What are the pros and cons of using Debian packages to deploy a web application as opposed to using Fabric? I have only ever used Debian packages.
I'm also interested in hearing about problems you've bumped into when using Fabric and you wished you had used Debian packages.
Debian
It is a Package Manager. It allows user to manage packages through various programs like dpkg or apt on a system.
What it does for you :
builds package from source
handles package dependencies, package versions
installs, updates and removes programs on a system
works at low level, compiled binaries maybe system specific (i386, amd64)
Cons :
To deploy the application the configuration must be provided in your package, or some configuration has to be used as default
Different binaries for systems with different architecture
Fabric
It is a Python library and command-line tool for streamlining the use of SSH for application deployment or systems administration tasks.
What it does for you :
configure your system
execute commands on local/remote server (systems administration)
deploy your application, do rollbacks, mainly automate deployment through a script
works on a higher level, does not depend on system architecture but on OS and package manager
How do you use pip, virtualenv and Fabric to handle deployment?
Cons:
It cannot replace package manager on a system, it manages packages on top of it
You should know the system, commands folders specific to your package manager / OS
Update
I was already familiar with Debian when Fabric came. So Debian has stayed as my preferable tool. Why I use Fabric, it eases deployment of applications and is handy tool for developers. Here are some reasons why I would use Debian over Fabric:
When I am not going into production, still developing and testing stuff. Debian is suitable most of the time, when code is being added/modified. Fabric just eases the transition from development to production.
Sometimes if I deploy application on my machine only, Fabric seems overkill. If deployment does not involve many machines, requires several dependencies, I would stick to Debian.
When rollback, or undoing is not an option. Fabric will simply execute your commands safe or not, if you are not adept at handling system errors/exceptions, try it somewhere before using Fabric. (Debian is part of system so have to use Debian and other system tools)
Related
I am trying to find the best way of managing dependencies which are not available for all OS platforms. Our cookbook is cross-platform, it is aimed at both Linux and Windows systems. One of our recent requirements however, is to add in features that are only needed on Linux.
To do that normally, I would use a 'depends' line in the metadata.rb to specify a separate cookbook as being needed. For example:
depends 'hostfile_edit', '=0.1.2'
Our Chef system is split into two distinct orgs for security reasons - Windows and Linux. However, in this case the "hostfile_edit" cookbook is only available on the Linux org. Hence, when we run rake unit on Windows we get a failure as Chef is unable to reference this other cookbook. The rake unit runs perfectly when run on a Linux system. Similarly, when using the cookbook in a deployment there are failures on Windows, but not on Linux.
The answer lies in metadata.rb file, you can add like this
%w( aix amazon centos fedora freebsd debian oracle mac_os_x redhat suse opensuseleap ubuntu windows zlinux ).each do |os|
supports os
end
You can read more about this are https://docs.chef.io/config_rb_metadata/
I want to host the OSM (OpenStreetMap) locally. I need the basic idea what are required for hosting the OSM and how the task can be done in a step wise manner. I have to host it in Windows7 environment.
Any kind of help will be useful.
switch2osm contains detailed instructions and requirements for setting up a OSM server. If you have a Windows system then better set up a Linux VM inside it.
A bit too old but I will just put it here for someone who is searching for the same thing.
An exact instance of OpenStreetMap can be hosted locally by following the installation guide of OpenStreetMap.
Quoting from the Link:
"These instructions are designed for setting up The Rails Port for development and testing. If you want to deploy the software for your own project, then see the notes at the end.
You can install the software directly on your machine, which is the traditional and probably best-supported approach. However, there is an alternative which may be easier: Vagrant. This installs the software into a virtual machine, which makes it easier to get a consistent development environment and may avoid installation difficulties. For Vagrant instructions, see VAGRANT.md.
These instructions are based on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, which is the platform used by the OSMF servers. The instructions also work, with only minor amendments, for all other current Ubuntu releases, Fedora and MacOSX
We don't recommend attempting to develop or deploy this software on Windows. If you need to use Windows, then try developing this software using Ubuntu in a virtual machine, or use Vagrant."
