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76. DevOps Documentation

The DevOps guide provides structured documentation on DevOps practices, tools, and workflows used in software development and deployment.

76.1 Deploying with Docker

This document explains how users can perform various system administration tasks when deploying a site using Docker. The following deployment modes are supported:

  • Production: Debugging is disabled, and a discrete database is used. Users should configure the production environment in core.settings.prod_docker. This DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE is used when running in production mode.
  • Staging: Users should configure the staging environment in core.settings.staging_docker. This DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE is used when running in staging mode.

76.2 Build Docker Images and Run Them

76.2.1 Production

Users can run the provided script to build and deploy Docker images in production mode: 

cd deployment
# Allow PostgreSQL volume to be written to
sudo chmod -R a+rwX pg/postgres_data/
make deploy
sudo chmod -R a+rwX static

76.2.2 Running in Development Mode

Users can run makedev in the terminal.

Then, connect to the Django container and run: 

python manage.py runserver 0.0.0.0:8080
  • Pycsw runs on port 8000.
  • Users can access the web container via port 8080 or as defined in the fig.yml file.

To create a superuser account, run: 

make shell
python manage.py createsuperuser
exit

76.2.3 Staging

The staging deployment follows the same process as production, but users should precede each command with staging, e.g., 

make staging-deploy

Note: For staging deployment, users should use a separate Git checkout from the production checkout, as the Git checkout code is shared into the source tree.

76.3 Using Make

Key make commands for production include:

  • build – Builds production containers.
  • run – Builds and runs database and uwsgi services.
  • collectstatic – Collects static files for production.
  • migrate – Runs Django migrations in production.

Additional make commands are available in the Makefile.

76.3.1 Running Arbitrary Commands

Users can execute arbitrary management commands easily within the container.

76.4 Setting Up an Nginx Reverse Proxy

Users should create a new Nginx virtual host. Example configurations are available in *-nginx.conf in the deployment directory, with separate configurations for production and staging.

To apply these configurations:

  1. Copy the example file (renaming if necessary) to /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/.
  2. Modify the contents to match the local file system paths.
  3. Verify the configuration: 
sudo nginx -t
  1. Reload or restart Nginx: 
sudo /etc/init.d/nginx restart

76.5 Managing Containers

For managing infrastructure, refer to the Fig documentation.

76.6 Configuration Options

Users can configure the base port, image organisation namespace, PostGIS user/password, and other settings by modifying the fig*.yml files.