Sidenote

I am working on a Django project, where we have created some test users. Today I tried to login using my test user, but I found that I have forgotten the password. Since we have not implemented yet the Forgotten Password function, I had to make a new one.

So changing a user password is as easy as

(first run a django shell with python manage.py shell)

user = User.objects.get(username='your_user_name')

and then

#3 error: command 'gcc' failed with exit status 1

I get this error very often, especially when I pip install a package (e.g. Pillow, or any other package that needs to be compiled).

And this is happening because EVERY SINGLE TIME I forget to

Ok, Heroku is great (although more expensive)!

But I work on Windows (yeah, I know I have sold my soul to the Devil Gates). And I prefer everything Python than Ruby. So, in order to work with Heroku, I need the heroku-toolbelt, that comes with foreman, but foreman for reasons that I don't really care to investigate is not behaving as it should - at least at my machine.

So I have to get an alternative.

Thank god there is honcho (python fork of foreman) and - in case you want to be a more adventurous - there is forego (go fork of foreman).

So, Get heroku-toolbelt for windows

then

pip install honcho

and/or

get the forego binary or

compile it from source on your own

go get -u github.com/ddollar/forego

(you DO understand that you should have golang on your machine, right?)

One friend of mine invited me to collaborate on an application hosted on Heroku. Since I already have a Heroku account all I had to do was

git clone [email protected]:app_name.git my_folder_name -o heroku

But I got the following error message

Cloning into 'my_folder_name'...

The server's host key is not cached in the registry. You have no guarantee that the server is the computer you think it is.

The server's rsa2 key fingerprint is:

ssh-rsa 2048 8b;48:5e:67:0e:c9:16:47:32:f2:87:0c:1f:c8:60:ad

Connection abandoned.

fatal: Could not read from remote repository.

Please make sure you have the correct access rights and the repository exists.

Ok, first DO I have my ssh key on Heroku (Yes, I Do!)

Then you just have to run (assuming you already have putty installed)

putty heroku.com:22

It will ask you to add the server's host key to the registry and ...

That's it!

(don't bother trying to `run ssh heroku.com:22` because for some reason does not save host key to the registry).

Ok, I know, that's a very long to describe a problem, but I couldn't find something shorter for what was happening to me, the last two months (but i decided to look it up today).

I have a linux server with CentrifyDC Express installed and a Windows 2003 AD Controller.

The last two months my user (which is a Domain Admin and an adm and all the relevant admin privileges) could not connect on the shares that existed on my Linux server.

info: My shares on the Linux servers and my Windows servers are administrative shares that show up on the users under a DFS.

I tried to resolve the issue today and I tried to login to my Linux server with my AD credentials (thanks to CentrifyDC, but I guess you got it already). Although I logged in, when I tried to sudo something, my password got rejected!

So after some try and fail and some search, first I synchronized the time on my Linux server with an external ntp server. I logged in with my root account (thank God I had it enabled!) and I runned

$ apt-get install ntp

$ vim /etc/ntp.conf

added server 0.gr.pool.ntp.org

$ service ntp restart

or

$ service ntp stop

and

$ ntpdate 0.gr.pool.ntp.org

for immediate update.

Then I synchronized my AD controller with the same ntp server by running the following command

w32tm /config /syncfromflags:manual /manualpeerlist:0.gr.pool.ntp.org

w32tm /config /update

Finally on my Linux server

$ adflush

$ /usr/share/centrifydc/bin/centrifydc restart

#2 AngularJS with Django REST framework throughs error 301 (Moved Permanently)

This is caused because (copied from the Django REST framework website)

By default the URLs created by SimpleRouter are appended with a trailing slash. This behavior can be modified by setting the trailing_slash argument to False when instantiating the router. For example:

router = SimpleRouter(trailing_slash=False)

Trailing slashes are conventional in Django, but are not used by default in some other frameworks such as Rails. Which style you choose to use is largely a matter of preference, although some javascript frameworks may expect a particular routing style.

or you can fix it the AngularJS way by adding the following to your code

yourModuleName.config(['RestangularProvider', '$httpProvider', 

#1 Need a fast and small web server?

If you have python installed then create a script server.py, copy the following code

import SimpleHTTPServer import SocketServer

# minimal web server. serves files relative to the # current directory.

PORT = 8000

Handler = SimpleHTTPServer.SimpleHTTPRequestHandler

httpd = SocketServer.TCPServer(("", PORT), Handler)

print "serving at port", PORT httpd.serve_forever()

copy it inside the folder you want to be your root and run it with

python server.py

or

#1 Let's say that you want to install the mysql-python package on your virtualenv. You download the Windows binary but it keeps discovering only the default python env.

