django-vagrant-chef-simple

This project provides a template for a simple configuration for setting up a development environment for django with vagrant and chef. Honza's django-chef provided much of the code for starting this project. Cookbooks are cloned directly from opscode.

After following the instructions below, you will have a simple bare-bones configuration for your project running. This project uses apache2 with mod_wsgi and mysql as the database. Static files are served directly with apache. This configuration may not be perfect for performance, but it is easy to understand and fairly easy to set up.

Right now this project is only tested with the precise32 box provided on vagrant's website. I plan to expand the project to work with other flavors of Ubuntu as well as CentOS and RedHat soon.

Dependencies

• [VirtualBox] 1
• [Vagrant] 2
• Fabric fabric - see below for installation instructions on Windows

Chef cookbooks included

These are directly cloned into the project instead of included as sub-modules, mostly because of [this suggestion] 9 for chef-solo users.

• apache2 apache2
• apt apt
• build-essential build-essential
• git git
• vim vim
• python python
• mysql mysql
• openssl openssl
• [wkhtmltopdf] wkhtmltopdf-cookbook

Basic Use

1. Start by cloning your django project a folder named "appname" in the main project directory (how to).

    cd django-vagrant-chef-simple
    git clone /path/to/your/project appname
   

   This project expects manage.py to live one directory below appname. Thus, the location from the top directory would be django-vagrant-chef-simple/appname/myprojectname/manage.py.

2. Create a deployment specific requirements file. This will be called via pip to install any python packages required for your project. Mine looks like this:

    Django==1.3.1
    Pinax==0.9a2
    South==0.7.6
    django-appconf==0.5
    django-compressor==1.0.1
    django-debug-toolbar==0.8.5
    django-extensions==0.9
    django-staticfiles==1.1.2
    django-tastypie==0.9.11
    ipython==0.13
    mimeparse==0.1.3
    mysql-python==1.2.3
    pinax-theme-bootstrap==0.1.2
   

Don't forget mysql-python!

1. Edit the main VagrantFile under the "django_settings" variable to change:

• project_name from onpoint to the name of your project, e.g. myprojectname
• pip_requirements_file to the location of your requirements file, relative to the directory project_folder_name
• south_apps to a list of the apps that you want to migrate using South.
• fixtures to a list of the fixtures you want to be installed in your new database. The description field is only used by vagrant to to display information about what data is being loaded.

1. We suggest you create a fixture called user_session.json to load initial superuser data. You can place this in any fixture directory in your project. You can dump this out of your current installation by running the command:

    python manage.py dumpdata --indent=2 auth.user
   

Delete all but the first entry from this file, which should be the superuser account you created when first running manage.py syncdb

1. Create a file called production_settings.py at the same level as manage.py; use this to over-ride anythin in settings.py that you want changed in production. For example, mine has the following:

    DEBUG = False
    TEMPLATE_DEBUG = DEBUG
   
    SERVE_MEDIA = DEBUG
   
    DATABASES = {
        "default": {
            "ENGINE": "django.db.backends.mysql", # Add "postgresql_psycopg2", "postgresql", "mysql", "sqlite3" or "oracle".
            "NAME": "appname",                       # Or path to database file if using sqlite3.
            "USER": "root",                             # Not used with sqlite3.
            "PASSWORD": "iloverandompasswordsbutthiswilldo",                         # Not used with sqlite3.
            "HOST": "",                             # Set to empty string for localhost. Not used with sqlite3.
            "PORT": "3306",                             # Set to empty string for default. Not used with sqlite3.
        }
    }
   

2. Start vagrant box (Windows command console).

    vagrant up
   

After executing this command you should see your site [here] 4

1. When finished, destroy box (Windows command console)

    vagrant destroy
   

More commands specific to dealing with Vagrant boxes can be in [the Vagrant tutorial] 8.

Setting up Fabric

Fabric fabric is a python module that allows you to execute commands remotely on multiple remote locations simultaneously, simplifying server administration.

Using Fabric requires installation of the pycrypto modules. These are compiled C modules, so the easiest way to get them working for Windows is to download the exe directly and install this into your virtual_env using easy_install.

1. Download the latest exe of pycrypto [here] pycrypto

• make sure to use the 32 bit version if using 32 bit python, even if you're running 64 bit Windows

1. Install (make sure you activated the correct virtual_env)

    easy_install pycrypto-2.6.win32-py3.3.exe    
   

2. Install fabric with pip

    pip install fabric 
   

3. Test your installation by trying [the tutorial] fabric_tutorial

Tips

• Additional cookbooks can be found [here] 5

• To ssh into the box, use this command with cygwin on Windows. Your project files will be found in the /vagrant/appname directory.

    ssh -o UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no [email protected] -p 2222
  

• Try using a different distro if you experience problems when adding a recipe to this project

• For me, the mysql recipe would not install correctly with lucid64, but worked fine with precise32

• More boxes can be found here

• Check apache cookbook attributes to see where logfiles are created and other similar details

TODO

• Check compatability with other distros, esp. CentOS

• Boxes [here] (http://www.vagrantbox.es/)

• Brach to use either yum or apt as package manager as seen in apache cookbook

• If yum, make sure epel is installed for RHEL derivatives

• Refactor to use attributes folder to define default params for appname recipe

• Refactor to define functions to hook into to make code re-use easier

• See [example from pip cookbook] (https://github.com/turtlemonvh/django-vagrant-chef-simple/blob/master/deploy/cookbooks/python/providers/pip.rb)

• Change to [use pip2pi for installing pip packages] (http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12521552/installing-pip-packages-to-a-virtualenv-using-a-download-cache)

• useful when network is slow, or you don't have any access to internet

• Get rid of hardcoding of vagrant directory in appname recipe

• Document process for using chef without vagrant for installation on a "real" server