JTalks Virtual Environment

CHEF PROVED TO BE AN UNRELYABLE TOOL AND WE'RE MOVING TO DOCKER, SEE OUR FIRST STEPS [HERE] (https://github.com/jtalks-org/jtalks-cicd).

If you want to start a brand new environment for JTalks with installed software using just a couple of commands - then this is what you're looking for. This project helps you to start a virtual environment using Vagrant + Chef scripts.

In order to start one of JTalks component, you need to go through several steps.

Install Software

• Install VirtualBox which is an Oracle driven tool for starting virtual environments. Vagrant started to support VMWare, but we didn't test our scripts with it.
• Install Vagrant. It's an extremely simple tool that can start virtual environment and install software there using Chef or Puppet scripts.
• Download this project either in zip format or grab sources using Git. Unpack if needed and step into the folder.

Start virtual environment

• vagrant up - this starts your env and runs Chef scripts. This may take a lot of time especially first time because it downloads software and virtual image from the internet.
• vagrant ssh - log into the just created virtual machine. For Windows users you'll have to use Putty to log in via SSH. Use Host: localhost, Port: 2222. User: vagrant, password: vagrant.

Start JCommune or Poulpe

• jtalks deploy --environment vagrant --project jcommune --build 2037 - this is just an example that start 2037th build of JCommune project.
  • Instead of jcommmune you can specify poulpe to start Poulpe.
  • Instead of 2037 you need to put a build you'd like to use, a list of them can be found in our Deployment Pipeline Repository. Every build has a suffix following major and minor version of the build.
• Now if everything is green (if not, read below), go to your browser and run http://localhost:4000/jcommune or http://localhost:4000/poulpe and here we are.
• The configuration is kept in ~/.jtalks and can be changed if needed. For more information on how to install and use jtalks scripts see JTalks CICD project

Shutdown environment

• Log out from virtual box, you still should be in jtalks-vm folder.
• You can either destroy everything wiping off databases by using vagrant destroy. After that you'll be able to start a brand new env again by running vagrant up
• Or you can simply shut down environment vagrant suspend and to continue work with it: vagrant resume

Using cookbooks on non-virtualized envs

The very same cookbooks could be used on usual servers that don't leverage virtualization. E.g. we use them in order to install software, see folder roles. In order to install everything onto the machine, feel free to leverage install-chef script. After installation you can go to /var/chef/jtalks-vm and install software using server roles, e.g.: sudo chef-solo -j roles/jtalks-servers.json

If you have problems, please contact us: project[at]jtalks[.]org