Make it do what you want with..

PS > .\virtual_envs\my_virtualenv\Scripts\activate.ps1

PS > easy_install MySQL-python-1.2.4.win32-py2.7.exe

* PS stands for PowerShell. Are you still using the obsolete Command Prompt?!

#2 Sometimes you keep getting ImportError exception message or other peculiar package_does_not_exist kind of messages

Instead of e.g.

PS > python .\manage.py

you should e.g.

# start root shell

sudo -s

# Add repositories

# Oracle Java 7

add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/java

# neo4j

# Import neo4j signing key

wget -O - http://debian.neo4j.org/neotechnology.gpg.key | apt-key add - 

# Create a neo4j Apt sources.list file

echo 'deb http://debian.neo4j.org/repo stable/' > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/neo4j.list

# Update

apt-get update

# Install Java 7

apt-get install oracle-java7-installer

# Check Java version (optional)

java -version

# You should get something like this

java version "1.7.0_21"

Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.7.0_21-b11)

Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 23.21-b01, mixed mode)

# Automatically set Java 7 environment variables

apt-get install oracle-java7-set-default

# Install Neo4j, community edition

apt-get install neo4j

# Enable access to webadmin from any address (optional)

sed -i.bak 's/#org.neo4j.server.webserver.address=0.0.0.0/org.neo4j.server.webserver.address=0.0.0.0/g' /etc/neo4j/neo4j-server.properties

# Enable basic authentication to the webadmin interface (optional)

# https://github.com/neo4j-contrib/authentication-extension

wget http://dist.neo4j.org.s3.amazonaws.com/authentication-extension/authentication-extension-1.9-SNAPSHOT-1.0-SNAPSHOT.jar -O /usr/share/neo4j/plugins/authentication-extension.jar

chown neo4j:adm /usr/share/neo4j/plugins/authentication-extension.jar

echo -e "# Basic Authentication for webadmin interface \norg.neo4j.server.credentials=username:password \norg.neo4j.server.thirdparty_jaxrs_classes=org.neo4j.server.extension.auth=/auth" >> /etc/neo4j/neo4j-server.properties

# Open Firewall port (optional)

iptables -A INPUT -i eth0 -p tcp --destination-port 7474 -j ACCEPT

iptables -A OUTPUT -d <YOUR_IP> -p tcp --source-port 7474 -m state --state ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT

iptables -A INPUT -s <YOUR_IP> -p tcp --destination-port 7474 -m state --state NEW,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT

iptables-save

# start neo4j server

service neo4j-service restart

Enjoy neo4j webadmin at http://<localhost or your_ip>:7474/webadmin !

And the single-lazy-admin-command

add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/java && wget -O - http://debian.neo4j.org/neotechnology.gpg.key | apt-key add - && echo 'deb http://debian.neo4j.org/repo stable/' > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/neo4j.list && apt-get update && apt-get install oracle-java7-installer && apt-get install oracle-java7-set-default && apt-get install neo4j && sed -i.bak 's/#org.neo4j.server.webserver.address=0.0.0.0/org.neo4j.server.webserver.address=0.0.0.0/g' /etc/neo4j/neo4j-server.properties && neo4j start

Information gathered from the following resources and tutorials:

http://www.neo4j.org/download/linux

http://nikolas.demiridis.gr/post/14666354160/install-oracle-java-jre7-and-aptana-studio-3-on-ubuntu

http://docs.neo4j.org/chunked/stable/security-server.html

http://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/view/4498/do-a-search-and-replace-in-a-file-after-making-a-backup

https://github.com/neo4j-contrib/authentication-extension

(hängiven min fru som tolererar mig för 9 år.)

Update

Install nginx

sudo apt-get install nginx

Install distribute (the new hotness!) Merged with setuptools

curl -O http://python-distribute.org/distribute_setup.py

python distribute_setup.py

 Install pip *

sudo apt-get install python-pip

* will also install the new python-setuptools

Install virtualenv (all time hotness)

pip install virtualenv

Create Virtual Environment

virtualenv --no-site-packages env_my_application

Activate Virtual Environment

source /home/user/env_my_application/bin/activate

Install required packages

pip install Django

pip install gunicorn

or if you already have a requirements.txt file

pip install -r requirements.txt

Change to your Django application folder

cd /home/user/my_application/

Test Django Application with Gunicorn

gunicorn my_application.wsgi:application -b 0.0.0.0:8000

Create gunicorn script

vim /home/user/guni_my_application.sh

add the following code

#!/bin/bash

set -e

LOGFILE=/home/user/logs/gunicorn.log

LOGDIR=$(dirname $LOGFILE)

