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How I do I use a seed file for configuring my EVVR Container?

Updated this week

Introduction

A seed file is a way to set one or more initial EdgeVis settings that will initialise your container. Any setting that is set in a seed feel can still be changed by your user using the web interface (unlike settings that are configured using environment variables).

Once your container has used the seed file to set the initial settings, the container will ignore the seed file (and any changes made to it).


Any settings that are set with an environment variable are ignored if they are also in a seed file - environment variables will always take priority.

For more information on the differences between using environment variables and seed files, see this article.

Using a seed configuration file

The seed configuration file is called init.cfg and should be copied to the configuration directory on the container. These instructions assume that you have already installed your EVVR Container using the standard instructions, so your encoder will already have initialised itself.

This means that you need to remove the existing container configuration to allow the container to pick up the seed file on its first clean run.

To achieve this, you will perform the following steps:

  1. Create your seed configuration file

  2. Stop the container

  3. Remove your existing configuration

  4. Copy your seed file across

  5. Restart the container

Step 1 - Creating your seed configuration file

You can create your seed file in your home directory, as you will copy it to the correct location in a later step:

cd
nano init.cfg

The init.cfg is a simple text file that contains a list of your desired settings - for example these are the settings for setting a server/encoder account:

EV_SERVER_ADDR=my.serveraddress.com
EV_ENCODER_NAME=my-encoder-name
EV_ENCODER_PASSWORD=my-password
EV_SERVER_ID_VERSION=V4
EV_SERVER_ID=ADHWD66T1mIQss1NPCdA==
EV_SERVER_FINGERPRINT=AQIAAADeetsBay2ZrCchSBQSYiH4CXrfjON...

You should then enter your desired settings from the list of different settings available.

To save your file, hit CTRL + O (letter O), then hit Enter to confirm the filename.

To exit nano, hit CTRL + X.

Step 2 - Stop the container

cd ~/evvr
sudo docker compose down

Step 3 - Remove the existing configuration

# Delete the config volume (Warning: all configuration will be removed)
docker volume rm edgevis-config 

# Re-create the volume 
docker volume create edgevis-config

Step 4 - Copy the seed file across to the correct location

sudo cp ~/init.cfg /var/lib/docker/volumes/edgevis-config/_data

Step 5 - Restart the container

sudo docker compose up -d

If your compose and seed file are valid, then the container should now start up.

A flag is then set in the container's own configuration file, and the encoder will never load the seed config again. If the container encounters an error parsing the seed-config, then your container may fail to start (the web interface will be unavailable).

In this case, you can check the container's log files for clues to any errors.

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