OpenHIM Core Component

The OpenHIM core component is responsible for providing a single entry-point into an HIE as well as providing the following key features:

• Point of service client authentication and authorization
• Persistence and audit logging of all messages that flow through the OpenHIM
• Routing of messages to the correct service provider (be it an HIM orchestrator for further orchestration or the actual intended service provider)

To get started and to learn more about using the OpenHIM see the full documentation.

Some of the important information is repeated here, however, the the above documentation is much more comprehensive.

Getting started with the OpenHIM-core

1. Install the latest stable Node.js v4 or greater. The latest active LTS is recommended.
2. Install and start MongoDB 2.6 or greater.
3. Install the OpenHIM-core package globally: npm install openhim-core -g, this will also install an openhim-core binary to your PATH.
4. Start the server by executing openhim-core from anywhere.

To make use of your own custom configurations you can copy the default.json config file and override the default setting:

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jembi/openhim-core-js/master/config/default.json
# edit default.json, then
openhim-core --conf=path/to/default.json

For more information about the config options, click here.

Note: one of the first things that you should do once the OpenHIM is up and running is setup a properly signed TLS certificate. You can do this through the OpenHIM console under 'Certificates' on the sidebar.

Developer guide

You can use vagrant if you would want to get up and running quickly with a dev environment in a vm. See here to use Vagrant to fire up an instance.

Clone the https://github.com/jembi/openhim-core-js.git repository.

Ensure you have the following installed:

• Node.js v4 or greater
• MongoDB (in Ubuntu run sudo apt-get install mongodb, in OSX using Homebrew, run brew update followed by brew install mongodb)

The OpenHIM core makes use of the Koa framework, which requires node version v4 or greater.

The easiest way to use the latest version of node is to install nvm. On Ubuntu, you can install using the install script but you have to add [[ -s $HOME/.nvm/nvm.sh ]] && . $HOME/.nvm/nvm.sh # This loads NVM to the end of your ~/.bashrc file as well.

Once nvm is installed, run the following:

nvm install 6

nvm alias default 6

The latest version of node 4 should now be installed and set as default. The next step is to get all the required dependencies using npm. Navigate to the directory where the openhim-core-js source is located and run the following:

npm install

Then build the project:

grunt build

In order to run the OpenHIM core server, MongoDB must be installed and running.

To run the server, execute:

npm start (this runs grunt build then node --harmony lib/server.js behind the scenes)

The server will by default start in development mode using the mongodb database 'openhim-development'. To start the serve in production mode use the following:

NODE_ENV=production node --harmony lib/server.js

This starts the server with production defaults, including the use of the production mongodb database called 'openhim'.

This project uses mocha as a unit testing framework with should.js for assertions and sinon.js for spies and mocks. The tests can be run using npm test.

Pro tips:

• grunt watch - will automatically build the project on any changes.
• grunt lint - ensure the code is lint free, this is also run before an npm test
• npm link - will symlink you local working directory to the globally installed openhim-core module. Use this so you can use the global openhim-core binary to run your current work in progress. Also, if you build any local changes the server will automatically restart.
• npm test -- --mochaGrep=<regex> - will only run tests with names matching the regex
• npm test -- --debugTests - enabled the node debugger while running unit tests. Add debugger statements and use node debug localhost:5858 to connect to the debugger instance.
• npm test -- --bail - exit on first test failure.

Contributing

You may view/add issues here: https://github.com/jembi/openhim-core-js/issues

To contibute code, please fork the repository and submit a pull request. The maintainers will review the code and merge it in if all is well.