Docker Setup — Celery Workers

This guide covers the development Docker setup — you get a production-like environment without manually managing Redis, PostgreSQL, and worker processes.

When to use this setup

Scenario	Recommended setup
Frontend / Geant4 in-browser only	Local Frontend Demo
Full stack with SHIELD-HIT12A or FLUKA	This page
Full stack with SLURM cluster	Local SLURM

Tip

Actively developing backend code? The Local setup gives you hot-reload — no container rebuilds on every change.

Prerequisites

• Docker Engine 20.10+
• Git

Clone and start

Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/yaptide/yaptide.git

Navigate to the yaptide/ directory:

cd yaptide

Two startup options are available:

Standard mode — builds and starts all containers:

Linux

scripts/start_with_docker.sh

Windows (PowerShell)

scripts/start_with_docker.ps1

Develop mode — same as standard, but mounts your local source code into the containers so code changes are reflected without rebuilding:

Linux

scripts/start_with_docker_develop.sh

Windows (PowerShell)

scripts/start_with_docker_develop.ps1

There’s two startup modes. The fast mode has custom healthcheck frequency, but requires Docker Engine v25. The slow mode is compatible with older Docker versions. The scripts detect your Docker version and use the fastest available startup mode automatically.

Create a user

docker exec -w /usr/local/app/ yaptide_flask \
  ./yaptide/admin/db_manage.py add-user admin --password password

Start the frontend

The backend API is available at http://localhost:5000 (via NGINX). Clone the frontend repo in a separate terminal:

git clone https://github.com/yaptide/ui.git

Navigate to the ui directory:

cd ui

Pull the converter submodule. The converter is a standalone Python package that translates the editor’s JSON project format into native input files for simulation engines:

git submodule update --init --recursive

Create a .env file in the ui/ directory:

ui/.env

REACT_APP_BACKEND_URL=http://localhost:5000

Run the frontend container from the ui/ directory:

docker compose up

Open http://localhost and log in using credentials you created (username: admin, password: password). The setup is complete now.

Caution

With a Chromium-based browser, use https://localhost:8443 as the backend URL instead of http://localhost:5000 to avoid cookie issues with browser security policies.

ui/.env

  REACT_APP_BACKEND_URL=https://localhost:8443

Stopping

docker compose down

To also delete all data (PostgreSQL volume, simulator cache):

docker compose down -v

Managing the database

View all management commands:

docker exec -w /usr/local/app/ yaptide_flask \
  ./yaptide/admin/db_manage.py --help

Connecting to PostgreSQL directly

The PostgreSQL container exposes port 5432. Connect with any PostgreSQL client:

psql -h localhost -U yaptide_user -d yaptide_db
# password: yaptide_password (default)

Or use a GUI tool like DataGrip or pgAdmin.

Container overview

Container	Port	Purpose
yaptide_nginx	5000 (HTTP), 8443 (HTTPS)	Reverse proxy
yaptide_flask	6000 (internal)	Flask API
yaptide_postgresql	5432	Database
yaptide_redis	6379 (internal)	Celery broker
yaptide_simulation_worker	—	Runs simulations
yaptide_helper_worker	—	Post-processing

Check container health:

docker compose ps

View logs:

docker compose logs -f yaptide_flask

docker compose logs -f yaptide_simulation_worker

docker compose logs -f yaptide_helper_worker