I am going to be moving all my websites to a Windows Web Server 2008 R2 machine. I have installed it in a virtual machine to test that my websites work with it.
I have noticied that there is a program called Web Platform Installer. I have used it to install a few sites but I was just thinking is it a security risk using this? Would it be better for me to manually install the sites (WordPress, Umbraco, etc)
Thanks
We push that out to all our customers just for ease of deployment, and I have not seen any security issues with it, however, I would question its reliability as it fails about 10% of the time (to install whatever I have selected). Having said that, when it does work, its a fairly good tool, as it will install any prerequisites that you may not have been aware of (like SMO, or if you try to install Wordpress without MySQL), and will also keep you up-to-date on newer version of software that you have installed.
virtual machines hold great promise as a way to distribute hard to configure applications. i have been using jeos vmbuilder (and some bash scripts) to generate my appliances, but i'm looking for something more elegant.
in my case, i'm looking for a solution that will build a linux-based vm with configured versions of tomcat and mysql as a base. each future release would be a new war file and a sql update script. it'd be really nice if already deployed vms could self-update and test builds could be pushed to ec2.
in my brief search, i've found rpath rbuilder, turnkey linux,
vagrant up, suse studio, jeos vmbuilder, and vmware studio. rather than try all of these, i figure i'd ask what this community uses to build and distribute appliances...
I use pungi myself.
I'm sketching an application deployment process for a bunch of relatively complex desktop applications. We have both native and Java apps, so the deployment must be able to check for existence of the JRE and install it if needed. Some of the apps depend on special hardware, so the deployment must also be able to launch the necessary driver installers. Some of the apps are multiplatform, and preferably the same mechanism should be able to create Windows, Linux and Mac OS X installers. That is:
The installer must be able to install, in addition to the application itself:
Java Runtime Environment.
Drivers (hardware) - that is, launch other installers.
The installer builder must be operable from the command line so that it can be integrated with an automatic build mechanism that generates installer packages for each platform as nightly builds.
In addition, I need to create "update from the web" mechanisms for the applications. It could be included in the installer, or it could also be a separate custom mechanism built into the application.
Now, this is getting a bit complex, and I suspect that there might be no single installer that could do this all. Therefore I'm thinking between two fundamentally different approaches:
Platform-specific mechanisms: NSIS would create .exe or .msi for Windows, XXX would create .deb for Ubuntu, and YYY would create .dmg for OS X.
Cross-platform installer that would handle all the requirements above: ZZZ?
Any recommendations? Some options that I've looked include:
NSIS - Excellent, but Windows only.
IzPack - Good, but requires JVM to run.
Is there an universal tool for this, or should I just pick an appropriate tool separately for each platform? In the latter case, what would be "NSIS equivalents" for Ubuntu and Mac OS X?
I have some recommendations as follows.
Use WIX (Windows Installer XML) for creating MSI installers for Windows
Use Package Maker (part of XCode tools) on MAC OS X, preferably the command line version
Write wrapper scripts (in Python or so) to drive the over-all installer creation process.
to aggregate all the components you need to install (may be from ur version control system)
generate necessary files for Wix and Package Maker as much as possible
to run the packaging tool and generate the package
Make sure that the overall installer creation process is a simple one command operation overall (with options to create different versions of your package based on criteria like release branch etc.)
Overall, developing this workflow requires some initial effort and quite a lot of thinking. But the end result is quite worth the effort.
I haven't done this on the Linux side, but I guess would use RPM/DEB on that front in this workflow.
BitRock InstallBuilder meets all the requirements, including being multiplatform and providing an autoupdate mechanism
You should take a look at InstallJammer. It will definitely handle the cross-platform elements that you want and can even add entries to the DEB and RPM databases on the target system during installation. OS X support is still experimental, but it mostly works.