AreWeCompressedYet

AreWeCompressedYet is an automatic service for compressing videos with AV1, VP9, Daala, Thor, and other codecs.

It generates graphs using different metrics, to enable comparisons between different versions of codec source code.

For bugs and enhancements, see its GitHub Issues page.

Usage

Submitting a Run

Choose the Active Runs tab, then the green Submit New Job button.

• Run ID - A unique name for your run (this is filled with the current date and time as a default)
• Git Commit Hash - The hash of the commit to be tested. This must be visible either on Gerrit or a specially installed personal repo. This is the "Commit" on Gerrit and not the Change-Id or tree hash.
• Codec - The codec you want to test and certain default options.
• Set - The set of videos or images you want to test the codec with.
• Extra CLI options - Optional parameters, which are passed to the encoder along with the defaults. Usually not needed.
• Extra build options - Optional parameters, which are passed to the configure script. For AV1, pass flags to enable experiments here. (for example, --enable-experimental --enable-feature)
• IRC nick - Name to notify on #daala. This can also be used to sort your runs.
• Custom qualities - Optional list of quantizers to use (these override the default list of quantisers).

Repos

https://github.com/tdaede/awcy

https://github.com/tdaede/rd_tool

Command-line tools

submit_awcy.py

Usage:

 DAALA_ROOT=./ submit_awcy.py --help

You must have a secret_key file in the current directory, containing your key to access AreWeCompressedYet.

By default, the prefix used for the run is your local branch name.

Internal tools

• rd_server.py: the backend server process.

• rd_tool.py: an alternate way to invoke the same tests as rd_server.py, it's no longer maintained and may be broken. This was used by previous versions of AWCY, and can only run one test at a time.

• metrics_gather.sh: A script called by rd_tool.py, contains the command line parameters for all testable codecs.

Output Format

For an explanation of AWCY's metrics output format, see the RD_Curve_Data_Format page.

Maintenance

The server is a CentOS 7 virtual machine running on catfish.xiph.org. There are few config file changes, so the CentOS machine should be easily upgradeable to get security fixes.

Daemons

awcy

The AWCY server has a unit file at /etc/systemd/system/awcy.service. It listens at localhost:3000.

rd_server

The backend has a unit file at /etc/systemd/system/rdserver.service. It listens at localhost:4000. It currently has no authentication and should not be exposed to the Internet.

nginx

NGINX is configured to be a TLS endpoint and proxy_pass to localhost:3000. Certificates are managed by the EFF's certbot and issued by Let's Encrypt.

firewalld

Firewalld is configured to allow ports 22, 80, and 443 only.

chrony

Chrony is required to keep the system time in sync. Amazon Web Services signatures require an accurate system clock.

journald

See AWCY logs with

 journalctl -u awcy.service

and

 journalctl -u rdserver.service

Directory Structure

-rw-rw-r--.  1 awcy awcy 3078 Aug 19 19:06 awcy_server.js
-rwxrwxr-x.  1 awcy awcy  169 Aug 17 23:43 create_test_branch.sh
drwxrwxr-x. 12 awcy awcy 4096 Aug 20 16:31 daala
-rw-------.  1 root root 1692 Aug 18 16:26 daala.pem
drwxrwxr-x. 14 awcy awcy 4096 Aug 19 15:02 daalatool
-rw-rw-r--.  1 awcy awcy 1079 Aug  7 19:31 LICENSE
drwxrwxr-x.  5 awcy awcy   48 Aug 17 23:47 node_modules
-rwxrwxr-x.  1 awcy awcy  124 Aug 18 17:22 nuke_branch.sh
drwxrwxr-x.  3 awcy awcy 4096 Aug 18 17:17 rd_tool
-rw-rw-r--.  1 awcy awcy   10 Aug  7 19:31 README.md
drwxrwxr-x. 25 awcy awcy 4096 Aug 20 19:49 runs
-rwxrwxr-x.  1 awcy awcy  148 Aug 17 23:43 run_video_test.sh
-rw-rw-r--.  1 awcy awcy   23 Aug 17 23:48 secret_key
-rwxrwxr-x.  1 awcy awcy 1212 Aug 19 14:27 submit_awcy.py
drwxrwxr-x.  2 awcy awcy 4096 Aug 19 21:33 www

Files not part of github repo

• node_modules: created by npm when you install the necessary node modules to run awcy_server.js.
• daala.pem: Private SSH key used to connect to the AWS instances.
• daalatool: A local clone of Daala, used for the contents of the tools/ directory.
• secret_key: File containing the secret key used on the main website.
• config.json: Contains IRC channel to connect to. TODO: put secret_key and other stuff in here too.

• rd_tool/daala.pem: same file as in higher level directory

.ssh/config contents:

Host *
      	StrictHostKeyChecking no
        UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null
        LogLevel ERROR

Common issues

Runs don't display

sudo su awcy
cd ~/awcy
node generate_list.js