Blockstore

⚠️ NOTICE ⚠️

Blockstore has been deprecated. It will no longer receive maintenance, bugfixes, PRs, requests, or security patches.

Please check out the Learning Core project instead, which continues the goals of Blockstore.

Purpose

Blockstore is a system for storing versioned, reusable educational content for Open edX.

It is designed as a replacement for modulestore. It is meant to be a lower-level service than the modulestore, and is designed around the concept of storing small, reusable pieces of content, rather than large, fixed content structures such as courses. For Open edX, Blockstore is designed to facilitate a much greater level of content re-use than is currently possible, enable new adaptive learning features, and enable delivery of learning content in new ways (not just large traditional courses).

Comparison

System	Modulestore	Blockstore
Goal	Designed to store courses consisting of a hierarchy of XModules (and later, XBlocks)	Designed around the concept of storing small, reusable pieces of content which are simply files. Can be used for content libraries, courses, or any other purpose.
Stores data in	MongoDB	S3 (or similar)
Stores XBlock data as	JSON field data, with "settings" and "content" fields separated in different documents	OLX
Content re-use	Very limited support	Built in support
Focus	Includes deeply integrated XModule runtime, increasing complexity	Not aware of XBlocks; XBlock runtime is implemented separately
Associated XBlock runtime (LMS)	LmsModuleSystem	BlockstoreXBlockRuntime
Image/PDF/other asset files used for each XBlock are stored	In MongoDB at the course level (contentstore/GridFS)	Alongside each XBlock's OLX file. Associated with the individual XBlock, not the course.

Blockstore was originally developed by Harvard's LabXchange and the Amgen Foundation, along with edX.

Current Status

As of April 2022 ("master" version of Open edX) or the Nutmeg named release of Open edX, Blockstore is included as a django app within Open edX platform. See moving blockstore into edx-platform for an explanation of this. Prior to those versions, Blockstore was only available as an independent application, and was not included in any Open edX installations by default.

Blockstore is used to power the Content Libraries v2 feature of Open edX. It is not directly used for course functionality, nor for the "v1" Content Libraries feature.

Design Details

See DESIGN for an overview of Blockstore's design as it exists today. See "Blockstore Design" on the wiki for historical context.

Getting Started

The easiest way to try out the "Content Libraries v2" feature along with Blockstore is to use the Tutor devstack and the library-authoring MFE Tutor plugin. See that plugin's README for details.

Running Integration Tests

Open edX includes some integration tests for Blockstore, which run by default as part of the test suite. To run them manually, from a Studio/CMS shell, run these commands:

python -Wd -m pytest --ds=cms.envs.test openedx/core/lib/blockstore_api/ openedx/core/djangolib/tests/test_blockstore_cache.py openedx/core/djangoapps/content_libraries/tests/
python -Wd -m pytest --ds=lms.envs.test openedx/core/lib/blockstore_api/ openedx/core/djangolib/tests/test_blockstore_cache.py openedx/core/djangoapps/content_libraries/tests/

To run these integration tests while using Elasticsearch, add EDXAPP_ENABLE_ELASTICSEARCH_FOR_TESTS=1 to the beginning of the above commands. To run these integration tests while using a specific container's version of Elasticsearch, also add EDXAPP_TEST_ELASTICSEARCH_HOST with a specific container name on the above commands:

EDXAPP_ENABLE_ELASTICSEARCH_FOR_TESTS=1 EDXAPP_TEST_ELASTICSEARCH_HOST=edx.devstack.elasticsearch710 python -Wd -m pytest ...

Using in Production Or Locally

By default, blockstore is run as an app inside of Open edX. Enable it using the waffle switch blockstore.use_blockstore_app_api.

If you need to run blockstore as a separate service (e.g. for scalability or performance reasons), you can deploy blockstore in production using the blockstore ansible role.

Development in Devstack

If you want to develop blockstore as a local python package installed in edx-platform, use the following steps:

1. Prerequisite: Have an Open edX Devstack properly installed and working. Your devstack must use the Nutmeg release of Open edX (or newer) or be tracking the master branch of edx-platform.

2. To run blockstore as an app inside of Open edX, enable it by activating the waffle switch blockstore.use_blockstore_app_api in LMS or Studio admin.

