The Android Arsenal - Push/Pull Notifications

PNS

Distributed Push Notification Service for GCM and APNS. Built on REST API. Requires RabbitMQ and PostgreSQL. Tested on Python v2.7.x

See Wiki for what PNS can do for you.

Generate REST API Documentation

git clone git@github.com:Turksat/pns.git
npm install -g apidoc
cd pns & apidoc -i ./ -o apidoc/

Requirements on Debian 7.x

echo "deb http://apt.postgresql.org/pub/repos/apt/ wheezy-pgdg main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pgdg.list
wget --quiet -O - https://www.postgresql.org/media/keys/ACCC4CF8.asc | apt-key add -


echo "deb http://www.rabbitmq.com/debian/ testing main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/rabbitmq.list
wget --quiet -O - http://www.rabbitmq.com/rabbitmq-signing-key-public.asc | apt-key add -

apt-get update

apt-get install -y python-dev python-pip rabbitmq-server postgresql-9.4 postgresql-server-dev-9.4 \
    libffi-dev supervisor git-core

Deployment

Make it sure PostgresSQL and RabbitMQ services are up and running;

service postgresql start
service rabbitmq-server start

Follow steps for deployment (or use Dockerfile [TODO]);

First of all setup PostgreSQL server and create an user and database. You can get help from Debian PostgreSQL Documentation.

  postgres=# CREATE USER mypguser WITH PASSWORD 'mypguserpass';
  postgres=# CREATE DATABASE mypgdatabase OWNER mypguser;

It's recommended to install required python dependency packages by using virtualenv.

  virtualenv --no-site-packages env
  source env/bin/activate
  pip install -r pns/requirements.txt

Copy and edit sample ini file and set environment variable PNSCONF according to path of config file.

  cp pns/config_sample.ini ~/config.ini
  vi ~/config.ini
  export PNSCONF="$HOME/config.ini"

Create tables

  export PYTHONPATH=$PYTHONPATH:$HOME/pns
  python -c "from pns.models import *; db.create_all()"

Now you can test your web service is running

 python pns/pns/run.py
 * Running on http://localhost:5000/

Congrats! You are done. Now we have to daemonize workers and web service application.

Copy sample supervisor configuration file and edit executables and paths
```
  cp pns/supervisor_sample.conf /etc/supervisor/conf.d/pns.conf
  service supervisor restart
```
Look at Supervisor Documentation page for extra configuration options.
It's recommended to use nginx to proxying requests to gunicorn. pns/nginx_sample.conf file includes a basic setup for proxy_pass

APNS Feedback Service

The Apple Push Notification service includes a feedback service to give you information about failed remote notifications. When a remote notification cannot be delivered because the intended app does not exist on the device, the feedback service adds that device’s token to its list. Remote notifications that expire before being delivered are not considered a failed delivery and don’t impact the feedback service. By using this information to stop sending remote notifications that will fail to be delivered, you reduce unnecessary message overhead and improve overall system performance. APNS Documentation

To start benefit from feedback service you can setup a cron. Edit sample configuration file pns/pns_cron_sample.sh and copy under preferred cron folder (cron.hourly, cron.daily etc.).

cp pns/pns_cron_sample.sh /etc/cron.daily/pns
chmod +x /etc/cron.daily/pns

Running Database Migrations

Change username and password in alembic.ini and run following command in application root directory (be sure PYTHONPATH and PNSCONF environment variables are set);

alembic upgrade head

pns

General

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PNS