Installation of NearBeach

The following instructions will inform you how to setup NearBeach and get it running on your Web Server.

1. You will need to be in your virtual environment

source <<virtualenv_location>>/bin/activate

2. Navigate to your project’s folder

$ cd <<django_project_location>>

3. Install NearBeach through PIP. This will install NearBeach as well as all the required libraries utilised by NearBeach.

pip install NearBeach

4. Edit the project’s settings.py to include NearBeach

$ nano ./<<project name>>/settings.py

5. Add the following line to the “INSTALLED_APPS” section

'NearBeach.apps.NearBeachConfig',

Now save the document and add the following two lines to the “context_processors” under “TEMPLATES”.

'NearBeach.context_processors.django_version',
'NearBeach.context_processors.nearbeach_version',

These two lines will render the version of both Django and NearBeach inside the templates.

6. Enabling reCAPTCHA (optional). Register an account at [Google reCAPTCHA](https://www.google.com/recaptcha/intro/invisible.html).

$ nano ./<<project name>>/settings.py

The following variables will need to be placed into your settings.py.

RECAPTCHA_PUBLIC_KEY = 'Your public key'
RECAPTCHA_PRIVATE_KEY = 'Your private key'

7. Security - Add the following lines of code into the settings.py

SECURE_SSL_REDIRECT = True
SESSION_COOKIE_SECURE = True
CSRF_COOKIE_SECURE = True
CSRF_HTTPONLY = True

8. Email - optional however required for resetting passwords

$ nano ./<<project name>>/settings.py

Add the following lines of code into the settings.py

EMAIL_BACKEND = 'django.core.mail.backends.smtp.EmailBackend'
EMAIL_USE_TLS = True
EMAIL_HOST = '<< your email host >>'
EMAIL_PORT = 25
EMAIL_HOST_USER = '<< your username >>'
EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD = '<< your password >>'
DEFAULT_FROM_EMAIL = EMAIL_HOST_USER

9. Private Documents

nano ./<<project name>>/settings.py

Add the following lines of code into the settings.py

PRIVATE_MEDIA_URL = '/private/' #Can change
if DEBUG:
    # dev
    import os

    PRIVATE_MEDIA_ROOT = os.path.abspath(os.path.dirname(__file__))
    PRIVATE_MEDIA_SERVER = 'DefaultServer'
else:
    # prod
    PRIVATE_MEDIA_ROOT = '<< folder containing private folder >>'
    PRIVATE_MEDIA_SERVER = 'ApacheXSendfileServer'

Note

Please note: The PRIVATE_MEDIA_ROOT variable will only contain the folder that contains the Private folder. The system will automatically append the ‘private’ variable onto the end of PRIVATE_MEDIA_ROOT.

The following redundant code will need to be used at the moment.

STATIC_URL = '/static/'
STATIC_ROOT= os.path.join(BASE_DIR,'static/')
MEDIA_URL = '/media/'
MEDIA_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR,'media/')

10. Edit the project’s URL.py to include NearBeach

nano ./<<project name>>/url.py

Please make sure that the following import in included at the top of the file

from django.urls import path, include

Either of the following can be entered into the “urlpatterns” section

path('', include('NearBeach.urls')),

11. Create Database/Migrations

The database will need to be setup. Please note by default Django uses sqlite3, however it is possible to setup NearBeach to use a mysql database.

python ./manage.py migrate
python ./manage.py migrate NearBeach

If you have setup NearBeach with an SQLite database, you will need to change it’s permissions so nginx can access it

sudo chmod 755 ./db.sqlite

12. Create superuser

A superuser will need to be created. This superuser will be able to enter the ADMIN site of Django, which from there will be able to do administration items.

python ./manage.py createsuperuser

Enter in the correct details for the superuser

13. Collect the static

The website uses static images, javascript, and CSS. You will need to collect this data to the static folder (set in the settings.py). Please run the following command

python ./manage.py collectstatic

14. Create the private media folder

$ mkdir ./private_media/

15. Assign write permissions to the ./media/ and ./private_media/ folder

$ sudo chmod -R 755 ./media
$ sudo chmod -R 755 ./private_media

Restart gunicorn

$ sudo service gunicorn restart

NearBeach should now be setup for you on your server. Navigate to your server’s Domain Name or IP address and you should see the login screen. Please note it is recommended to have HTTPS enabled, we recommend Lets Encrypt. Please see https://letsencrypt.org/ and follow the prompts to get Cert Bot installed.

Note

The first user to log in will automatically get administration permissions. It is recommended to get the system admin to log in first before importing any user data from other sources. This also allows the admin to setup groups and permissions.