aw-server-rust

A reimplementation of aw-server in Rust.

Features missing compared to the Python implementation of aw-server:

• API explorer (Swagger/OpenAPI)

How to compile

Build with cargo:

cargo build --release

You can also build with make, which will build the web assets as well:

make build

Your built executable will be located in ./target/release/aw-server-rust. If you want to use it with a development version of aw-qt you'll want to copy this binary into your venv:

cp target/release/aw-server ../venv/bin/aw-server-rust

How to run

If you want to quick-compile for debugging, run cargo run from the project root:

cargo run --bin aw-server

NOTE: This will start aw-server-rust in testing mode (on port 5666 instead of port 5600).

Docker

A multi-stage scripts/Dockerfile is included. It builds the web UI and the server, and produces a slim Debian-based image containing only the aw-server binary (the web UI assets are embedded into it at compile time).

The aw-webui submodule must be initialized before building:

git submodule update --init --recursive
docker build -f scripts/Dockerfile -t aw-server-rust:local .

Run it with:

docker run -d --name aw-server-rust \
    -p 5600:5600 \
    -v aw-server-rust-data:/home/aw/.local/share/activitywatch \
    aw-server-rust:local aw-server-rust --host 0.0.0.0

Notes:

• The server binds to 127.0.0.1 by default, which is unreachable from outside the container. Pass --host 0.0.0.0 (as above) to make it reachable.
• The server runs as the unprivileged user aw (uid/gid 10001). When using a bind mount instead of a named volume, the host directory must be writable by that uid (sudo chown -R 10001:10001 <dir>).
• The database lives in /home/aw/.local/share/activitywatch/aw-server-rust. Mount a volume there to keep it across container recreations. Images built before the switch to a non-root user stored it under /root/.local/share; to keep existing data, copy it over and fix its ownership, e.g. docker run --rm -v aw-server-rust-data:/data alpine sh -c 'chown -R 10001:10001 /data'.
• The image only ships aw-server. The aw-sync binary is deliberately not built, since on Linux it pulls in OpenSSL with the vendored feature and compiles it from source.
• docker build produces an image for the architecture of the machine running it. To target a different one, use docker buildx build --platform linux/amd64 -f scripts/Dockerfile ....

Configuration

The server reads its configuration from ~/.config/activitywatch/aw-server-rust/config.toml (or config-testing.toml in testing mode).

Available options:

# Address to listen on
#address = "127.0.0.1"

# Port to listen on (default: 5600, testing: 5666)
#port = 5600

# Additional exact CORS origins to allow (e.g. for custom web interfaces)
#cors = ["http://localhost:3000"]

# Additional regex CORS origins to allow (e.g. for sideloaded browser extensions)
#cors_regex = ["chrome-extension://yourextensionidhere"]

Custom CORS Origins

By default, the server allows requests from:

• The server's own origin (http://127.0.0.1:<port>, http://localhost:<port>)
• The official Chrome extension (chrome-extension://nglaklhklhcoonedhgnpgddginnjdadi)
• All Firefox extensions (moz-extension://.*)

To allow additional origins (e.g. a sideloaded Chrome extension), add them to your config:

# Allow a specific sideloaded Chrome extension
cors_regex = ["chrome-extension://jmdbkmbphoikckgkcnpoojbfeiaoaocl"]

# Or allow all Chrome extensions (less secure, but convenient for development)
cors_regex = ["chrome-extension://.*"]

Syncing

For details about aw-sync-rust, see the README in its subdirectory.