Obsolete: this page refers to the pre-2019 Libravatar service.

Here is a description of François' chroot-based development. These instructions should work on any Debian-based system (yes, this does include Ubuntu).

Prerequisites

You must do the following in your host environment:

• Install app according to INSTALL.md

• install a database server:

  apt-get install postgresql
  

• create a user and a database:

  sudo -u postgres createuser -D -P -R -S djangouser
  sudo -u postgres createdb -O djangouser libravatar
  

• stop Apache (if running):

  sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 stop
  

• put the following in your /etc/hosts:

  127.0.0.1 www.localavatar.org cdn.localavatar.org seccdn.localavatar.org
  

Initial setup

To create and initialize your chroot-based environment:

• create a new chroot:

  mkdir /var/chroot/squeeze-amd64
  debootstrap squeeze /var/chroot/squeeze-amd64 http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian
  

• add this line to /etc/fstab:

  proc  /var/chroot/squeeze-amd64/proc  proc  defaults  0  0
  

• mount the necessary filesystems:

  mount -a
  

• install the schroot package and put this in your /etc/schroot/schroot.conf:

  [squeeze]
  description=Debian Squeeze amd64 (squeeze)
  directory=/var/chroot/squeeze-amd64
  root-groups=root
  personality=linux
  

• enter the chroot as root:

  sudo schroot -c squeeze
  

• install the required packages in the chroot:

  apt-get install git make debhelper yui-compressor python-django python-psycopg2 python-gearman.libgearman python-imaging python-openid python-dns pylint pep8 pyflakes
  

• get a copy of the repo:

  cd /root
  git clone https://git.nzoss.org.nz/libravatar/libravatar.git
  

• create a config file for your environment:

  cd /root/libravatar/libravatar
  cp libravatar/settings.py.example libravatar/settings.py
  

  (edit settings.py to use localavatar.org as the domain and contain the right database credentials)

• build the packages:

  cd /root/libravatar
  make package
  

• install the packages:

  cd /root
  dpkg -i libravatar-{common,cdn,seccdn,www}*deb
  apt-get install -f
  

  (use localavatar.org as the domain name and localhost as the db hostname)

• create a self-signed SSL certificate:

  make-ssl-cert /usr/share/ssl-cert/ssleay.cnf /etc/libravatar/seccdn.pem
  cp /etc/libravatar/seccdn.{pem,crt}
  cp /etc/libravatar/{seccdn,chain}.pem
  

  (use seccdn.localavatar.org as the common name)

• start Apache:

  /etc/init.d/apache2 start
  

Entering the chroot to work

The next time you want to get inside the chroot to do some work, simply do the following:

• stop Apache on the main host:

  sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 stop
  

• enter the chroot as root:

  sudo schroot -c squeeze
  

• start apache and gearman in the chroot guest:

  /etc/init.d/apache2 start
  /etc/init.d/gearman-job-server start
  

Updating the codebase

If you want to update the Libravatar codebase you are working from, do this:

• update the branch:

  cd /root/libravatar
  git pull
  

• get rid of old packages:

  cd /root
  rm -f libravatar*.deb
  

• build and install new packages:

  cd /root/libravatar
  make package
  
  cd /root
  dpkg -i libravatar-{common,cdn,seccdn,www}*deb
  

• restart apache:

  /etc/init.d/apache2 restart