Easy microsite management

In order to test microsites locally you need to set up the devstack, with some customizations:

1. In Vagrantfile add the following snippet inside the Vagrant.configure(VAGRANTFILE_API_VERSION) do |config|..end block:

     config.dns.tld = "dev"
     config.dns.patterns = [/^.*devstack.dev$/]
   

2. Install vagrant-dns: vagrant plugin install vagrant-dns

3. Only then create & provision the VM:

     OPENEDX_RELEASE="named-release/birch" vagrant up
   

4. Make sure the domain resolves to the VM's IP:

     dig @127.0.0.1 -p 5300 devstack.dev
   

5. SSH into the devstack: vagrant ssh

6. Create /edx/app/edx_ansible/server-vars.yml and add the following lines to it:

     EDXAPP_SESSION_COOKIE_DOMAIN: ".devstack.dev"
     edx_platform_repo: "https://github.com/appsembler/edx-platform.git"
     edx_platform_version: "feature/easy-microsite-management"
   

7. Update the installation:

     /edx/bin/update edx-platform feature/easy-microsite-management
   

8. Turn user staff into Django superuser:

     sudo su edxapp
     cd /edx/app/edxapp/edx-platform
     python manage.py lms --settings=devstack shell
     from django.contrib.auth.models import User
     me = User.objects.get(username="staff")
     me.is_superuser = True
     me.is_staff = True
     me.save()
   

9. Migrate the DB, just in case:

     python manage.py cms syncdb --migrate --settings devstack
   

10. Run paver devstack [--fast] studio, then, on the host, visit http://devstack.dev:8001/admin, log in as "staff" (password: "edx") and create some microsites

11. Run paver devstack [--fast] lms, the microsites should be working now: http://site1.devstack.dev:8000/, http://site2.devstack.dev:8000/