Python and Virtualenv

1and1 doesn't give us a modern version of Python, so it is necessary to use virtualenv - a Python sandboxing script. .

virtualenv replaces the system Python (and assicated libraries and install packages) with locally-installed versions for as long as the environment is active. (Read about virtualenv here)

Apache Virtual Host Configuration

1and1 uses the Apache web server, and it is assumed that most development sites created to work on the acl main page will want to use it locally as well for maximum environment duplication. The best procedure for creating a development site probably involves setting up a virual host in the local Apache instance to serve the site from the local machine as though it were a standalone website. This page documents how to do that.

Weekly Report 2013-07-07

Completed Work

  1. Created additional documentation: for restoring site from backup and creating a development version on a local machine
  2. Started work on upgrade of Portal to Drupal 7
  3. Completed (?) Changes to menu structure requested by Kenneth Church and Graeme Hirst
    1. Reorganized main menu bar
      1. This involved the creation of a lot of (implicitly) suggested pages - especially for lists of conference sites

Mediawiki Extensions

The site wikis currently run on Mediawiki, the wiki engine used for Wikipedia. There is broad community support for Mediawiki, including a robust ecosystem of third-party addons. The following is the general procedure for adding third-party modules to MediaWiki sites. Note that this may vary for individual modules.

Upgrading Drupal (minor versions)

Upgrading Drupal to the latest version is a simple process. NOTE: These instructions involve upgrading Drupal from one minor version to another (e.g. 7.2.1 to 7.2.2). THEY DO NOT cover the much more complicated process of upgrading from one major version to another (e.g. 7.2.1 to 8.2.1). Major versions of Drupal are NOT cross-compatible, and upgrades generally involve creating a new site and importing content from the old site into it.

Making Site Backups

Site backups proceed in two phases. First, archives are made of relevant files on the server, then these archives are downloaded to an external harddrive. At the time of writing (2013-06-23), this is done remotely through the use of Python's fabric library.

Server-side backups

Site backups are current done through shell scripts located in the main directory.

At the time of writing, the following scripts exist:

Pages

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