8.4 KiB
Create a remote Zulip dev server
This guide is for mentors who want to help create remote Zulip dev servers for hackathon, GCI, or sprint participants.
The machines (droplets) have been generously provided by DigitalOcean to help Zulip contributors get up and running as easily as possible. Thank you DigitalOcean!
The create.py
create uses the DigitalOcean API to quickly create new virtual
machines (droplets) with the Zulip dev server already configured.
Step 1: Join Zulip DigitalOcean team
We have created a team on DigitalOcean for Zulip mentors. Ask Rishi or Tim to be added. You need access to the team so you can create your DigitalOcean API token.
Step 2: Create your DigitalOcean API token
Once you've been added to the Zulip team, log in to the DigitalOcean control panel and create your personal API token. Make sure you create your API token under the Zulip team. (It should look something like this).
Copy the API token and store it somewhere safe. You'll need it in the next step.
Step 3: Configure create.py
In tools/droplets/
there is a sample configuration file conf.ini-template
.
Copy this file to conf.ini
:
$ cd tools/droplets/
$ cp conf.ini-template conf.ini
Now edit the file and replace APITOKEN
with the personal API token you
generated earlier.
[digitalocean]
api_token = APITOKEN
Now you're ready to use the script.
Usage
create.py
takes two arguments
- GitHub username
- Tags (Optional argument)
$ python3 create.py <username>
$ python3 create.py <username> --tags <tag>
$ python3 create.py <username> --tags <tag1> <tag2> <tag3>
Assigning tags to droplets like GCI
can be later useful for
listing all the droplets created during GCI.
Tags
may contain letters, numbers, colons, dashes, and underscores.
You'll need to run this from the Zulip development environment (e.g. in Vagrant).
The script will also stop if a droplet has already been created for the
user. If you want to recreate a droplet for a user you can pass the
--recreate
flag.
$ python3 create.py <username> --recreate
This will destroy the old droplet and create a new droplet for the user.
In order for the script to work, the GitHub user must have:
- forked the zulip/zulip repository, and
- created an SSH key pair and added it to their GitHub account.
(Share this link with students if they need to do these steps.)
The script will stop if it can't find the user's fork or SSH keys.
Once the droplet is created, you will see something similar to this message:
Your remote Zulip dev server has been created!
- Connect to your server by running
`ssh zulipdev@<username>.zulipdev.org` on the command line
(Terminal for macOS and Linux, Bash for Git on Windows).
- There is no password; your account is configured to use your SSH keys.
- Once you log in, you should see `(zulip-py3-venv) ~$`.
- To start the dev server, `cd zulip` and then run `./tools/run-dev.py`.
- While the dev server is running, you can see the Zulip server in your browser
at http://<username>.zulipdev.org:9991.
See [Developing
remotely](https://zulip.readthedocs.io/en/latest/development/remote.html) for tips on
using the remote dev instance and [Git & GitHub
Guide](https://zulip.readthedocs.io/en/latest/git/index.html) to learn how to
use Git with Zulip.
Copy and paste this message to the user via Zulip chat. Be sure to CC the user so they are notified.
Updating the base image
Rough steps:
- Get the
ssh
key forbase.zulipdev.org
from Tim, Vishnu or Rishi. - Power up the
base.zulipdev.org
droplet from the digitalocean UI. You probably have to be logged in in the Zulip organization view, rather than via your personal account. ssh zulipdev@base.zulipdev.org
git pull upstream master
tools/provision
git clean -f
, in case things were added/removed from.gitignore
.tools/run-dev.py
, let it run to completion, and then Ctrl-C (to clear out anything in the RabbitMQ queue, load messages, etc).tools/run-dev.py
, and check thatbase.zulipdev.org:9991
is up and running.> ~/.bash_history && history -c && sudo shutdown -h now
to clear any command line history (To reduce chance of confusing new contributors in case you made a typo) and shut down the droplet.- Go to the Images tab on DigitalOcean, and "Take a Snapshot".
- Wait for several minutes.
- Do something like
curl -X GET -H "Content-Type: application/json" -u <API_KEY>: "https://api.digitalocean.com/v2/images?page=11" | grep --color=always base.zulipdev.org
(maybe with a different page number, and replace your API_KEY). - Replace
template_id
increate.py
in this directory with the appropriateid
. - Test that everything works.
- Open a PR with the updated template_id in zulip/zulip!
Creating a new base image
Creating a new base image happens rarely since updating the base image is good enough most of the time. Check out https://chat.zulip.org/#narrow/stream/3-backend/topic/new.20base.20dev.20droplet to view the discussion when we attempted to do upgrade last time.
Rough steps:
- Get the
ssh
key forbase.zulipdev.org
from Tim, Vishnu or Rishi. - Log in to the Zulip organization view, rather than via your personal account.
- Create a new droplet in DigitalOcean with 2GB RAM and
base.zulipdev.org
as the SSH authentication key. - Log in to the droplet as root user. Make sure to point the SSH program to the private
key of
base.zulipdev.org
during this step. - Create a user called
zulipdev
and add it to thesudo
group. - Make sudo of
zulipdev
user passwordless by includingzulipdev ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL
in/etc/sudoers.d/90-cloud-init-users
- Copy the
authorized_keys
file ofroot
user to the.ssh
directory ofzulipdev
user - Switch to
zulipdev
user and set the permissions for the.ssh
folder to700
and.ssh/authorized_keys
to600
. - Clone
https://github.com/zulip/zulip
repository in the home directory ofzulipdev
. git remote rename origin upstream
git clean -f
, in case things were added/removed from.gitignore
.tools/provision
- Insert
NODENAME=zulip@localhost
to/etc/rabbitmq/rabbitmq-env.conf
tools/provision
tools/run-dev.py
, and check thatbase.zulipdev.org:9991
is up and running.- Clone
https://github.com/zulip/python-zulip-api
repository in the home directory ofzulipdev
. git remote rename origin upstream
git clean -f
, in case things were added/removed from.gitignore
../tools/provision
.> ~/.bash_history && history -c && exit
- SSH to root user.
> ~/.bash_history && history -c && sudo shutdown -h now
- Go to the Images tab on DigitalOcean, and "Take a Snapshot".
- Wait for several minutes.
- Do something like
curl -X GET -H "Content-Type: application/json" -u <API_KEY>: "https://api.digitalocean.com/v2/images?page=11" | grep --color=always base.zulipdev.org
(maybe with a different page number, and replace your API_KEY). - Replace
template_id
increate.py
in this directory with the appropriateid
. - Test that everything works.
- Open a PR with the updated template_id in zulip/zulip!
Remotely debugging a droplet
To SSH into a droplet, first make sure you have a SSH key associated with your GitHub account, then ask the student to run the following in their VM:
$ python3 ~/zulip/tools/droplets/add_mentor.py <your username>
You should now be able to connect to it using:
$ ssh zulipdev@<their username>.zulipdev.org
They can remove your SSH keys by running:
$ python3 ~/zulip/tools/droplets/add_mentor.py <your username> --remove
Creating a production droplet
create.py
can also create a production droplet quickly for testing purposes.
$ python3 create.py <username> --production