Fabric file and related resources for deploying Mezzanine to Webfaction

[Eduardo Rivas]

Hello everyone! Since I started with Mezzanine/Django I've been deploying my sites to Webfaction (that's a referral link). Even though their one-click installers are great, they make it hard to keep your Django version up to date and automate the deployment process. For that you need to go beyond the official docs (however, tutorials are not hard to find). I decided to create my own version of the Fabric script that ships with Mezzanine and automate the whole deployment process using the Webfaction API (knowing that Webfaction accounts don't have root access to install stuff). And so, Mezzanine-WebF was born. I have used it internally for months and others have given it a shot, providing valuable feedback and bug fixes, so I'm confident it's reached an acceptable stability.

So, if you would like to automate deployment of Mezzanine sites to a Webfaction shared hosting account, this is the tool for the job. Feel free to report any bugs you find on Github's issue tracker and contribute fixes if you can. Please note you should be familiar enough with Django/Mezzanine, Fabric, and Webfaction to use the tool, and please read the README. I hope it helps a few. Here's the link again: https://github.com/jerivas/mezzanine-webf.

[Stephen McDonald]

Nice work Ed, that's awesome.

Webfaction's always been one of the most popular deployment targets, yet suffers from some inconsistencies with vanilla virtual servers - awesome to have a tool that solves that problem.

Do you want to add a link in the list of apps in Mezzanine's README, and to the Mezzanine grid on Django Packages (https://www.djangopackages.com/grids/g/mezzanine/)? If not I'll do it.

On Tue, Jun 10, 2014 at 3:27 PM, Eduardo Rivas <jeriva...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hello everyone! Since I started with Mezzanine/Django I've been deploying my sites to Webfaction (that's a referral link). Even though their one-click installers are great, they make it hard to keep your Django version up to date and automate the deployment process. For that you need to go beyond the official docs (however, tutorials are not hard to find). I decided to create my own version of the Fabric script that ships with Mezzanine and automate the whole deployment process using the Webfaction API (knowing that Webfaction accounts don't have root access to install stuff). And so, Mezzanine-WebF was born. I have used it internally for months and others have given it a shot, providing valuable feedback and bug fixes, so I'm confident it's reached an acceptable stability.

So, if you would like to automate deployment of Mezzanine sites to a Webfaction shared hosting account, this is the tool for the job. Feel free to report any bugs you find on Github's issue tracker and contribute fixes if you can. Please note you should be familiar enough with Django/Mezzanine, Fabric, and Webfaction to use the tool, and please read the README. I hope it helps a few. Here's the link again: https://github.com/jerivas/mezzanine-webf.

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Stephen McDonald
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[Ibn Saeed]

Thanks eduardo

Just signed up via your referral link. Ill test out the 14 day trial period.

Any pointers for new users to webfaction.

[Eduardo Rivas]

Thanks for the interest guys. Ibn, I recommend you take a look at the Webfaction docs and read the fabfile to have an idea of what it does. Some knowledge of Postgres and Git will also be useful. Finally, when you deploy, keep in mind many settings have default values in fabsettings.py, so just comment out any particular setting to use the default. This will maintain the settings you actually need to touch to a minimum.

[Ibn Saeed]

I have knowledge of postgres and git.  Just wanted to know about Webfaction.

Here is what i found out, on thier support site. Someone had asked about installing mezzanine cms on webfaction and someone from the webfaction team answered.

https://community.webfaction.com/questions/10290/how-can-i-install-the-mezzanine-cms-for-django-on-webfaction

On Wed, Jun 11, 2014 at 2:57 AM, Eduardo Rivas <jeriva...@gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks for the interest guys. Ibn, I recommend you take a look at the Webfaction docs and read the fabfile to have an idea of what it does. Some knowledge of Postgres and Git will also be useful. Finally, when you deploy, keep in mind many settings have default values in fabsettings.py, so just comment out any particular setting to use the default. This will maintain the settings you actually need to touch to a minimum.

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[Ibn Saeed]

Can webfaction handle large sites mainly serving dynamic content such as Ecommerce site. ?

[Eduardo Rivas]

Well, a Webfaction account is essentially a VPS with limited permissions and a bunch of stuff preinstalled, so what you can do with it depends on how well you use your RAM, bandwidth and disk space. A good thing about Webfaction is that the database server (Postrges or MySQL) and Nginx server don't add up to your total consumption, as they are shared by all accounts on a machine. Add to this that you can run memcached to lessen the burden of your app and something like Cloudflare as a CDN and your possibilities expand. Mezzanine-Webf does all these things (except for Cloudflare, that's handled at DNS level).

[Ibn Saeed]

How is the speed of the hosting at webfaction compared to a VPS from linode etc.

[Eduardo Rivas]

I couldn't tell. Webfaction is the only hosting provider I've used so
far.

[Josh Cartmell]

Hey Ibn, I've used both VPSs and Webfaction and never noticed a huge difference in terms of speed.  Obviously if a site got a ton of traffic you could outgrow Webfaction or a particular VPS and would need to scale things up.

Sometimes the shared MySQL servers on Webfaction get overwhelmed, but I've never had a problem with Postgres on them and if MySQL is a deal breaker you can always run a private MySQL server on Webfaction.

On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 5:44 PM, Eduardo Rivas <jeriva...@gmail.com> wrote:

I couldn't tell. Webfaction is the only hosting provider I've used so far.

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[Ibn Saeed]

Thanks for sharing your experience.

I would be using postgresql instead of mysql. I have decided to go
with WebFaction, and i will try and play with a VPS on the side and
see how i can manage it.

On 6/18/14, Josh Cartmell <joshc...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hey Ibn, I've used both VPSs and Webfaction and never noticed a huge
> difference in terms of speed. Obviously if a site got a ton of traffic you
> could outgrow Webfaction or a particular VPS and would need to scale things
> up.
>
> Sometimes the shared MySQL servers on Webfaction get overwhelmed, but I've
> never had a problem with Postgres on them and if MySQL is a deal breaker
> you can always run a private MySQL server on Webfaction.
>
>
> On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 5:44 PM, Eduardo Rivas <jeriva...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> I couldn't tell. Webfaction is the only hosting provider I've used so
>> far.
>>
>>
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>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
>> "Mezzanine Users" group.
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>>
>

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[Josh Cartmell]

Glad I could help!

[Ryan Sadwick]

Great job and thanks for stepping up  some getting this going!