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Installing Indico

Installing Indico

Only >=1.2

Before starting

From 0.98 on, Indico runs on WSGI. Previous releases were using mod_python. mod_python is no longer supported.

There are WSGI modules for all major web servers. We normally run mod_wsgi, using the Apache httpd server. Here is the recommended setup:

Python 2.6+
Apache httpd 2.2+
mod_wsgi 3.3+ (by installing libapache2-mod-wsgi)

You will need some system libraries:

python-devel (or python-dev depending on your OS)
libxslt-devel
libxml2-devel
libffi-devel
openldap-devel (if you wish to use LDAP authentication)

You will also need to easy_install python-ldap if you want LDAP to work.

Installing it

There are two options:

fetching a release (recommended)

You can do it from command line (recommended) executing:

# easy_install indico

Or, you can also do it fetching a tarball or egg file from here.

from our Git repository

You can find our git repository here (development sources);

You should have checked out an indico directory. cd into it and simply do (as root):

# python setup.py install

The setup script will fetch all the dependencies for you and install Indico as a Python EGG in your Python library path.

Post-Install script

The next step is to run indico_initial_setup:

# indico_initial_setup 
No previous installation of Indico was found.
Please specify a directory prefix:
[/opt/indico]:

and follow the instructions that the script will provide. By default, Indico will be installed under /opt/indico, but the setup script allows you to specify other paths.

By the end of the process, you should have obtained some information on how to start the database:

If you are running ZODB on this host:
 - Review etc/zodb.conf and etc/zdctl.conf to make sure everything is ok.
 - To start the database run: zdaemon -C etc/zdctl.conf start

As well as some information on the paths:

    indico.conf:      /opt/indico/etc/indico.conf

    BinDir:           /opt/indico/bin
    DocumentationDir: /opt/indico/doc
    ConfigurationDir: /opt/indico/etc
    HtdocsDir:        /opt/indico/htdocs

Configuring the Web Server

Indico needs to run behind a WSGI-compliant web server. This guide describes two options:

Apache HTTPD
Nginx/uWSGI

Configuring Apache (recommended)

If you already have a previous installation of Indico with mod_python, you should first remove it before starting the mod_wsgi installation and configuration.

Read this if that's the case.

HTTP Mode

Create a new file in the 'sites-available' folder of apache. It's located by default under '/etc/apache2/sites-available/'.

jdoe@localhost ~$ sudo gedit /etc/apache2/sites-available/indico

Copy the next lines into that file, making sure to replace 'jdoe' with your username:

AddDefaultCharset UTF-8

<VirtualHost *:80>
        # mod_wsgi indico

	ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/error.log
        LogLevel warn
	
	Alias /indico/images "/opt/indico/htdocs/images"
	Alias /indico/css "/opt/indico/htdocs/css"
	Alias /indico/js "/opt/indico/htdocs/js"
	Alias /indico/ihelp "/opt/indico/htdocs/ihelp"

	WSGIDaemonProcess WSGIDAEMON processes=32 threads=1 inactivity-timeout=3600 maximum-requests=10000 \
            python-eggs=/opt/indico/tmp/egg-cache

	WSGIScriptAlias /indico "/opt/indico/htdocs/indico.wsgi"
	
	<Directory "/opt/indico">
	    WSGIProcessGroup WSGIDAEMON
	    WSGIApplicationGroup %{GLOBAL}
	    AllowOverride None
	    Options None
	    Order deny,allow
	    Allow from all
	</Directory>
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:443>

	ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/error.log
            LogLevel warn
	
	Alias /indico/images "/opt/indico/htdocs/images"
	Alias /indico/css "/opt/indico/htdocs/css"
	Alias /indico/js "/opt/indico/htdocs/js"
	Alias /indico/ihelp "/opt/indico/htdocs/ihelp"

        WSGIScriptAlias /indico "/opt/indico/htdocs/indico.wsgi"

        SSLEngine on
        SSLCertificateFile    /etc/ssl/certs/ssl-cert-snakeoil.pem
	SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/ssl/private/ssl-cert-snakeoil.key
</VirtualHost>

Here's the explanation of the above lines:

Alias: Redirects some static locations to the containing folders, reducing load times.
WSGIDaemonProcess: Create 32 daemon processes of 1 thread each with name WSGIDAEMON. Set the python-path and python-eggs paths. (The other two parameters are for robustness).
WSGIScriptAlias: Redirect all petitions starting with /indico to the specified file.
WSGIProcessGroup: Configure the execution with the settings of WSGIDAEMON.
WSGIApplicationGroup: Set the execution to run under the same Python interpreter (the first created).

Accessing http://localhost/indico/ should give you the main Indico page.

