Esup-Pod Production Deployment

MySQL/MariaDB Database

Installing MariaDB

sudo apt install mariadb-server mariadb-client
sudo mysql_secure_installation

Warning: You need to modify the file /etc/mysql/mariadb.conf.d/50-server.cnf

character-set-server  = utf8
collation-server      = utf8_general_ci

You must then create a new database.

sudo mysqladmin create mydatabase

Next, grant privileges on this database to a user specified in your settings file below:

$ sudo mysql
mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON mydatabase.* TO 'mydatabaseuser'@127.0.0.1 IDENTIFIED BY 'mypassword';
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

mysql> exit

The timezone must be registered in the SQL engine (MySQL or MariaDB) (to be done as MySQL root!)

mysql_tzinfo_to_sql /usr/share/zoneinfo | mysql -u root -p mysql --database=mysql

To use the MySQL/MariaDB database on the frontend server (or a remote server), you need to install the MySQL/Python engine:

$ sudo apt install pkg-config python3-dev default-libmysqlclient-dev
(django_pod) pod@pod:/usr/local/django_projects/pod$ pip3 install mysqlclient

MariaDB Optimization

Your configuration should be adapted to the size of your database. To avoid potential issues during updates, make sure you have at least 256M for the “max_allowed_packet” parameter (increase if your database is larger; set it to the size of your largest table).

/etc/my.cnf

[mysqld]
max_allowed_packet=256M

Esup-Pod Configuration

If not already done, you must specify your database configuration in your settings_local.py configuration file:

(django_pod) pod@pod:/usr/local/django_projects/pod$ vim pod/custom/settings_local.py

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.mysql',
        'NAME': 'mydatabase',
        'USER': 'mydatabaseuser',
        'PASSWORD': 'mypassword',
        'HOST': '127.0.0.1',
        'PORT': '3306',
        'OPTIONS': {
            'init_command': "SET storage_engine=INNODB, sql_mode='STRICT_TRANS_TABLES', innodb_strict_mode=1",
            'charset': 'utf8mb4',
        },
    }
}

Then, run the script at the root to create the migration files, then run them to create the database:

(django_pod) pod@Pod:~/django_projects/pod$ make createDB

Don’t forget to create a new superuser

(django_pod) pod@Pod:~/django_projects/pod$ python manage.py createsuperuser

Web Frontend NGINX / UWSGI and Static Files

For more information and explanation than the documentation below, see the tutorial I followed to set up this solution

Installing and Configuring the NGINX Web Server

Start by installing the NGINX server

(django_pod) pod@Pod:~/django_projects/pod$ sudo apt install nginx

Then, edit the file /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default

(django_pod) pod@Pod:~/django_projects/pod$ sudo vim /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default

Find the following line to modify

[...]
server { listen 80 default_server;
# listen [::]:80 default_server;
[...]

Install NGINX addons

(django_pod) pod@Pod:~/django_projects/pod$ sudo apt install nginx-extras

Add the following lines to the nginx configuration file:

/etc/nginx/nginx.conf

http {
[...]
     # Pod Progress Bar: reserve 1MB under the name 'uploads' to track uploads
 upload_progress uploadp 1m;
[...]
}

You then need to specify the host for the web server (change the parameters in the pod_nginx.conf file if needed):

(django_pod) pod@Pod:~/django_projects/pod$ cp pod_nginx.conf pod/custom/.
(django_pod) pod@Pod:~/django_projects/pod$ vim pod/custom/pod_nginx.conf
(django_pod) pod@Pod:~/django_projects/pod$ sudo ln -s /usr/local/django_projects/podv4/pod/custom/pod_nginx.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/pod_nginx.conf
(django_pod) pod@Pod:~/django_projects/pod$ sudo /etc/init.d/nginx restart

UWSGI

A configuration file is provided to facilitate the use of UWSGI.

Install the uwsgi module

(django_pod) pod@Pod:~/django_projects/pod$ sudo pip3 install uwsgi

Duplicate the template file and edit it to customize the parameters:

(django_pod) pod@Pod:~/django_projects/pod$ cp pod_uwsgi.ini pod/custom/.
(django_pod) pod@Pod:~/django_projects/pod$ vim pod/custom/pod_uwsgi.ini
(django_pod) pod@Pod:~/django_projects/pod$ sudo uwsgi --ini pod/custom/pod_uwsgi.ini --enable-threads --daemonize /usr/local/django_projects/podv4/pod/log/uwsgi-pod.log --uid pod --gid www-data --pidfile /tmp/pod.pid
...
[uWSGI] getting INI configuration from pod/custom/pod_uwsgi.ini
(django_pod) pod@Pod:~/django_projects/pod$

To start the UWSGI service at machine startup:

Create a uwsgi-pod.service file

(django_pod) pod@Pod:~/django_projects/pod$ sudo vim /etc/systemd/system/uwsgi-pod.service

Add the following:

[Unit]
Description=Pod uWSGI app
After=syslog.target

[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/uwsgi --ini /usr/local/django_projects/podv4/pod/custom/pod_uwsgi.ini \
        --enable-threads \
        --pidfile /tmp/pod.pid
ExecStop=/usr/local/bin/uwsgi --stop /tmp/pod.pid
User=pod
Group=www-data
Restart=on-failure
KillSignal=SIGQUIT
Type=notify
StandardError=syslog
NotifyAccess=all

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Then enable the service

(django_pod) pod@Pod:~/django_projects/pod$ sudo systemctl enable uwsgi-pod

To start or stop it:

(django_pod) pod@Pod:~/django_projects/pod$ sudo systemctl stop uwsgi-pod
(django_pod) pod@Pod:~/django_projects/pod$ sudo systemctl restart uwsgi-pod

Warning: Don’t forget to collect the “statics” files so they can be served by the NGINX web frontend.

(django_pod) pod@Pod:~/django_projects/pod$ python manage.py collectstatic

Log Rotate

Log files can quickly grow on a production server. Therefore, it is recommended to set up a log rotate system for Esup-Pod logs:

/etc/logrotate.d/esup-pod

/usr/local/django_projects/podv4/pod/log/*.log {
    su pod www-data
    daily
    missingok
    rotate 14
    nocompress
    delaycompress
    notifempty
    create 0640 pod www-data
    sharedscripts
    postrotate
        systemctl restart uwsgi-pod >/dev/null 2>&1
    endscript
}

Then run the following command to check that it works:

sudo logrotate -d /etc/logrotate.d/esup-pod

Customizations

Some pages have been automatically pre-generated to make your job easier, but there is still some information to complete. Notably, the following pages: