social irc bots 

in the Cloud

with

node.js

and

MongoDB

http://bit.ly/11Qft8j

Agenda

• Learn some IRC basics
• Create a bot and teach it to speak
• Learn some MongoDB basics
• Build a social leaderboard
• Go live with a MongoDB-powered IRC bot in ~30 mins

Code du jour

https://github.com/openshift-quickstart/irc-leaderboard-quickstart

Signup with Code - MONGODC13

IRC

IRC

Acting / Emoting

An emote is an entry into a text-based chat client that indicates an action taking place. Unlike emoticons, they are not text art, and instead describe the action using words.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emote

Real Drama

The Cyposium?

Making a big entrance

To perform an action,

type '/me' followed by a description of an action:

/me rolls eyes at IRC over-actors

IRC Bots

IRC Bots are

IRC Bot Abilities

IRC IS

OPEN

Open clients

XCHAT, colloquy

Web Clients

Open servers

freenode

/join #openshift

Hosting Options

DIY / on premise

Public IRC (Freenode)

Cloud Servers

OpenShift IS

OPEN

Open client interface

https://github.com/openshift/rhc

Open cartridge format

PaaS Source

OpenShift Origin

Hosting Options

OpenShift Origin / DIY

OpenShift Online

OpenShift Enterprise

Developer Preview

Sign up for an OpenShift Online account:

• Free-as-in-beer (no cost)
• Free-as-in-freedom (open source)
• 512 MB RAM / 1 GB storage per gear (3 free)
• Need more resources? (just ask!)
• REALLY a Developer Preview (GA this summer)

The Cloud Landscape

OpenShift is...

The big picture

OpenStack

IS OPEN

Buzz Words

Public Cloud + Private Cloud =

Hybrid Cloud

Getting Started with OpenShift

pre-requisites:

Installing the 'rhc' client tool

sudo gem install rhc

Help with client tools

RHC client tool installation
https://openshift.redhat.com/community/developers/rhc-client-tools-install




Openshift Getting Started guide
https://openshift.redhat.com/community/developers/get-started

Configuring your dev environment

rhc setup

Gearing up a new app on OpenShift

rhc app create APP_NAME APP_CARTRIDGE

rhc app create ircbot nodejs-0.6

Application Options
-------------------
  Namespace:  ryanj
  Cartridges: nodejs-0.6
  Gear Size:  default
  Scaling:    no

Creating application 'ircbot' ... done

Waiting for your DNS name to be available ... done

Downloading the application Git repository ...
Cloning into 'ircbot'...

ircbot @ http://ircbot-ryanj.rhcloud.com/ (uuid: 25918304bf8d406e89802a1e642063a0)
---------------------------------------------------
  Created:   10:23 PM
  Gear Size: small
  Git URL:  
ssh://25918304bf8d406e89802a1e642063a0@ircbot-ryanj.rhcloud.com/~/git/ircbot.git/
  SSH:       25918304bf8d406e89802a1e642063a0@ircbot-ryanj.rhcloud.com

  nodejs-0.6 (Node.js 0.6)
  ------------------------

RESULT:
Application ircbot was created.

Success!

You now have a basic node.js app up an running on OpenShift!

Your gear is now configured with:

Building your bot

 cd ircbot 

Installing dependencies

Using Node's npm package manager:

npm install irc -S

Include the `-S` flag in order to save this dependency to your application's `package.json` file.

http://npmjs.org/package/irc/

Bot Basics

Add the following to your server.js to load and configure the irc library:

var irc = require('irc');
var bot_name = process.env.OPENSHIFT_APP_NAME || 'ircbot';
var bot = new irc.Client('chat.freenode.net', bot_name, {
    channels: ['#botzoo', '#botwar'],
    port: 8001,
    debug: true
});

Teaching your bot to speak

Listen and respond to conversations as they happen:

bot.addListener('message', function(from, to, message) {
  if(  message.indexOf('Know any good jokes?') > -1
    || message.indexOf('good joke') > -1
  ) {
    bot.say(to, 'Knock knock!');
  }
});