Configuring uWSGI/nginx (option 2)

Indico might be installed as a uWSGI application, in order to run on Nginx (and possibly on Varnish as well). Create a uWSGI application configuration file for indico on /etc/uwsgi/apps-available/indico.ini:

[uwsgi]
pythonpath = /opt/indico
processes = 4
threads = 2
wsgi-file = /opt/indico/htdocs/indico.wsgi
post-buffering = 1
autoload = true
master = true
workers = 2
no-orphans = true
pidfile = /run/uwsgi/%(deb-confnamespace)/%(deb-confname)/pid
socket = /run/uwsgi/%(deb-confnamespace)/%(deb-confname)/socket
chmod-socket = 660
log-date = true
uid = www-data
gid = www-data

Then symlink this configuration file at /etc/uwsgi/apps-enabled/indico.ini:

# ln -s ../apps-available/indico.ini /etc/uwsgi/apps-enabled/indico.ini

The uWSGI daemon should be started after ZODB is running, and if you commit any changes to indico configuration, the daemon should also be restarted:

# /etc/init.d/uwsgi start

This will create the uwsgi daemon socket at /run/uwsgi/app/indico/socket.

Nginx configuration

By default all you need to do on Nginx is to redirect all Indico requests to the uwsgi socket. However, static files should be delivered directly. Here's a sample configuration that works for both HTTP and HTTPS:

## Here's the upstream socket
upstream indico {
    server unix:/run/uwsgi/app/indico/socket;
}

## Uncomment the following lines in case you want to enable HTTPS
#ssl_certificate        /etc/ssl/certs/ssl-cert-snakeoil.pem;
#ssl_certificate_key    /etc/ssl/private/ssl-cert-snakeoil.key;

## uWSGI cache params:
uwsgi_cache_key     $scheme$host$request_uri;
uwsgi_cache_valid   200 302  1h;
uwsgi_cache_valid   301      1d;
uwsgi_cache_valid   any      1m;
uwsgi_cache_min_uses  1;
uwsgi_cache_use_stale error  timeout invalid_header http_500;

server {
    listen 80;
    ## uncomment the following line to enable HTTPS access
    #listen 443 ssl;

    server_name _;
    root                   /opt/indico/htdocs;
    index                  index.py;

    ## try to get static files directly, if not, send request to Indico upstream
    location ~* ^.+.(jpg|jpeg|gif|css|png|js|ico|html|xml|txt|pdf|swf|woff|ttf|otf|svg|ico)$ {
        access_log        off;
        expires           max;
        try_files $uri @indico;
    }

    ## This is should be the same path as the BaseURL configuration at indico.conf
    location / {
        include         uwsgi_params;
        uwsgi_pass      indico;
    }

    location @indico {
        include         uwsgi_params;
        uwsgi_pass      indico;
    }
}

If the file /etc/nginx/uwsgi_params does not exist, create it with the following content:

uwsgi_param     QUERY_STRING            $query_string;
uwsgi_param     REQUEST_METHOD          $request_method;
uwsgi_param     CONTENT_TYPE            $content_type;
uwsgi_param     CONTENT_LENGTH          $content_length;

uwsgi_param     REQUEST_URI             $request_uri;
uwsgi_param     PATH_INFO               $document_uri;
uwsgi_param     DOCUMENT_ROOT           $document_root;
uwsgi_param     SERVER_PROTOCOL         $server_protocol;
uwsgi_param     UWSGI_SCHEME            $scheme;

uwsgi_param     REMOTE_ADDR             $remote_addr;
uwsgi_param     REMOTE_PORT             $remote_port;
uwsgi_param     SERVER_PORT             $server_port;
uwsgi_param     SERVER_NAME             $server_name;

Please note that the uwsgi_param UWSGI_SCHEME is not available by default, and it's required in case you configure a server with both HTTP and HTTPS.

After setup, restart nginx:

# /etc/init.d/nginx restart

Indico config file

The next step should be inspecting indico.conf and configuring it to fit your server configuration. indico.conf replaces the old config.xml, so you will have to update it with the paramaters that you already have in your config.xml.

From v1.2 on, the URLs will be shorter, alike http://my.indico.srv/event/2413/ instead of the historical http://my.indico.srv/conferenceDisplay.py?confId=2413. If you want to stay compatible with the old way, i.e. redirect from the old URLs to new URLs, then you need to set RouteOldUrls = True in your (new) indico.conf file.

Post-install tasks

If you wish to use the scheduler daemon (replaces old taskDaemon), then you should run:

sudo -u apache indico_scheduler start

Do not forget to delete the following file:

/your/tmp/folder/vars.js.tpl.tmp

Migration

If you are using an existing DB, please read this.

Future installations

Once you have succeeded to install Indico for the first time, you can automatize the upgrading process with a single script. This script should basically include the following actions:

$ easy_install -U indico

$ indico_initial_setup --existing-config=/opt/indico/etc/indico.conf #replace with your path to your indico.conf

# restart apache
/path/to/httpd restart

Last modified 15 months ago Last modified on 07/24/14 11:55:57

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