OpenEWS
OpenEWS is an open-source emergency warning system. Alerting authorities use it to send warning messages to people during natural disasters and other public emergencies.
OpenEWS is licensed under MIT. Free to run — not billed.
What gets installed
Section titled “What gets installed”- OpenEWS: the web application. On first start it prepares its database, then starts serving.
- Database: a PostgreSQL database for OpenEWS’s data.
OpenEWS serves one website: the installation’s main address. You can reach it on the server’s IP address, or give it a domain from the installation’s Domains tab: see Domains and HTTPS.
Before you install
Section titled “Before you install”-
OpenEWS doesn’t deliver SMS or voice messages itself. Delivery goes through a Somleng account, which you set up separately and then enter in OpenEWS itself (see Sending alerts). The installation wizard doesn’t ask for it.
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Choose a Deployment size:
- small: 2 web workers with up to 1 GiB of memory, and a database with up to 512 MiB. Server fit checks for 1 CPU core, 3 GiB memory and 5 GiB disk.
- medium: 4 web workers with up to 2 GiB, and a database with up to 1 GiB. Server fit checks for 2 CPU cores, 4 GiB memory and 10 GiB disk.
You can change size later with Scale; OpenEWS and its database restart with the new limits.
Options
Section titled “Options”| Option | What it does |
|---|---|
| Deployment size | small or medium, as above. |
| Country | The two-letter code of the country you send alerts in, such as GH or KE. OpenEWS uses it for phone numbers and beneficiary addresses. Defaults to US. You can change it later in OpenEWS. |
| First administrator’s email | The email address of the OpenEWS account owner the platform creates. It’s filled in with your own email address; click Change to use a different one. |
Under Advanced you can use a PostgreSQL server you already run instead of the bundled database. See External services.
First sign-in
Section titled “First sign-in”On its first start, the installation creates one OpenEWS account, named after your organisation, and makes you its owner, using:
- the email address from First administrator’s email, and
- a password the platform generates.
When you click Create, the portal shows the password once, under First login credentials, labelled OpenEWS admin password. Copy it before you leave the page: it can’t be shown again.
When the installation is Ready, open its web address and sign in with that email address and password. Leave OTP Code blank.
OpenEWS then asks you to set up two-factor authentication before you can go further. Scan the QR code with an authenticator app and enter the code it shows. From then on, you enter a code from the app each time you sign in.
You can change the password in OpenEWS, from your own account settings. The platform never resets it: restarting or upgrading the installation leaves your account as it is.
The database password, the application’s secret key and its encryption keys are also generated by the platform and sealed. You never need to type them.
Sending alerts
Section titled “Sending alerts”To send SMS and voice alerts, enter your Somleng details in OpenEWS: go to Settings, then Account, and fill in the Somleng account SID, auth token and notification phone number.
In this beta, background work runs inside the web application instead of on separate workers. OpenEWS’s hosted service relies on cloud queues and file storage that a self-hosted installation doesn’t have, so sending broadcasts, imports, exports, emails and uploaded files (such as logos and audio) haven’t been tested end to end yet. Try them on a test server first.
Connections
Section titled “Connections”OpenEWS can offer to other installations:
- Open-EWS alerting data (read-only): read-only access to the OpenEWS database, for reporting. User, token and session tables are excluded.
OpenEWS doesn’t use connections from other installations. See Connections.