3. Clone this repo in the src/ directory, a sibling directory of your devstack folder.

4. In your devstack directory, run the following commands in order:

   # bring up the lms +studio containers
   make dev.up.large-and-slow
   # Bring up the studio shell
   make dev.shell.studio
   # Unistall the pypi blockstore
   pip uninstall openedx-blockstore #You will need to confirm the unistall with "Y".
   #Install your local blockstore.
   pip install -e /edx/src/blockstore/
   exit
   
   # do the same in the LMS
   make dev.shell.lms
   # Unistall the pypi blockstore
   pip uninstall openedx-blockstore #You will need to confirm the unistall with "Y".
   #Install your local blockstore.
   pip install -e /edx/src/blockstore/
   exit
   
   #restart the servers to bring in changes.
   make dev.restart-devserver.lms dev.restart-devserver.studio
   
   # you can see that your env is now installed openedx-blockstore from a local directory ``/edx/src/blockstore`` by running:
   make dev.shell.lms
   pip list
   

Seeing your changes will sometimes require running make requirements and then restarting the container.

You're probably also going to want to create a collection and organization for using content libraries from the devstack command line, using:

# Create a "Collection" that new content libraries / xblocks can be created within:
 docker exec -t edx.devstack.lms bash -c "source ~/.bashrc && echo \"from blockstore.apps.bundles.models import Collection; coll, _ = Collection.objects.get_or_create(title='Devstack Content Collection', uuid='11111111-2111-4111-8111-111111111111')\" | ./manage.py lms shell"
# Create an "Organization":
docker exec -t edx.devstack.lms bash -c "source /edx/app/edxapp/edxapp_env && echo \"from organizations.models import Organization; Organization.objects.get_or_create(short_name='DeveloperInc', defaults={'name': 'DeveloperInc', 'active': True})\" | python /edx/app/edxapp/edx-platform/manage.py lms shell"

The Library Authoring MFE will want to know about that collection id using a ENV variable.

Then restart Studio and the LMS (make dev.restart-devserver.lms dev.restart-devserver.studio).

You then can begin setting up the library authoring MFE to use the feature of blockstore for content libraries V2.

Running and testing as a separate service

Blockstore was initially developed as an independently deployed application, which runs in a separate container/proccess from the LMS. It is still possible to run blockstore that way, both in production and development.

To run it as an independent application in development:

1. Prerequisite: Have an Open edX Devstack properly installed and working. Your devstack must use the Nutmeg release of Open edX (or newer) or be tracking the master branch of edx-platform.

2. Clone this repo and cd into it.

3. To start the django development server inside a docker container, run this on your host machine:

   make easyserver
   

   Blockstore is now running at http://localhost:18250/ . Now we need to configure Studio/LMS to work with it.

4. Run these commands on your host computer:

   # Create a service user for the edx-platform to use when authenticating and making API calls
   docker exec -t edx.devstack.blockstore bash -c "source ~/.bashrc && echo \"from django.contrib.auth import get_user_model; from rest_framework.authtoken.models import Token; User = get_user_model(); edxapp_user, _ = User.objects.get_or_create(username='edxapp'); Token.objects.get_or_create(user=edxapp_user, key='edxapp-insecure-devstack-key')\" | ./manage.py shell"
   # Configure the LMS and Studio to use the key
   docker exec -t edx.devstack.lms bash -c "grep BLOCKSTORE_API_AUTH_TOKEN /edx/app/edxapp/edx-platform/lms/envs/private.py || echo BLOCKSTORE_API_AUTH_TOKEN = \'edxapp-insecure-devstack-key\' >> /edx/app/edxapp/edx-platform/lms/envs/private.py"
   docker exec -t edx.devstack.studio bash -c "grep BLOCKSTORE_API_AUTH_TOKEN /edx/app/edxapp/edx-platform/cms/envs/private.py || echo BLOCKSTORE_API_AUTH_TOKEN = \'edxapp-insecure-devstack-key\' >> /edx/app/edxapp/edx-platform/cms/envs/private.py"
   # Create a "Collection" that new content libraries / xblocks can be created within:
   docker exec -t edx.devstack.blockstore bash -c "source ~/.bashrc && echo \"from blockstore.apps.bundles.models import Collection; coll, _ = Collection.objects.get_or_create(title='Devstack Content Collection', uuid='11111111-2111-4111-8111-111111111111')\" | ./manage.py shell"
   # Create an "Organization":
   docker exec -t edx.devstack.lms bash -c "source /edx/app/edxapp/edxapp_env && echo \"from organizations.models import Organization; Organization.objects.get_or_create(short_name='DeveloperInc', defaults={'name': 'DeveloperInc', 'active': True})\" | python /edx/app/edxapp/edx-platform/manage.py lms shell"
   

