Installing and running PrairieLearn

Method 1: Docker with built-in PrairieLearn

This is the easiest way to get started.

Install Docker. Note that on Windows there are several versions of Docker available, depending on which Windows version you have. You might also need to enable virtualization in the BIOS.
Run PrairieLearn with:
```
 docker run -it --rm -p 3000:3000 prairielearn/prairielearn
```
This will run PrairieLearn with the example course.
Open a web browser and connect to http://localhost:3000/pl
When you are finished with PrairieLearn, type Control-C on the commandline where your ran the server to stop it.
To use your own course, point Docker to the correct directory (replace the precise path with your own):
```
 docker run -it --rm -p 3000:3000 -v C:\GitHub\pl-tam212:/course prairielearn/prairielearn
```
or
```
 docker run -it --rm -p 3000:3000 -v /Users/mwest/git/pl-tam212:/course prairielearn/prairielearn
```
If you are using Docker for Windows then you will need to first give Docker permission to access the C: drive (or whichever drive your course directory is on). This can be done by right-clicking on the Docker "whale" icon in the taskbar, choosing "Settings", and granting shared access to the C: drive.

If you're in the root of your course directory already, you can substitute %cd% (on Windows) or $PWD (everything else) for /path/to/course.

To obtain the latest version of PrairieLearn at any time, run:

docker pull prairielearn/prairielearn

After this, run PrairieLearn using the same commands as above.

If needed, you can run the container with a different command:

docker run -it --rm -p 3000:3000 -v /path/to/course:/course prairielearn/prairielearn COMMAND

This can be used to, e.g., run scripts distributed with PrairieLearn.

If you want to do development of PrairieLearn itself (not just question writing), then you'll need a local copy of PrairieLearn.

Clone PrairieLearn from the main repository:

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

Run it with:

 docker run --rm -p 3000:3000 -v /path/to/PrairieLearn:/PrairieLearn prairielearn/prairielearn

To install PrairieLearn locally you should:

Install the pre-requisites:
- Node.js version 7.3 or higher
- npm (included with Node.js on Windows)
- PostgreSQL version 9.6 or higher
- command-line git or GitHub Desktop

On OS X these can be installed with MacPorts or Homebrew. On Linux these should all be standard packages from the OS distrbution.

Note that with MacPorts you need to select the active version of PostgreSQL, for example port select postgresql postgresql96.

Clone the latest code:

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

Run the database:

 pg_ctl -D ~/defaultdb -l ~/logfile start

Create the file PrairieLearn/config.json with the path of your local course repository:

 {
     "courseDirs": [
         "/Users/mwest/git/pl-tam212",
         "exampleCourse"
     ]
 }