NUM_WORKERS=9 #1 + 2 * CPUs

# user/group to run as

USER= user

GROUP= user

ADDRESS=127.0.0.1:8000

cd /home/user/my_application

source /home/user/env_my_application/bin/activate

test -d $LOGDIR || mkdir -p $LOGDIR

exec gunicorn -w $NUM_WORKERS --bind=$ADDRESS \

  --user=$USER --group=$GROUP --log-level=debug \

  --log-file=$LOGFILE 2>>$LOGFILE 

my_application.wsgi:application

give proper privileges with

sudo chmod ug+x  /home/user/guni_my_application.sh

create Upstart job

sudo vim /etc/init/your_service_name.conf

add the following

description "Your Service Name"

start on runlevel [2345]

stop on runlevel [06]

respawn

respawn limit 10 5

exec /home/user/guni_my_application.sh

create link to /etc/init.d

sudo ln -s /lib/init/upstart-job /etc/init.d/your_service_name

start your service

sudo service your_service_name start

Create nginx conf file for application

sudo vim /etc/nginx/sites-available/my_application.conf

add the following code

server {

    listen 80 default_server;

    #server_name my_application.mydomain.gr;

    access_log /home/user/logs/nginx.access.log;

    error_log /home/user/logs/nginx.error.log;

    location /favicon.ico { # favicon.ico

        alias /home/user/my_storage/my_application_static/media/favicon.ico; 

        expires 30d;

    }

    location /static/ { # STATIC_URL

        alias /home/user/my_storage/my_application_static/static/; # STATIC_ROOT

        expires 30d;

    }

    location /media/ { # MEDIA_URL

        alias /home/user/my_storage/my_application_static/media/; # MEDIA_ROOT

        expires 30d;

    }

    location / {

        proxy_pass_header Server;

        proxy_set_header Host $http_host;

        proxy_redirect off;

        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;

        proxy_set_header X-Scheme $scheme;

        proxy_connect_timeout 10;

        proxy_read_timeout 10;

        proxy_pass http://localhost:8000/;

    }

}

Create symlink to sites-enabled folder

ln -s  /etc/nginx/sites-available/my_application.conf  /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/my_application.conf

Make sure that nginx has access to your folders (that is if you get an error 13: Permission denied). Check the user is running under at /etc/nginx/nginx.conf, line 1!

Reload nginx configuration

sudo nginx -s reload

Start your service

sudo service my_application start

Enjoy!!!

The above steps were executed on an Ubuntu 12.04 LTS x64 with a user account with sudo privileges. It should run without any problem in any system

Information gathered by the following resources and tutorials

https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/howto/deployment/wsgi/gunicorn/

https://code.djangoproject.com/wiki/DjangoAndNginx

http://docs.gunicorn.org/en/latest/run.html#gunicorn

http://senko.net/en/django-nginx-gunicorn/

Update 07/Jun/2013: Added the favicon alias on nginx and added the forgotten upstart job create step.

If you happen to use Visual Studio 2012 and at the same time your company or your infrastructure uses the Squid proxy, then when you try to add a Visual Studio Extension you propably get the 417 Expectation Failed error.

The solution is to either add the ignore_expect_100 on line on the squid.conf file or add the following at you devenv.exe.conf file (near the end of file)

<system.net>

    <settings>

        <ipv6 enabled="true"/>

        <servicePointManager expect100Continue="false"/>

    </settings>

I admit it! I use a PC to write my Django apps. To be more accurate, I not only use a PC (instead of a MAC), I also run Windows 2008 Server on it and use VS2012 as my IDE! I know I must be something of a mad Microsoft fanboy, that buys anything Microsoft creates and adore Bill Gates as a god, or... I might just be reasonable.

The point is that I often have to install python packages that require compiling, such as the Python Imaging Library or ReportLab. If anyone has ever tried to install such libraries with either pip install pil or downloading the package and running setup.py install he may have received the message

error: Unable to find vcvarsall.bat

This message just states that he cannot find a compiler for the package. The solution is either installing MinGW32, or if you already have the VS2012 installed, use the VS compiler. If you want a permanent solution, then you have to add the System Variable VS90COMNTOOLS to point to the Visual Studio Common Tools folder. If you don't know the Visual Studio Common Tools folder check the screenshot to where you can find it.

The quick solution would be to run

SET VS90COMNTOOLS=%VS110COMNTOOLS%

before runing the setup.py install or the pip install pil command.

Working with Python, Django, virtualenv and GIT on a Windows PC with PowerShell is ... like working on a Mac except you have spent less money!!!

Thank to

Microsoft for PowerShell

Guido for Python

Adrian and Jacob for Django

Ian for virtualenv

Linus for GIT

GitHub for GitHub for Windows