Integrate Kolibri and Rachel for content sync

Support FAQ
1

Hello,

I did some research about how to sync content for the Rachel Content Access Point and try to figure out how to sync content to Rachel devices from centralized content management.

Our goal to deploy Rachel Access Point to many schools (some have internet and some no) and able to sync content to any school devices that have internet for the new content from the centralized location.

Would you recommend Kolibri for the solution?

2

hi @leap Welcome to these forums!
and trying to answer your question: it depends.
If you want to have a complete sync cloning all the system I’d say that you should go to a deeper level using something like puppet, chef or ansible.
If you just want to sync educative contents, I think Kolibri might be a good option. When you install new content in Kolibri you can download it from Studio, a disk or… from another kolibri server that’s available to the network.

So, you can setup your master Kolibri, install there the content you want, upgrade it whenever you want, and, in the other kolibri servers, point to it when you’re upgrading or adding content, so you’ll see what’s available in the master. Anyone with the right credentials can do it using the browser.
If you want to avoid the human intervention and automate it there are some kolibri commands that can be executed, but they will requiere someone who knows how to use console tools. Some of the commands, but not all of them, are explained at https://kolibri.readthedocs.io/en/latest/manage/command_line.html

Regards
José

3

Hi Jose, Thanks for your quick response.

Let me recap what I understand base on the need for educative contents synchronize only:

Basically we need a Kolibri master to host all contents and there are many Kolibri nodes sync content. For the content update, there are two possible options (via browser to run the updates or command line for advanced users).

I have a few more questions:

  1. For the advance users’ command line - are we able to run with Cron Job or any related scheduled tool?
  2. Can we install Kolibri on Rachel Plus and connect to the Kolibri Master that allows us to sync the content via the Master?

Thanks,
Leap

4

Hello again @leap, about your questions:

  1. yes , you can test it just setting a couple of servers in your network and importing content from one to the other, this is the command you have to use kolibri manage importchannel [options] To see the options you can take a look at the sources because this command is not explained in the docs

  2. As far as I know Rachel Plus is delivered with Kolibri installed. Depending on the Rachel version it will be outdated or not (if it’s a very old version of Kolibri you’ll need to upgrade it in order to have this option available). Remember that you’ll have to put the master server visible to the other Kolibri servers through the network and, depending on your setup, that might be a task needing of advanced network skills.

Regards
José

5

Thanks again Jose for your reply. I am getting a bit loss here as I can’t figure the difference between Kolibri that installed on Rachel Plus Access Point, Kolibri Data Portal, Kolibri Studio (Beta).

I just want to have a Master Kolibri to host all contents and having Rachel AP to get updates contents from time to time via Master.

6

Hello @leap
I’ll try to clarify it as much as I can (beware I never have had a Rachel device in my hands so on that side I can be mistaken)

  1. Forget about Kolibri Data Portal: this is a project that’s still in a beta format and it’s being used only in special projects with some Learning Equality partners under signed agreements. It does not apply to most of the world.
  2. Kolibri Studio is the online platform to curate the contents that you’ll insert in Kolibri, so it’s part of the Kolibri platform but you’ll never install it: you can create an account there and upload/curate your own content to be later used in Kolibri.
  3. Kolibri is the server that you can install and that, according to their Q&A it’s installed in the Rachel devices. There’s not any difference in what you call a master and any other kolibri server. The only difference is that, when you import content, you decide to import content from another kolibri server (the one you call master) instead of doing it from Studio. If you do it, you’ll see only the contents that are in the master.

So, for your project you have to:

  1. In a device with Kolibri (installed by you or by others like it happens in Rachel) add the content you want from Studio. Previously you might have created your own channels in Studio adding your own customized content or you just can use the content available in public channels in Studio. Let’s call “primary” to this kolibri server.
  2. In any other device with Kolibri (same installation and versions that the one in 1) you can install the content from the primary server instead of doing it from Studio. Installing from Studio or from the primary server can be done by the person with proper credentials using the web UI or by commands that you can execute from a cron configuration.

I hope it’s clearer now
José

2 Likes
7

@jredrejo Do you have any demos/walkthroughs of steps #1 and #2 above?