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turtlemonvh / django-vagrant-chef-simple

Simple configuration for setting up a development environment for django with vagrant and chef
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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

Chef cookbooks included

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

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!

  3. 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.

  4. 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

  5. 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.
    }
}

  6. Start vagrant box (Windows command console). 

    vagrant up

    After executing this command you should see your site here

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

    vagrant destroy

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

Setting up 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

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

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

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

  3. Install fabric with pip

    pip install fabric

  4. Test your installation by trying the tutorial

Tips

TODO