Installations

Installations

Installing the Server Dependencies for Collaborative Communities project

1. First thing let’s upgrade the packages:

   sudo apt-get update
   sudo apt-get -y upgrade

2. Install nginx

   sudo apt-get -y install nginx

3. Install supervisor

   Supervisor will start the application server and manage it in case of server crash or restart:

   sudo apt-get -y install supervisor

Enable and start the Supervisor:

   sudo systemctl enable supervisor
   sudo systemctl start supervisor

4. Python Virtualenv

   The Django application will be deployed inside a Python Virtualenv,

   sudo apt-get install python3 python3-pip virtualenvwrapper

5. Create a new user

   sudo adduser collaboration

6. Add the user to the list of sudoers:

   sudo adduser collaboration sudo

7. su - collaboration

8. Configure the Python3 Virtualenv

    mkvirtualenv --python=/usr/bin/python3 tester

9. Clone the code repository to virtual environment ,the command prompt will show like below

   (tester) collaboration@edx:~/tester$

    git clone https://github.com/fresearchgroup/Collaboration-System.git

10. cd project directory

    pip3 install -r requirements.txt

11. Create the database settings as per project documentation), install django and other modules using the project documentation.

     my.cnf

12. Migrate the database

    python3 manage.py migrate

13. Collect the static files

    python3 manage.py collectstatic

14. Add vm's ip address to allowed hosts in the settings.py of project

15. Check whether the project is running at ipaddress:8000 of vm

16. Configure gunicorn

    First install Gunicorn inside the virtualenv:

    pip3 install gunicorn

    Create a file named gunicorn_start inside the bin/ folder:

    cd /home/collaboration/tester/

    sudo vi bin/gunicorn_start

    #! bin/bash

    NAME="Collaboration-System"
    DIR=/home/collaboration/tester/Collaboration-System
    USER=collaboration
    GROUP=collaboration
    WORKERS=3
    BIND=unix:/home/collaboration/tester/run/gunicorn.sock
    DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE=CollaborationSystem.settings
    DJANGO_WSGI_MODULE=CollaborationSystem.wsgi
    LOG_LEVEL=error

    cd $DIR
    source ../bin/activate

    export DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE=$DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE
    export PYTHONPATH=$PYTHONPATH
    echo $PYTHONPATH

    exec ../bin/gunicorn ${DJANGO_WSGI_MODULE}:application \
    --name $NAME \
    --workers $WORKERS \
    --user=$USER \
    --group=$GROUP \
    --bind=$BIND \
    --log-level=$LOG_LEVEL \
    --log-file=-

Make the gunicorn_start file is executable:

    chmod u+x bin/gunicorn_start

Create a directory named run in /home/collaboration/tester for the unix socket file:

    mkdir run

17. Configure Supervisor

    Now what we want to do is configure Supervisor to take care of running the gunicorn server.

    First let’s create a folder named logs inside the virtualenv:

    mkdir logs in /home/collaboration/tester

    Create a file to be used to log the application errors:

    touch logs/gunicorn-error.log

    Create a new Supervisor configuration file:

    Collaboration-System.conf in /etc/supervisor/conf.d/

    cd /etc/supervisor/conf.d/

    vi Collaboration-System.conf

    [program:Collaboration-System]
    command= /home/collaboration/tester/bin/gunicorn_start
    user=root
    autostart=true
    autorestart=true

    redirect_stderr=true
    stdout_logfile=/home/collaboration/tester/logs/gunicorn-error.log

Reread Supervisor configuration files and make the new program available:

    sudo supervisorctl reread
    sudo supervisorctl update

Check the status:

    sudo supervisorctl status Collaboration-System

It should give like this

     Collaboration-System             RUNNING   pid 5200, uptime 0:00:09

Now you can control your application using Supervisor. If you want to update the source code of your application with a new version, you can pull the code from GitHub and then restart the process:

     sudo supervisorctl restart Collaboration-System

18. Configure NGINX

    Add a new configuration file named Collaboration System inside /etc/nginx/sites-available/:

     sudo vim /etc/nginx/sites-available/Collaboration-System

    upstream app_server {
    server unix:/home/collaboration/tester/run/gunicorn.sock fail_timeout=0;
    }
    server {
    listen 80;
    # add here the ip address of your server
    # or a domain pointing to that ip (like example.com or www.example.com)
    server_name 10.129.26.148;

    keepalive_timeout 5;
    client_max_body_size 4G;

    access_log /home/collaboration/tester/logs/nginx-access.log;
    error_log /home/collaboration/tester/logs/nginx-error.log;

    location /static/ {
        alias /home/collaboration/tester/Collaboration-System/static/;
    }

    location /media/ {
       alias /home/collaboration/tester/Collaboration-System/media/;
    }

    # checks for static file, if not found proxy to app
    location / {
        try_files $uri @proxy_to_app;
    }

    location @proxy_to_app {
      proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
      proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
      proxy_redirect off;
      proxy_pass http://app_server;
    }
}

19. Create a symbolic link to the sites-enabled dir:

    sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/Collaboration-System /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/Collaboration-System

20. Remove NGINX default website:

    sudo rm /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default

21. Restart NGINX:

    sudo service nginx restart

22. Now open the browser and check the application is working at 10.129.26.148.

23. A final test is to reboot the machine and see if everything restarts automatically:

    sudo reboot

24. Steps to be followed to update the application

     ssh [email protected]

     cd tester
     
     workon tester
      
     cd Collaboration-System

     git pull origin master

     python3 manage.py collectstatic

     python3 manage.py migrate

     sudo supervisorctl restart Collaboration-System

     exit