Deployment

Initial Deployment and Creation

It is assumed that each conference site will run on its own virtual private server (VPS) running Debian 9 (Stretch). PyData uses Rackspace, but other VPS providers like DigitalOcean, Linode, or Amazon Lightsail should also be acceptable.

The user account on the server should have passwordless sudo access.

Suggested Minimum VPS Specifications

  • 1 VCPU/CPU core
  • 1 GB RAM
  • 20 GB HDD/SSD space

The Host Variables file

Once a virtual server is set up, information related to the conference should be added into an Ansible host variables file. This file should be placed in the ansible/host_vars directory.

Note

Many of these host variables are overridden in local development by group variables defined in ansible/group_vars/development.

Suggested variables in this file include:

  • conference_identifier: An alphanumeric string identifying the conference.
  • conference_name: The title of the conference.
  • database_user: The name of the PostgreSQL database user that will be created during deployment. For PyData sites, this is the conference_identifer.
  • django_database: The name of the PostgreSQL database that will be created during deployment. For PyData sites, this is generally the conference_identifer.
  • google_analytics_id: A valid Google Analytics tracking ID.
  • subdirectory: By default, this is the same as the conference_identifier (with a preceding slash).
  • time_format: A string in Django date/time templating format explaining how times should be formatted on the conference site. American sites use “g:i A”, while European sites use “G:i”.
  • timezone: The conference site’s timezone. This should be in tz database format.
  • website_domain: The domain where the conference site is located. For PyData sites, this should always be pydata.org.
  • website_url: The full URL of the conference site. For PyData sites, this should be a subdirectory of pydata.org.

Warning

It is assumed that conference sites are in a subdirectory of another website, connecting through a reverse proxy. If this is not the case, modifications will need to be made to the nginx server configuration file templates in the ansible/roles/web/templates/ directory so that the conference site will load properly.

Updating the Host Inventory

To ensure that code is deployed to the aforementioned VPS, its IP address needs to be added to the Ansible hosts file (located at ansible/hosts).

For PyData sites, a listing with the conference identifier should be added to the production group. For other sites, the entire production group should be replaced with your own server(s).

The Secrets File

The repository includes an encrypted Ansible Vault file at ansible/secrets.yml containing sensitive variables that cannot be included in plaintext. Non-PyData users should replace this file with their own variables file. An example of the file and its format can be found at ansible/secrets.yml.example.

Required variables include:

  • amy_password: A password for an administrative user account.
  • database_password: The PostgreSQL database password.
  • django_secret_key: The Django SECRET_KEY setting.
  • email_host_name: The hostname of the SMTP server that sends email from the conference site.
  • email_host_password: The password of the SMTP server. The username is defined in the Jinja template file for sensitive settings at ansible/roles/web/templates/sensitive-settings.py (EMAIL_HOST_USER).
  • upstream_server_ip: The upstream server working as a reverse proxy for this conference website.

Deploying

Deployment occurs by running the ansible-playbook command:

ansible-playbook -i ansible/hosts --ask-vault ansible/production.yml -l gotham2017,metropolis2017

Warning

Make sure that your virtualenv is activated (workon conf_site) before trying to deploy.

Note

The -l parameter limits the deployment to a specific host or group of hosts.

Customization

There are a number of steps to get a new conference site ready. Some of these steps are only necessary for PyData conference sites, and are marked as such.

  • Create additional Django administrator accounts if necessary. The easiest way to do this is to login with the master admin account (using the admin email address defined in ansiblegroup_varsall and the admin password defined in the Ansible Vault file) in the Wagtail admin (in the cms subfolder of the conference site’s URL) and adding users.

  • Create a new root page using the HomePage model (see Page Types) to replace the default “Welcome to Wagtail” page.

  • Update the default Wagtail Site with the correct name and the new root page. This can be found in the “Settings” menu.

  • Delete or unpublish the “Welcome to Wagtail” page.

  • Load fixtures to help set up sites. While the data in these fixtures are specific to PyData sites, it is a good idea for other users to edit and run them as well to avoid possible issues. Currently, you need to manually login to the server, navigate to the application directory, activate the current virtualenv, and run the Django management command to load fixtures:

    ssh <conference site IP address>
cd /srv/pydata
source ~/.virtualenvs/current/bin/activate
DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE="conf_site.settings.production" ./manage.py loaddata fixtures/*

    At some point in the future, these fixtures might be converted to database migrations, making this step unnecessary.

  • For PyData sites, you need to manually fix the Continuum sponsor in the Django admin (in the admin subfolder of the conference site’s URL) by adding a logo image and description).

  • Add a banner image (required), appropriate text sections (recommended), Mailchimp list ID (optional, but necessary to have the mailing list subscription section show up), and ticketing website URL (optional, but enables ticketing links in the main menu and footer) to the homepage.

  • Manually create any additional pages. PyData sites need “About”, “Code of Conduct”, “Conference Mission”, “CFP”, and “Venue” pages.

  • Add a main menu in the “Settings” menu of the Wagtail admin. Only top-level menu items need to be added. All pages that need to appear in the menu must have the “Show in menus” settings enabled (found on the “Promote” tab when editing a page).

  • Update the conference name in the Django admin.

  • Change the name of the Django Site in the Django admin.

  • Open the Symposion proposal sections if the call for proposals is already open. Change “Closed” to “No” in admin/symposion_proposals/proposalsection/.

  • Create a reviewers team so that proposal review works properly. Note that deployment automatically runs the create_review_permissions management command.