Installation

Author:Étienne Loks
date:2012-10-08
Copyright:CC-BY 3.0

This documents presents the installation of Chimère. The version has been updated for version 2.0.0.

Prerequisites

geodjango is a part of django since version 1.0 but it has some specific (geographically related) additional dependencies:

Optionaly (but recommanded):

The simpliest way to obtain these packages is to get them from your favorite Linux distribution repositories. For instance on Debian Wheezy:

apt-get install python python-django python-django-south             \
    python-beautifulsoup tinymce apache2 libgeos-3.3.3 proj-bin gdal-bin \
    python-gdal python-lxml python-psycopg2 python-imaging gettext   \
    postgresql-9.1 postgresql-9.1-postgis libjs-jquery libjs-jquery-ui \
    python-django-celery python-simplejson gpsbabel \
    python-pyexiv2 python-feedparser javascript-common

On Debian Squeeze (you need to activate backports):

apt-get install -t squeeze-backports python-django

apt-get install python python-django-south python-beautifulsoup tinymce \
    apache2 libgeos-3.2.0 proj-bin gdal-bin python-gdal python-lxml \
    python-psycopg2 python-imaging gettext postgresql-8.4 \
    postgresql-8.4-postgis libjs-jquery libjs-jquery-ui python-simplejson \
    gpsbabel python-pyexiv2 python-feedparser javascript-common

If these packages do not exist in your distribution’s repository, please refer to the applications’ websites.

Database configuration

Now that postgres and postgis are installed, you need to create a new user for chimere:

su postgres
createuser --echo --adduser --createdb --encrypted --pwprompt chimere-user

Then, you have to create the database and initialize the geographic types (adapt the paths accordingly to your needs):

PG_VERSION=9.1 # 8.4 for debian Squeeze
createdb --echo --owner chimere-user --encoding UNICODE chimere "My Chimère database"
createlang plpgsql chimere # only necessary on Debian Squeeze
psql -d chimere -f /usr/share/postgresql/$PG_VERSION/contrib/postgis-1.5/postgis.sql
psql -d chimere -f /usr/share/postgresql/$PG_VERSION/contrib/postgis-1.5/spatial_ref_sys.sql

Install the sources

Choose a path to install your Chimère:

INSTALL_PATH=/var/local/django
mkdir $INSTALL_PATH

From an archive

The last “stable” version is available in this directory. Take care of getting the last version in the desired X.Y branch (for instance the last version for the 1.0 branch is version 1.0.2. Extract it to the desired destination path:

wget http://www.peacefrogs.net/download/chimere -q -O -| html2text
(...)
[[   ]] chimere-1.0.0.tar.bz2     17-Nov-2010 16:51  53K
[[   ]] chimere-1.0.1.tar.bz2     17-Nov-2010 16:51  53K
[[   ]] chimere-1.0.2.tar.bz2     17-Nov-2010 16:51  53K
(...)

wget http://www.peacefrogs.net/download/chimere/chimere-1.0.2.tar.bz2

Download, unpack and move the files in an apache user (www-data for Debian) readable directory:

cd $INSTALL_PATH
tar xvjf chimere-last.tar.bz2
chown -R myusername:www-data chimere

From the git repository

Another solution is to get the last git version:

cd $INSTALL_PATH
git clone git://www.peacefrogs.net/git/chimere
cd chimere
git tag -l # list tagged versions
git checkout v2.0 # checkout the desired version

Create a custom project template

There a default project provided “example_project”. Copy and modify it (or get another project based on Chimere):

cd $INSTALL_PATH/chimere
cp -ra example_project mychimere_project

Your project name is used for the name of the Python package of your template. As a Python package it should follow the rule of Python variable name: it must be at least one letter and can have a string of numbers, letters and “_” to any length. Don’t begin the name by “_” because it has special significance in Python.

In your chimere application directory create local_settings.py to fit to your configuration. A base template is provided (local_settings.py.example) and short descriptions of the more relevant fields are given below (at least check them). Most of theses settings are initialized in settings.py.

cd $INSTALL_PATH/chimere/mychimere_project
cp local_settings.py.sample local_settings.py
vim local_settings.py
Fields:
  • DATABASES: parameters for the database
  • PROJECT_NAME: name of the project
  • SECRET_KEY: a secret key for a particular Django installation. This is used to provide cryptographic signing, and should be set to a unique, unpredictable value. Change it!
  • ROOT_URLCONF: url configuration for your project something like: ‘mychimere_project.urls’
  • EMAIL_HOST: smtp of an email server to send emails
  • TINYMCE_URL: url to tinymce path (default is appropriate for a Debian installation with tinymce activated)
  • JQUERY_JS_URLS: list of Jquery and Jquery-ui urls (default is appropriate for a Debian installation with Jquery and Jquery-ui activated)
  • JQUERY_CSS_URLS: list of Jquery and Jquery-ui urls (default is appropriate for a Debian installation with Jquery and Jquery-ui activated)
  • GPSBABEL: path to gpsbabel (default is appropriate for a Debian installation with gpsbabel installed)
  • TIME_ZONE: local time zone for this installation
  • LANGUAGE_CODE: language code for this installation

Manage media path permission:

cd $INSTALL_PATH/chimere/mychimere_project
chown -R user:www-data media
chmod -R g+w media

Create log file:

mkdir /var/log/django
touch /var/log/django/chimere.log
chown -R root:www-data /var/log/django/
chmod -R g+w /var/log/django/

Regroup static files in one path:

cd $INSTALL_PATH/chimere/mychimere_project
./manage.py collectstatic

Compiling languages

If your language is available in the locale directory of chimere, you will just need to get it compiled. This can be done with (here, fr stands for french). Replace it with the appropriate language code):

cd $INSTALL_PATH/chimere/chimere/
django-admin compilemessages

If your language is not available, feel free to create the default po files and to submit it, contributions are well appreciated. Procedure is as follows:

You first need to create the default po file (of course, replace fr according to the language you choose to create):

django-admin makemessages -l fr

There should now be a django.po file in locale/fr/LC_MESSAGES. Complete it with your translation.

Now that the translation file is completed, just compile it the same way you would have if the language file was already available.

Database initialisation

Create the appropriate tables (still being in chimère application directory):

cd $INSTALL_PATH/chimere/mychimere_project
./manage.py syncdb

You will be prompted for the creation of an administrator account (administration can be found at: http://where_is_chimere/admin). Then you have to create tables managed with south:

./manage.py migrate

The database is set, congratulations!

If you want to populate your installation with default data (don’t do this on an already populated instance!):

./manage.py loaddata ../chimere/fixtures/default_data.json

Webserver configuration

Apache configuration with mod_wsgi

Install mod_wsgi for apache:

apt-get install libapache2-mod-wsgi

TODO: adapt apache-wsgi.conf Create and edit a configuration for Chimère:

cp $INSTALL_PATH/chimere/apache/django.wsgi \
        $INSTALL_PATH/chimere/apache/mydjango.wsgi
vim $INSTALL_PATH/chimere/apache/mydjango.wsgi
cp $INSTALL_PATH/chimere/apache/apache-wsgi.conf /etc/apache2/sites-available/chimere
vim /etc/apache2/sites-available/chimere
# create log dir
mkdir /var/log/apache2/chimere/

Adapt the files mydjango.wsgi (with the correct sys path) and Apache chimere.

To activate the website reload apache:

a2ensite chimere
/etc/init.d/apache2 reload