Getting to the punchline:

bot.addListener('message', function(from, to, message) {
  if(  message.indexOf('who is there?') > -1
    || message.indexOf("who's there?") > -1
    || message.indexOf("Who's there?") > -1
    || message.indexOf("Who is there?") > -1
    )
    {
        bot.say(to, 'Doris');
    }
});
bot.addListener('message', function(from, to, message) {
    if(  message.indexOf('Doris who?') > -1
      || message.indexOf("doris who?") > -1
      )
    {
        bot.say(to, "Doris locked, that's why I'm knocking!");
    }
});

Committing your changes

Commit your changes locally

deployment

git push

Interacting with your new bot

/join #botzoo

Ask if anyone knows a good joke:

[guest]  Know any good jokes?
[ircbot] Knock knock!
[guest]  Who is there?
[ircbot] Doris
[guest]  Doris who?
[ircbot] Doris locked, that's why I'm knocking!
[guest]  meh...

Bot debugging and maintainance

If your bot decides to quit mid-conversation, it may be suffering from a bug.

Checking it's logs may reveal what set it off:

rhc tail ircbot

Or, debug it while running locally:

npm start

Teaching your bot to keep score

Setting up MongoDB on Openshift

rhc cartridge add mongodb-2.2

Adding mongodb-2.2 to application 'ircbot' ... Success

mongodb-2.2 (MongoDB NoSQL Database 2.2)
----------------------------------------
  Connection URL: mongodb://127.6.102.129:27017/
  Database Name:  ircbot
  Password:       T5xJwCiDZYGn
  Username:       admin

RESULT:
Added mongodb-2.2 to application ircbot

Adding mongodb-2.2 to application 'ircbot' ... Success

MongoDB 2.2 database added.  Please make note of these credentials:

   Root User: admin
   Root Password: T5xJwCiDZYGn
   Database Name: ircbot

Connection URL: mongodb://$OPENSHIFT_MONGODB_DB_HOST:$OPENSHIFT_MONGODB_DB_PORT/

You can manage your new MongoDB by also embedding rockmongo-1.1
The rockmongo username and password will be the same as the MongoDB credentials above.

RockMongo on Openshift

rhc cartridge add rockmongo-1.1

Adding a Mongojs dependency

npm install -S mongojs

Connecting to MongoDB

var mongojs = require('mongojs');
var connection_string = bot_name;
if(process.env.OPENSHIFT_MONGODB_DB_PASSWORD){
  connection_string = process.env.OPENSHIFT_MONGODB_DB_USERNAME + ":" +
  process.env.OPENSHIFT_MONGODB_DB_PASSWORD + "@" +
  process.env.OPENSHIFT_MONGODB_DB_HOST + ':' +
  process.env.OPENSHIFT_MONGODB_DB_PORT + '/' +
  process.env.OPENSHIFT_APP_NAME;
}
var db = mongojs(connection_string, ['scoreboard']);

Setting a score

bot.addListener('message', function(from, to, message) {
    if(  message.indexOf('++') > -1 ){
        var subject = message.slice(0,message.indexOf('++'));
        db.scoreboard.findAndModify({
            query: { name: subject },
            update: { $inc: { score:1 }},
            new: true,
            upsert: true
        }, function(err, doc) {
            bot.say(to, "score: " + doc.score );
        });
    }
});

Showing the scoreboard

bot.addListener('message', function(from, to, message) {
    if(  message.indexOf('scoreboard') > -1 ){
        db.scoreboard.find().sort({score:-1}).limit(10).forEach(function(err, doc){
            if (doc && doc.name && doc.score ) {
                bot.say(to, doc.name + ": " + doc.score);
            }
        });
    }
});

updating your app

git add package.json server.js

git commit -m 'adding a social scoreboard'

git push

Social Rewards

Allocating points

[raphael]   Anyone down for pizza?
[donatello] pizza++
[ircbot]    score: 43
[raphael]   Let's order two
[leonardo]  Good idea, Raph! raphael++
[ircbot]    score: 23

Checking the Scoreboard

[ircbot] ircbot: 7
[ircbot] ryanj: 4
[ircbot] doris: -2 

You can find much more information about this npm IRC library here:

https://github.com/martynsmith/node-irc

References

• Building social IRC Bots with Node.js (Part 1)
• Leaderboards for IRC - Social Node.js Bots (Part 2)
• RHC command-line installer help
• Why contact Freenode on port 8001?
• IRC - It's how hackers talk. Luckily, I speak "leet"
• node-irc
• Run any version of Node.js on OpenShift

Thanks for following along!   --ryanj