Installation with Docker

NRP can be executed using Docker on both Ubuntu and Windows.

Note

WSL: If you are using Windows, ensure that the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) is properly installed and set up.

Note

Docker engine: To run NRP in Docker containers, the Docker engine must be installed and configured on your system. Additionally, it’s recommended to allow management of Docker as a non-root user. If not, all Docker commands must be prefixed with sudo.

Note

Alongside the Docker engine, the Docker Compose plugin is required. Refer to the installation guide for details.

Steps:

  1. Verify Docker and Docker Compose installation:

    docker version
docker compose version

  2. Set the HBP folder:

    export HBP=~/NRP4

    To persist this setting across sessions, add the environment variable to your ~/.bashrc:

    echo "export HBP=~/NRP4" >> ~/.bashrc

  3. Ensure the $HBP folder exists:

    mkdir -p "${HBP}"

  4. Clone nrp-user-scripts repository (for the last stable version use master branch, for the development version use development branch):

    cd "${HBP}"
git clone -b master https://bitbucket.org/hbpneurorobotics/nrp-user-scripts.git

Note

Ensure the following port is available:

  • 9000 (for haproxy-service)

  1. Clean or set the STORAGE_PATH:

    export STORAGE_PATH=~/nrpStorage_docker
echo "export STORAGE_PATH=~/nrpStorage_docker" >> ~/.bashrc

  2. Execute the docker-compose script:

    cd "${HBP}"/nrp-user-scripts
./start_nrp_docker.sh # accepts any docker-compose parameter e.g. "-d" for daemon mode

Once the setup is complete, access the frontend at http://localhost:9000.

Note

The default Docker configuration is optimized for using NRP with Gazebo and NEST. To utilize opensim and TVB, a different backend image is necessary. Refer to the nrp-backend-service in "${HBP}"/nrp-user-scripts/docker-compose.yaml.

# image: docker-registry.ebrains.eu/nrp/nrp-core/backend-nrp-opensim-tvb-ubuntu20${NRP_IMAGE_TAG}
image: docker-registry.ebrains.eu/nrp/nrp-core/backend-nrp-gazebo-nest-ubuntu20${NRP_IMAGE_TAG}

To switch between images, uncomment the desired image and comment out the other. Another option is the backend-nrp-vanilla-ubuntu20 image, which excludes both Gazebo and opensim. The only compatible template with this is exchange_tf.