the CI/CD script to run against an Oracle database

For the first, the steps are as follows:

1. Ensure you have set up your development environment in dev-system
2. If you have built any .jar files, run cmr clean PROJ (for a given project) or cmr clean to clean all projects.
3. Start the REPL: cmr start repl
4. Once in the REPL, start the in-memory services: (reset)
5. Run the tests: (run-all-tests) or (run-all-tests-future)

You have the option of substituting the last step with (run-suites). This uses a third-party tool to display clear test results which are easier copy/paste should you want to run them on an individual basis. These results also contain easier to read exception messages/stacktraces. Here's an excerpt:

   cmr.system-int-test.ingest.provider-ingest-test
     update-provider-test
       assertion 1 ........................................................ [OK]
       assertion 2 ........................................................ [OK]
       assertion 3 ........................................................ [OK]
       assertion 4 ........................................................ [OK]
     delete-provider-test
       assertion 1 ........................................................ [OK]
       assertion 2 ........................................................ [OK]
       assertion 3 ........................................................ [OK]
       assertion 4 ........................................................ [OK]
       assertion 5 ........................................................ [OK]
       assertion 6 ........................................................ [OK]
       assertion 7 ........................................................ [OK]
       assertion 8 ........................................................ [OK]
       assertion 9 ........................................................ [OK]

For non-terminal based dev, depending upon your IDE/editor, you may have shortcuts available to you for starting/restarting the services and/or running the tests. To find out what these are you can contact a CMR core dev.

To run the tests against an Oracle database, we recommend that you use an Oracle VM built for this purpose. You will also need configuration and authentication information that will be set as environment variables. Be sure to contact a CMR core dev for this information.

To run only certain types of tests, you may run the following:

Unit Tests

lein modules utest

Integration Tests

If running CMR with the in-memory database (default)

lein modules itest --skip-meta :oracle

If running CMR with an external database

lein modules itest --skip-meta :in-memory-db

If you want to run tests against Oracle, bring up the Oracle VM and execute the following to create the users and run the migrations:

cmr setup db

Then, in the CMR REPL:

user=> (reset :db :external)
...
user=> (run-all-tests)
...

Those tests will take much longer to run than when done with the in-memory database (~25m vs. ~6m). To switch back to using the in-memory database, call (reset :db :in-memory).

There is also a different, optional test runner you can use. For more details see the docstring for run-suites in dev-system/dev/user.clj. It will contain usage instructions

Testing in the CI Environment

Throughout the modules, in the project.clj files there are additional lein aliases for executing the tests in the CI/CD environment. They are

• ci-itest
• ci-utest

These run the integration and unit tests, respectively, in the CI environment. The difference between itest and ci-itest or utest and ci-utest are the settings passed to the kaocha test runner.

In the CI environment, color is omitted, and certain tests that require an internal memory database are excluded. The aliases may be used locally as well.

To see the difference in detail, inspect the tests.edn files for each module to see the profile in use in the CI environment. Kaocha supports the use of profiles so more may be added as necessary.

Test Development

CMR uses the Kaocha test library. It provides plugins and grouping capabilities. Tests are organized in each module with the standard being :unit and :integration.

Not all modules will contain :integration tests.

Code structure

The CMR comprises several small services called microservices. These are small purposed-based services that do a small set of things well.

• For more reading on microservices: https://martinfowler.com/articles/microservices.html

The Microservices

Each microservice has a README file in its root directory, which provides a short overview of the service's functionality. There are many main applications, as well as several libraries and support applications.

Applications:

• access-control-app

  • The mechanism which grants users access to perform different operations in the CMR. It also maintains groups and access control rules. Note that ECHO and URS provide user access as an external dependency. The mock-echo application implements both of the necessary interfaces for local testing.
  • Main method: cmr.access_control.runner

• bootstrap-app

  • Contains APIs for performing various bulk actions in the CMR
  • Main method: cmr.bootstrap.runner
  • See /bootstrap-app/README.md for a list of lein and uberjar commands

• dev-system

  • An app that combines the separate microservices of the CMR into a single application. We use this to simplify development
  • Main method: cmr.dev_system.runner

• indexer-app

  • This handles indexing collections, granules, and tags in Elasticsearch
  • Maintains the set of indexes in Elasticsearch for each concept
  • Main method: cmr.indexer.runner

• ingest-app

  • The Ingest app handles collaborating with metadata db and indexer systems. This maintains the lifecycle of concepts coming into the CMR
  • Main method: cmr.ingest.runner

• search-app

  • Provides a public search API for concepts in the CMR
  • Main method: cmr.search.runner

• search-relevancy-test

  • Tests to measure and report the effectiveness of CMR's search relevancy algorithm

• system-int-test

  • Black-box, system-level tests to ensure functionality of the CMR

• virtual-product-app

  • Adds the concept of Virtual Products to the CMR. Virtual Products represent products that a provider generates on demand from users. This takes place when a user places an order or downloads a product through a URL
  • Main method: cmr.virtual_product.runner

• metadata-db-app

  • A database that maintains revisioned copies of metadata for the CMR
  • Main method: cmr.metadata_db.runner

• mock-echo-app

  • This mocks out the ECHO REST API and the URS API as well. Its purpose is to make it easier to integration test the CMR system without having to run a full instance of ECHO. It will only provide the parts necessary to enable integration testing. You should not expect a perfect or complete implementation of ECHO.
  • Main method: cmr.mock_echo.runner

Libraries:

• acl-lib

  • Contains utilities for retrieving and working with ACLs

• common-app-lib

  • Contains utilities used within many CMR applications

• common-lib

  • Provides common utility code for CMR projects

• elastic-utils-lib

  • A library that handles most of the interfacing with Elasticsearch

• es-spatial-plugin

  • An Elasticsearch plugin that enables spatial search within elastic

• oracle-lib

  • Contains utilities for connecting to and manipulating data in Oracle

• orbits-lib

  • Clojure wrapper of a Ruby implementation of the Backtrack Orbit Search Algorithm (BOSA)

• message-queue-lib

  • A library for interfacing with RabbitMQ, AWS SQS, and an in-memory message queue

• spatial-lib

  • The spatial libraries provide utilities for working with spatial areas in the CMR

• transmit-lib

  • The Transmit Library defines functions for invoking CMR services

• umm-lib

  • This is the old source of UMM schemas and translation code. Since the advent of umm-spec-lib we are planning to remove it

• umm-spec-lib

  • The UMM Spec lib contains JSON schemas that define the Unified Metadata Model, as well as mappings to other supported formats, and code to migrate collections between any supported formats.

Further Reading

• CMR Client Partner User Guide
• CMR Data Partner User Guide

License

Copyright © 2014-2023 United States Government as represented by the Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. All Rights Reserved.