Chippy

Mascot created by Midjourney

Chippy is a standalone Ruby service designed to simplify the process of communicating with chip readers. It handles establishing connections, managing the handshake process, and efficiently processing incoming messages from multiple devices.

Features

• Easy-to-use API for handling chip reader connections and messages.
• Multi-threaded server architecture for efficient handling of multiple connections.
• Handshake protocol implementation for seamless device communication.
• Error handling and logging to ensure reliable operation.
• Continuous integration with GitHub Actions testing across Ruby versions and Rails compatibility.

Prerequisites

• Docker
• Ruby
• Redis

Getting Started

1. Clone the Chippy repository:

git clone https://github.com/rubynor/chippy.git

2. Change into the Chippy directory:

cd chippy

3. Install the required Ruby gems:

bin/setup 

4. Start the Chippy server:

bin/start

CLI

Chippy provides a command-line interface (CLI) for starting the server and configuring various options. You can use the bin/start script to run the server.

Usage:

bin/start [options]

Options:

• -p, --port: Set the port to use (default: 44999)
• -h, --hostname: Set the hostname to use (default: 0.0.0.0)
• -c, --concurrency: Set the number of concurrent worker threads (default: 10)
• --redis-url: Set the Redis connection URL (default: redis://localhost:6379/0)
• --redis-list: Set the Redis list name for the message broker (default: chippy:readings)

Message Broker using Redis

Chippy uses a message broker to handle communication between Chippy devices and the associated Rails application. The Chippy::Client::RedisConsumer class provided by the Chippy gem is responsible for listening to a Redis list and processing messages accordingly.

Chippy devices push messages to the Redis list, and the Rails application uses the Chippy gem to consume and process these messages. By utilizing a pub/sub pattern with a Redis list, Chippy can maintain a decoupled architecture, allowing the devices and Rails application to communicate efficiently and asynchronously.

To configure the Chippy gem in the Rails application, add an initializer:

# config/initializers/chippy.rb
Rails.application.config.chippy.queue_name = 'chippy:readings'
Rails.application.config.chippy.enable = true
Rails.application.config.chippy.message_handler = lambda do |message|
  Rails.logger.debug "Custom handler: Received message #{message}"
end