This is an open source project to help developers build amazing applications combining data from many sources easily, through one API. This codebase is currently live and powering api.singly.com. Sign in and start building!

Background Video

Follow @singly and check out our blog.

Let's get started:

Hallway has the following dependencies:

• NodeJS
• NPM
• MySQL
• Redis
• Riak

Detailed instructions for each platform can be found here.

Once the dependencies are installed, clone the source code from github using the following command:

git clone https://github.com/Singly/hallway.git

Now go to the hallway directory and run make:

cd hallway
make

You can now run the following command to ensure node has installed all packages correctly:

make test

This should complete without errors.

You will need to create a MySQL user and database for Hallway. Using the mysql command line tool, run the following command, substituting your own values for <mysql_username> and <mysql_password>:

mysql> create database hallway_dev;
mysql> create user <mysql_username> identified by '<mysql_password>';
mysql> grant all on hallway_dev.* to hallway;

Once this is done, you can then use the following command to create the necessary tables:

mysql -u <mysql_username> -p hallway_dev < create_tables.sql

The create_tables.sql script is in the Hallway root directory. The database name, hallway_dev, must match with the configuration we will do later. Once the tables and database are created you can verify they exist by logging in and doing a show tables:

mysqlshow -u <mysql_username> -p hallway_dev

You should see all the hallway tables.

Redis should have been setup during the initial install. You can verify that it is setup and working by running the following commands:

redis-cli
info

If everything is up and running you should see info log output.

Now we need to configure hallway. Change to the Config directory in hallway and copy over the apikeys and config files from their examples.

cd Config
cp config.json.example config.json
cp apikeys.json.example apikeys.json

The first section is the MySQL server setup. Note that the database name and username needs to match the one used in the prior section.

 "database": {
    "driver": "mysql",
    "hostname":"localhost",
    "username":"<mysql_username>",
    "password":"<mysql_password>",
    "database":"hallway_dev"
  },

Out of the box, hallway uses the file system to store blobs of JSON data retrieved from different services. This is configured via the ijod_backend and ijod_path parameters, respectively. You can use S3 for blob storage by changing the configuration to the following:

"ijod_backend": "s3",
"s3" : {
    "key":    "<s3_access_key>",
    "secret": "<s3_secret>",
    "bucket": "<s3_bucket>"
},

You can change the ip address, port, and context path that Hallway runs on using the lockerHost, lockerPort, externalHost, and externalPort settings.

"lockerListenIP": "0.0.0.0",
"lockerHost": "<your local ip address>",
"lockerPort": 8042,
"externalHost": "<your local ip address>",
"externalPath": "<your context path>",
"externalPort": 8042

You can find other options to set in the Config/defaults.json file.

For each service you want to use with Hallway you will need to register an app with that service, get your client id and client secret, and paste them into the apikeys.json file. A full example of how to get keys per service can be found here.

{
    "twitter":{
        "appKey":"PASTE_HERE",
        "appSecret":"PASTE_HERE"
    },
    "foursquare" : {
        "appKey" : "PASTE_HERE",
        "appSecret" : "PASTE_HERE"
    },
    "github" : {
        "appKey" : "PASTE_HERE",
        "appSecret" : "PASTE_HERE"
    },
    "facebook" : {
        "appKey" : "PASTE_HERE",
        "appSecret" : "PASTE_HERE"
    },
    ...
}

When setting up services the callback urls must point back to your local hallway. For example, when running hallway locally the callback url would be something like this.

http://localhost:8042/auth/<service name>/auth.

Once everything is configured you can run the following command to startup Hallway:

./hallway

You should see the following output once hallway is ready to go:

[10/24/2012 11:44:34][][hallwayd] - Starting an API host
[10/24/2012 11:44:34][][hallwayd] - Hallway is now listening at http://192.168.1.154:8042
[10/24/2012 11:44:34][][hallwayd] - Hallway is up and running.

To use hallway you will need to setup a test app in the database and then clone down and use an example app. To setup a test app in the database, run the following commands and sql.

mysql -u <admin_username> -p <admin_password> hallway_development
insert into Apps (app, secret) values ('a_new_app_id', 'a_new_app_secret');

You can give whatever values you like for the app and secret fields. They become your client id and client secret for your example app.

You can then follow the instructions for one of the example apps in the "Getting Started" section of the Singly docs. Your client id and client secret are the ones you just created and your callback url will be the local host and port that you have Hallway running on.

Here is the NodeJS Example to get started.