Running the devstack on Windows

[Felipe Montoya]

Hi all,

I have been attempting to get the vagrant devstack working on windows 8.1 and I want to share my results so far.

The main problem when running the edx-platform on windows as the host OS are the symlinks on the shared folders. It is just not supported.

With this in mind I am doing the following workaround. The line endings are not a problem this time, because the git doing the pull int the one installed inside the machine.

First I start by using a modified Vagrant file which does not share the directories. I put it in a gist:

# empanada

curl https://gist.github.com/felipemontoya/8736100/raw/3a8628a866f4be033fbd5234470a66d24305ad10/Vagrantfile > Vagrantfile

# foccacia

curl https://gist.github.com/felipemontoya/8737265/raw/e8984fb41e9eeeb69992769b04b573265dd11010/Vagrantfile > Vagrantfile

Then I let vagrant run once through.

vagrant up

If anyone following this only wants to test drive the platform but not modify the code, then you could stop here, ssh into the machine and start the devstack It should work flawlessly.

Now my workaround is to copy all the code in a temp folder, then reload the vagrant configuration and this time do share the directories and copy the code back.

Steps:

vagrant ssh

mkdir /var/tmp/code_tmp

sudo chmod a+w /var/tmp/code_tmp

sudo su edxapp

mv /edx/app/edxapp/edx-platform /var/tmp/code_tmp/

#ctrl + D

sudo su forum

mv /edx/app/forum/cs_comments_service /var/tmp/code_tmp/

#ctrl + D

sudo su ora

mv /edx/app/ora/ora /var/tmp/code_tmp/

#ctrl + D

Exit the machine, and change the configuration:

vagrant halt

uncomment lines 63-64-65 from the Vagrantfile

vagrant up

# This time the provision will not run because it already has

# Now log in and copy the code back

sudo su edxapp

cp -r /var/tmp/code_tmp/edx-platform/* .

cp -r /var/tmp/code_tmp/edx-platform/.git* .

#ctrl + D

sudo su forum

cp -r /var/tmp/code_tmp/cs_comments_service/* .

cp -r /var/tmp/code_tmp/cs_comments_service/.git* .

#ctrl + D

sudo su ora

cp -r /var/tmp/code_tmp/ora/* .

cp -r /var/tmp/code_tmp/ora/.git* .

#ctrl + D

sudo su edxapp

# If you try to run now, most probably coffescript wont install, because it is on a shared unit, so install it in a directory belonging to the guest SO only.

npm install -g --prefix ~/node/

# And now two choices, either you add the installation of coffescript to your path, say

export PATH=/edx/app/edxapp/node/lib/node_modules/edx/node_modules/.bin/:$PATH

# and change lines 34 and 36 of assets.rake in edx-platform/rakelib/ to remove the path and use only coffe

# example

    if watch

        "coffee --compile --watch lms/ cms/ common/"

    else

        "coffee --compile `find lms/ cms/ common/ -type f -name *.coffee` "

    end

# or you use the full path in assets.rake

# example

    if watch

        "/edx/app/edxapp/node/lib/node_modules/edx/node_modules/.bin/coffee --compile --watch lms/ cms/ common/"

    else

        "/edx/app/edxapp/node/lib/node_modules/edx/node_modules/.bin/coffee --compile `find lms/ cms/ common/ -type f -name *.coffee` "

    end

after all this, I was expecting the symlinks to work only after being replaced by method that had worked before [#dealing-with-line-endings-and-symlinks-under-windows], but they just worked normally, so much better. Just run "rake devstack[lms]" or studio, as you would normally.

For reference I'm running on win 8.1, Virtualbox 4.2.12 (r84980) and vagrant 1.4.3.

Please let me know if something can be done in a better/cleaner/nicer way, or if something doesn't work for you and we can try to iron it out.

Cheers,

Felipe Montoya

www.edunext.co

[Felipe Montoya]

Quick update:

The reason why the files were working without the symlinks being processed was that they got deleted in the copy. So please un-delete them using git, and deal with the symlinks as the wiki explains. (The first command is not needed: git rm --cached -r . && git reset --hard) 

--Felipe

[Yarko Tymciurak]

Had you seen this?   (sorry for the re-send; forgot "reply-all" before):

https://github.com/edx/edx-platform/wiki/Simplified-install-with-vagrant#wiki-dealing-with-line-endings-and-symlinks-under-windows

[Felipe Montoya]

Hi Yarko,

yes, this is what I used to do, but it was not working for me with the devstack-empanada. So my workaround it to get to the point, where it works again.

--Felipe

[benal...@gmail.com]

HI Yarko / Felipe , 

i m trying to install devstack on my windows laptop ( 16GB RAM ) . 

what are the prerequisites to this installation ? any SW needed ?  

Regards , 

Amine

[Ned Batchelder]

Last I knew, there was still an issue of symbolic links not being supported by Virtualbox on windows.  Is that not a problem any more?

--Ned.

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[Felipe Montoya]

I guess there still is a problem with symlinks, but I have not used windows for openedx since 2014 so I cant really confirm.

--

Felipe Montoya