• RemoteDjangoSiteDevelopment - SVN repository info etc.

The new Django site code creates two types of site administrators where before there was only one:

1. People updating Meetings, Announcements, Page content

2. People adding new features to the site

The former group can now do everything they need to do through the admin interface built in to the site at: http://oclug.on.ca/admin/

The latter group needs a way to work on the code collaboratively, test changes and update the database schema when the changes are deployed.

Django has very good online documentation. The tutorial is a good place to start. Some other useful references:

• Models
• URLs
• Templates

Shortcuts to some of the files available from the “browse source” button above.

#!rst
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+
|"extends"                    |page template                |"includes"                    |
+=============================+=============================+==============================+
|base_generic.html            |meetings/upcoming.html       |meetings/meeting_info.html    |
+                             +-----------------------------+                              +
|                             |meetings/meeting_detail.html |                              |
+                             +-----------------------------+------------------------------+
|                             |meetings/past.html           |meetings/meeting_brief.html   |
+                             +-----------------------------+                              +
|                             |meetings/speaker_detail.html |                              |
+                             +-----------------------------+                              +
|                             |meetings/location_detail.html|                              |
+                             +-----------------------------+------------------------------+
|                             |meetings/image_detail.html   |                              |
+                             +-----------------------------+                              +
|                             |flatpages/default.html       |                              |
+                             +-----------------------------+                              +
|                             |400.html                     |                              |
+                             +-----------------------------+                              +
|                             |500.html                     |                              |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+

#!rst
============================= =================================================================
application                   description 
----------------------------- -----------------------------------------------------------------
django.contrib.auth           users, groups and permissions 
django.contrib.contenttypes            
django.contrib.sessions       session tracking (required by auth) 
django.contrib.sites          multiple site support (required by flatpages) 
django.contrib.admin          administration interface http://oclug.on.ca/admin/ 
django.contrib.markup         markup template tags, used for markdown formatted text 
django.contrib.flatpages      database-backed pages, used for http://oclug.on.ca/about/, etc. 
django.contrib.redirects      database-backed redirection, used to fix .php urls mostly 
meetings                      custom OCLUG meetings application 
============================= =================================================================

Main OCLUG site

#!rst
==================== ================================== =============================================================
code location        /home/webdude/oclug_django_site/   "push_staging_to_production" script used to copy from staging 
settings file        settings.py            
data location        /home/webdude/site_data/           checked in to SVN: /site_data/trunk/ 
upload location      /var/local/main_site_uploaded/     owned by www-data, file and image uploads go here 
database             Postgres: "oclug_django_site"      
serialized database  /home/webdude/site_data/db.xml     "serialize_db_and_checkin" script called nightly 
==================== ================================== =============================================================

Site for testing new code and db columns/tables

#!rst  
==================== ======================================== =============================================================
code location        /home/webdude/staging/oclug_django_site/ "update_staging" script used to update from SVN 
settings file        staging_settings.py            
data location        /home/webdude/site_data/                 shared with main site 
upload location      /var/local/main_site_uploaded/           shared with main site 
database             Postgres: "oclug_django_site"            shared with main site 
serialized database  none                                     data not serialized 
==================== ======================================== =============================================================

Site for testing changes made by admin interface

#!rst
==================== ======================================== =============================================================
code location        /home/webdude/sandbox/oclug_django_site/ copied from main site by "reset_sandbox" script 
settings file        sandbox_settings.py            
data location        /home/webdude/sandbox/site_data/         copied from main site by "reset_sandbox" script 
upload location      /var/local/sandbox_site_uploaded/        copied from main site by "reset_sandbox" script 
database             Postgres: "oclug_django_sandbox_site"    reloaded from main site by "reset_sandbox" script 
serialized database  none                                     data not serialized 
==================== ======================================== =============================================================

main and staging sites share database and upload directory so that common changes (adding columns to a table and creating new models) can be tested with the live data. When there are new columns or tables the main site will ignore them.

This is a list of the maintenance script locations and what they do.

/home/webdude/bin/nightly (run from crontab daily at 4am)

1. call serialize_db_and_commit

2. call reset_sandbox

/home/webdude/bin/serialize_db_and_commit (called by nightly script)

1. dump the database, except sessions and user auth info, into the serialized database location

2. rsync uploads into site data dir

 3. check in everything in site data dir to SVN. This will cause changes to be emailed out like other SVN commits, and everyone on the oclug-www list will be able to see what has changed on the site.

/usr/local/bin/reset_sandbox → /home/webdude/bin/reset_sandbox (called by nightly script)

1. rsync oclug_django_site and site_data from main site to sandbox (see /root/bin/rsync_oclug_sandbox)

2. dump site database into sandbox database

 3. restart apache

/usr/local/bin/update_staging → /home/webdude/bin/update_staging

1. “svn update” staging oclug_django_site dir

2. “manage.py validate && manage.py syncdb” if any errors, stop and notify user

 3. restart apache

/usr/local/bin/push_staging_to_production → /home/webdude/bin/push_staging_to_production

1. rsync oclug_django_site from staging

2. restart apache

How do we accommodate changes to the database layout (other than new tables that are handled by “manage.py syncdb”?

• new columns can be dealt with by manually entering “ALTER TABLE” commands (not as hard as it sounds, can use “manage.py sql …” to show the sql that would be used to create the table and just copy&paste the column into “psql”)
• need to investigate serialize/flush/syncdb/reload as a possible option (maybe not, some things shouldn't be made too simple)

• need to figure out why subversion notifications aren't being sent - logfile20070626
• install Trac for issue tracking and development - logfile20070712 logfile20070717