Installation

Bots NG should work on most of operating systems supporting Python 3. Legacy version of Bots Frozen (v3.2.0), which requires Python 2, has been confirmed to work correctly on:

  • Windows (Windows 10, XP, Vista, Windows 7, Server 2008, Server 2012, etc)

  • Apple OS.X

  • Linux Debian based distros (Ubuntu, Mint, etc)

  • Linux RedHat (CentOS, Fedora)

  • OpenSolaris

  • FreeBSD

  • AIX

There is no specific Windows installer or *nix distribution package (*.deb or *.rpm) for Bots. Instalation is done with Python using pip command.

Windows

  1. Install Python

    1. Check if Python is already installed.

    2. If not, download Python installer. Use Python >= 3.10.

    3. Run the installer, choose standard installation and check the option Add python.exe to PATH.

  2. Install Bots

    1. Install using pip.

    2. Installation takes some time; be patient. During the installation the libraries needed by Bots are installed.

    3. You will be notified if the installation went OK.

    4. If not: contact us via our (see Discord channel for Bots NG).

  3. Install additional libraries

    • (command-line): pip install -r https://gitlab.com/bots-ediint/bots/-/raw/main/requirements/win.txt

    • See list of dependencies.

Note

Workaround for Python for Windows installer bug:

On Windows system in corporate AD environment, when using pip --user option, Python modules gets installed into a roaming folder, which is not on a PATH. In this case, when running installation, pip will show a warning similar to this one:

WARNING: The script (...) is installed in
'C:\Users\<your_user>\AppData\Roaming\Python\Python313\Scripts'
which is not on PATH.

Add suggested path to the PATH in Environment Variables for your account (Google how to do that).

*nix installation

  1. Install Python

    1. Check if Python is already installed - most of the time python is already installed on *nix. Use Python >= 3.10.

    2. If not: use your package manager or see Python web site.

  2. Install Bots

    1. Install using pip.

  3. Install additional libraries

    • Linux (command-line): pip install --user -r https://gitlab.com/bots-ediint/bots/-/raw/main/requirements/linux.txt

    • See list of dependencies.

Install using pip

Standard installation of Bots packages in user’s home with pip command (use pip3 on Linux) using the most recent version from main branch:

$ pip install --user https://gitlab.com/bots-ediint/bots/-/archive/main/bots-main.zip

# Install additional libraries for eg. SFTP, excel, pdf, html.
$ pip install --user -r https://gitlab.com/bots-ediint/bots/-/raw/main/requirements/extras.txt

# start up bots-webserver:
$ bots-webserver

Note

Bots working directories: botssys, usersys and config by default are located in user’s home directory:

  • Windows: %USERPROFILE%\.bots\env\default\

  • *nix: $HOME/.bots/env/$USER/

and if BOTSENV environment variable is defined:

  • Windows: %USERPROFILE%\.bots\env\%BOTSENV%\

  • *nix: $HOME/.bots/env/$BOTSENV/

  • If needed, after installation you can move these directories to another place and use symbolic links.

  • Environment variable BOTS_CONFIG_DIR allows to define a separate directory for Bots configuration.

  • See more in Directories and Files

Dependencies

What is needed to run Bots:

Always:

  • Needs: Python >= 3.10

  • Needs: django

  • Needs: cherrypy

Optional:

  • Genshi (when using templates/mapping to HTML).

  • SFTP needs paramiko.

  • bots-dirmonitor needs:

    • pyinotify on *nix

    • Python for Windows extensions (pywin) for windows

  • xlrd (when using incoming editype ‘excel’).

  • mysql-Python >= 1.2.2, MySQL (when using database MySQL).

  • psycopg2, PostgreSQL (when using database PostgreSQL).

Install FAQ

I try to install Bots on Windows, but…..

  • the shortcut is not installed in the menu: you need to make this manually.

Does Bots have EDIFACT and X12 messages installed out-of-the-box?

No, but you can download them from our GitLab repository either as part of a working configuration (plugin) of separate (grammars).

Bots is not working on Linux - permissions problem

  • Did you start bots-webserver and/or bots-engine with sufficient rights - e.g. the user who did the installation? Change the owner/rights of the files in botssys, usersys and config and run bots-webserver/bots-engine as a correct user.

  • If the log files are not updated, it is possible that you’ve accidently changed the owner to root.