Setting Up Your Plone Deployment Server#
Your Plone project's generated codebase includes a /devops
folder, equipped with tools for provisioning and setting up a basic server installation. We'll utilize Ansible for automation, Docker for containerization, and Docker Swarm for enhanced scalability and availability.
Configuring the Environment#
Create a new .env
file by copying the content from the existing .env_dist
file:
cp .env_dist .env
Customize the .env
file to match your specific deployment environment. Here’s an example configuration:
DEPLOY_ENV=prod
DEPLOY_HOST=ploneconf2023-<user>.tangrama.com.br
DEPLOY_PORT=22
DEPLOY_USER=plone
DOCKER_CONFIG=.docker
STACK_NAME=ploneconf2023
Note
The .env
file is listed in .gitignore
to prevent pushing environment-specific configurations to the repository.
Installing Ansible#
Run the following command to create a Python 3 virtual environment and install Ansible with its dependencies:
make setup
Configuring the Inventory#
Update the inventory/hosts.yml
file with the appropriate server details:
---
prod:
hosts:
ploneconf2023-<user>.tangrama.com.br:
ansible_user: root
host: ploneconf2023-<user>
hostname: ploneconf2023-<user>.tangrama.com.br
Initiating Server Setup#
Execute the server setup command. It runs the Ansible playbook playbooks/setup.yml
, performing tasks like installing base packages, creating a user, setting up SSH, and initializing Docker Swarm on the remote server:
make server-setup
Verifying Remote Server Access#
You should now be able to SSH into the remote server as both root and plone users:
ssh root@ploneconf2023-<user>.tangrama.com.br
ssh plone@ploneconf2023-<user>.tangrama.com.br
Setting Up Docker#
Ensure you’re logged into Docker, as the deployment process uses public images. Create a new Docker context for the remote server:
make docker-setup
Confirm the setup by retrieving information about the Docker context:
make docker-info
Review#
By now you’ve now successfully set up a Plone deployment server using Ansible for automated provisioning, Docker for containerization, and Docker Swarm for scalability and availability.
The next step is to deploy your project to this server.