   Then restart Studio and the LMS (make dev.restart-devserver.lms dev.restart-devserver.studio).

5. Now you should be able to use Blockstore in Studio.

   To edit Blockstore content libraries in Studio, you'll need to install either the Content Libraries v2 Frontend or Ramshackle. Alternatively, you can use the Content Libraries v2 REST API to create content programmatically.

   To use Blockstore library content in a course, open your course in Studio. In its advanced settings, add library_sourced to the list of "advanced block types". In the "Unit Edit View" in Studio, find the green "Add New Component" buttons. Click Advanced > Library Sourced Content. Edit the new Library Sourced Content XBlock to enter the XBlock ID of the library content that you'd like to use. It should be similar to lb:DeveloperInc:MyLibrary:1 (note: lb: is short for "Library Block" and should not be confused with the lib: prefix used to identify a library).

6. Optional: To log in to Blockstore in your web browser directly, you'll need to configure SSO with your devstack. Most people won't need to do this, but it's helpful for debugging or development.

   1. Go to http://localhost:18000/admin/oauth2_provider/application/ and add a new application
   2. Set "Client id" to blockstore-sso-key
   3. Set "Redirect uris" to http://localhost:18250/complete/edx-oauth2/
   4. Set "Client type" to "Confidential"
   5. Set "Authorization grant type" to "Authorization code"
   6. Set "Name" to blockstore-sso
   7. Check "Skip authorization"
   8. Press "Save and continue editing"
   9. Go to http://localhost:18000/admin/oauth_dispatch/applicationaccess/
   10. Click "Add Application Access +", choose Application: blockstore-sso and set Scopes to user_id, then hit "Save"
   11. Copy blockstore/settings/private.py.example to blockstore/settings/private.py
   12. In private.py, set SOCIAL_AUTH_EDX_OAUTH2_SECRET to the random "Client secret" value.
   13. Now you can login at http://localhost:18250/login/

7. Optional: If running an Open edX devstack under a project name different than the default (support for which was introduced [here](openedx-unsupported/devstack#532)), simply export OPENEDX_PROJECT_NAME and substitute the container names in the commands above accordingly.

8. Optional: to run the unit tests in this mode:

   1. Get into the blockstore container: make blockstore-shell
   2. And then run make test

9. Optional: to run the integration tests in this mode:

   Open edX includes some integration tests for Blockstore. To run them with a separate blockstore instance, first start an isolated test version of blockstore by running make testserver from the blockstore repo root directory on your host computer. Then, from make dev.shell.studio, run these commands:

   1. EDXAPP_RUN_BLOCKSTORE_TESTS=1 python -Wd -m pytest --ds=cms.envs.test openedx/core/lib/blockstore_api/ openedx/core/djangolib/tests/test_blockstore_cache.py openedx/core/djangoapps/content_libraries/tests/
   2. EDXAPP_RUN_BLOCKSTORE_TESTS=1 python -Wd -m pytest --ds=lms.envs.test openedx/core/lib/blockstore_api/ openedx/core/djangolib/tests/test_blockstore_cache.py openedx/core/djangoapps/content_libraries/tests/

Getting Help

Ask questions and discuss this project on Slack or the Open edX Community Discussion Forum.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. Please read How To Contribute for details.

The Open edX Code of Conduct

All community members are expected to follow the Open edX Code of Conduct.

People

The assigned maintainers for this component and other project details may be found in Backstage. Backstage pulls this data from the catalog-info.yaml file in this repo.

Reporting Security Issues

Please do not report security issues in public. Please email security@openedx.org.