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Setup Instructions

These instructions are written with Ubuntu Linux 14.04 in mind. However, if you are familiar with your operating system it should be no problem to setup elsewhere and use this as a guide.

First things first:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

Install the necessary packages:

sudo apt-get install git apache2 libapache2-mod-wsgi python python-dev libxml2-dev libxslt1-dev python-pip xvfb firefox

I use (and suggest using) MySQL as your database, and instructions assume you do. There are suitable alternatives but you're on your own for configuration.

sudo apt-get install mysql-server libmysqlclient-dev

Install virtualenv:

sudo pip install virtualenv

Create a new folder to work with. I'll be placing this in /var/www/site/:

cd /var/www/
sudo mkdir site
sudo chown ubuntu site
cd site

Create a new virtual environment to work on and activate it:

virtualenv env
source ./env/bin/activate

Let's clone the project.

git clone https://github.com/gravitylow/OpenCourse.git opencourse
cd opencourse

Install the necessary pip libraries:

pip install -r requirements.txt

Note: for installs on macOS, you may run across a compile error for MySQL:

ld: library not found for -lssl

To make sure openssl libraries are included at compile time, run the command with the following options:

pip install -r requirements.txt --global-option=build_ext --global-option="-I/usr/local/opt/openssl/include" --global-option="-L/usr/local/opt/openssl/lib"

The settings files are now located at opencourse/settings/. It is important to note that by default the development settings are used. You can change this to production settings in the __init__.py file in this directory when you're ready.

Open common.py up using your favorite text editor because we have some work to do. Some private values have been removed from the settings file and have been noted in comments. You'll need to provide your own replacement for these.

First, populate the SECRET_KEY value with a sufficiently random secure text string. See the Django documentation for this setting.

Modify the ALLOWED_HOSTS setting to include your desired domain. Do similarly with the SESSION_COOKIE_DOMAIN setting.

If you want to use the Google OAuth login system, you'll need to register an app with Google and, from your APIs & Auth / Credentials page, fill in the necessary fields. Make sure you also enable the Google+ API from the APIs page or else you'll get login errors. Here's a rundown of what you should have:

  • SOCIAL_AUTH_GOOGLE_OAUTH2_KEY = 'YOUR KEY'
  • SOCIAL_AUTH_GOOGLE_OAUTH2_SECRET = 'YOUR SECRET'

You'll need to do similarly to use the Facebook integration. Register an app with Facebook and, from your Dashboard, fill in the necessary fields. Here's a rundown of what you should have:

  • SOCIAL_AUTH_FACEBOOK_KEY = 'YOUR KEY'
  • SOCIAL_AUTH_FACEBOOK_SECRET = 'YOUR SECRET'

Now we'll need to configure the MySQL database we setup earlier. In the DATABASES section of your config, you should create the proper settings based on the Django documentation. Assuming you have an unchanged MySQL installation, you can fill these in right off the bat:

  • 'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.mysql',
  • 'HOST': 'localhost',
  • 'PORT': '3306',

Finally, to be able to send emails from the system, you'll need to provide SMTP server connection details. This will differ from host to host, so check with them to get your details.

IMPORTANT: Since you've made changes to the configuration files with private information, you should enable the content filter to keep these changes from being committed to the database. To do this, run the following git commands:

git config filter.private.clean "sed '/#private$/'d"
git config filter.private.smudge "cat"
git config filter.private.required true

You should now terminate any line you have added to the configuration with '#private' to identify it as a non-committable line. For instance:

...
DATABASES = {
    'default': {#private
        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.mysql',#private
        'NAME': 'opencourse',#private
        'USER': 'opencourse',#private
        'PASSWORD': 'mypassword',#private
        'HOST': 'localhost',#private
        'PORT': '3306',#private
    }#private
}
...

When you diff or commit settings files from now on, the lines marked with #private will not be included as changes.

Run the migrations to set up the database:

python manage.py migrate

We'll do a quick test to make sure everything looks right:

python manage.py runserver 0.0.0.0:80

You can now point your browser towards the server's public IP and (if all goes well), you will see the OpenCourse homepage. If you run into an error take a look to see what it is asking you to do - usually this will be installing a missing dependency.

These are the end of the development instructions. Limited assistance will be provided going forward.

Now you can finally enable the production settings and setup an apache2 VirtualHost to run the site using the wsgi file provided in the opencourse directory. Note that you'll need to setup static file delivery with apache as well, and that you'll need to enable the installed mods:

sudo a2enmod ssl # if serving securely
sudo a2enmod redirect # to implement strict SSL usage

VirtualHosts, SSL certificate setup, static files, and final webserver implementation are all out-of-scope of these instructions. I'm happy to answer any questions that come up, but this is a process that needs to be done by the server administrator.

If you encounter errors after the site is set up can check the apache2 log at /var/log/apache2/error.log. Feel free to open an issue with the error in question if it's not obvious.

If you are using MySQL and haven't done so already, you should make sure timezone data has been added

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

From here, there's no step-by-step instructions. The data you'll serve depends on what you want your site to focus on. The copy you cloned has management commands setup at course/management/commands/ that scrape data from the Schedule of Courses.

If you'd like to use these commands, you should run the kronos command to install the tasks as cron jobs:

python manage.py installtasks

These scrapers will populate the database with information and keep it up-to-date as necessary. No manual processing should be necessary.

If you're using your own scrapers, you should replace these files, register the commands with kronos as shown, and make any necessary model changes to support the data.