Heliotime (heliotime.org)

Interactive web viewer of GOES X-ray Flux data from 1980 to now. Lets you inspect specific solar flares, the different solar cycles, or any other time range of your choosing. Includes a preview of Helioviewer when selecting a timestamp. Visit heliotime.org for a running version.

Notice: Heliotime is in constant evolution. The next planned implementation steps are described in the proposed changes. Please contact us if you have any wishes.

Getting started

First, this repository uses Git submodules, so ensure they are properly initialized:

git submodule init 
git submodule update

Run the following command to deploy the development Docker Compose configuration:

./du.sh dev deploy

This will run everything in Docker and make the site available at:

• http://localhost:3000/

For development it is easier to run the individual services on the host. Check out the readmes (Server, Site) in the respective subdirectories.

For the database, here are some useful commands:

# Start only the database
./du.sh dev deploy db

# Reset the database (wipes all data)
./du.sh dev db:reset

Keeping dependencies updated

Dependency updates are automated:

• Weekly Dependabot PRs for npm (site/), Docker base images, and GitHub Actions (.github/dependabot.yml)
• Keep updated CI (.github/workflows/keep-updated.yml) builds the site, runs yarn audit --level high, validates Compose, and checks server/conda-lock.yml against environment.yml
• See SECURITY.md and deployment

Docker Utility
du.sh is an alias to docker compose which loads the right compose files depending on the selected environment: development dev or production prod. Only production requires certain environment variables to be set. See Configuration for available options.

Deployment

See deployment on how to deploy Heliotime in production.

Configuration

The Docker Compose deployment, site, and server can be configured using the following environment variables:

Name	Dev Default	Prod Default	Description
API_PORT	8000	same	Port the api (server) will be exposed at.
SITE_PORT	3000	same	Port the site will be exposed at.
EXTERNAL_DATABASE_PORT	5432	unpublished	Host port for Postgres (dev only). Production keeps the DB on the Docker network only.
DATABASE_HOST	db / localhost	same	Hostname of the database. (Docker / Host)
DATABASE_PORT	5432	same	Port of the database. (useful for external DBs)
DATABASE_DATABASE	postgres	same	Name of the database to use.
DATABASE_USERNAME	postgres	same	Username to authenticate with the database.
DATABASE_PASSWORD	heliotime	required	Password to authenticate with the database.
DATABASE_POOL_SIZE	10	same	Amount of database connections a single worker has available.
DATABASE_MEMORY_GB	28	same	GB of memory available to the database. Used by migrations to optimize chunk and cache sizes.
DATABASE_ARGS	-	same	Arguments to Postgres for configuration like -c shared_buffers=2GB.
IMPORT_START	now - 30 days	same	From when to import data in ISO format.
FLUX_MAX_RESOLUTION	2000	same	Max flux resolution allowed to be requested. Bigger request will be downsized.
FLUX_QUERY_TIMEOUT	30	same	Timeout of flux database queries before giving up.
WEB_CONCURRENCY	1	same	Worker count handling API requests. Optional around 2 x CPU.
NEXT_PUBLIC_API_URL	http://localhost:8000	same	URL used by the browser to access the API.
CORS_ORIGINS	allow all	required	Comma-separated browser origins allowed to call the API (e.g. https://heliotime.org).
ENV	-	prod	Set to prod/production to disable OpenAPI UI and require explicit CORS origins.

Docker Compose automatically loads .env in the repository root and the site (Next.js) does the same for site/.env.local when running on the host.