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CKAN Deployment

Note

If you use the package installation method your site will already have been deployed using the Apache and modwsgi route described below.

This document covers how to deploy CKAN in a production setup where it is available on the Internet. This will usually involve connecting the CKAN web application to a web server such as Apache or NGinx.

As CKAN uses WSGI, a standard interface between web servers and Python web applications, CKAN can be used with a number of different web server and deployment configurations including:

  • Apache with the modwsgi Apache module
  • Apache with paster and reverse proxy
  • Nginx with paster and reverse proxy
  • Nginx with uwsgi

Note

below, we will only be able to give a few example of setups and many other ones are possible.

Deploying CKAN on an Ubuntu Server using Apache and modwsgi

These instructions have been tested on Ubuntu 10.04 with CKAN 1.7.

This is the standard way to deploy CKAN.

Install Apache and modwsgi

Install Apache (a web server) and modwsgi (an Apache module that adds WSGI support to Apache):

sudo aptitude install apache2 libapache2-mod-wsgi

Install CKAN

The following assumes you have installed to /usr/local/demo.ckan.net with your virtualenv at /usr/local/demo.ckan.net/pyenv.

Create the WSGI Script File

Create the WSGI script file for your CKAN instance, /usr/local/demo.ckan.net/pyenv/bin/demo.ckan.net.py:

import os
instance_dir = '/usr/local/demo.ckan.net'
config_file = '/usr/local/demo.ckan.net/pyenv/src/ckan/development.ini'
pyenv_bin_dir = os.path.join(instance_dir, 'pyenv', 'bin')
activate_this = os.path.join(pyenv_bin_dir, 'activate_this.py')
execfile(activate_this, dict(__file__=activate_this))
from paste.deploy import loadapp
config_filepath = os.path.join(instance_dir, config_file)
from paste.script.util.logging_config import fileConfig
fileConfig(config_filepath)
application = loadapp('config:%s' % config_filepath)

The modwsgi Apache module will redirect requests to your web server to this WSGI script file. The script file then handles those requests by directing them on to your CKAN instance (after first configuring the Python environment for CKAN to run in).

Create the Apache Config File

Create the Apache config file for your CKAN instance by copying the default Apache config file:

cd /etc/apache2/sites-available sudo cp default demo.ckan.net

Edit /etc/apache2/sites-available/demo.ckan.net, before the last line (</VirtualHost>) add these lines:

ServerName demo.ckan.net
ServerAlias demo.ckan.net
WSGIScriptAlias / /usr/local/demo.ckan.net/pyenv/bin/demo.ckan.net.py

# pass authorization info on (needed for rest api)
WSGIPassAuthorization On
ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/demo.ckan.net.error.log
CustomLog /var/log/apache2/demo.ckan.net.custom.log combined

This tells the Apache modwsgi module to redirect any requests to the web server to the CKAN WSGI script that you created above (demo.ckan.net.py). Your WSGI script in turn directs the requests to your CKAN instance.

Create Directories for CKAN's Temporary Files

Make the data and sstore directories and give them the right permissions:

cd /usr/local/demo.ckan.net/pyenv/src/ckan/
mkdir data sstore
chmod g+w -R data sstore
sudo chgrp -R www-data data sstore

CKAN Log File

Edit your CKAN config file (e.g. /usr/local/demo.ckan.net/pyenv/src/ckan/development.ini), find this line:

args = ("ckan.log", "a", 20000000, 9)

and change it to set the ckan.log file location to somewhere that CKAN can write to, e.g.:

args = ("/var/log/ckan/demo.ckan.net/ckan.log", "a", 20000000, 9)

Then create that directory and give it the right permissions:

sudo mkdir -p /var/log/ckan/demo.ckan.net
sudo chown www-data /var/log/ckan/demo.ckan.net

Enable Your CKAN Site

Finally, enable your CKAN site in Apache:

sudo a2ensite demo.ckan.net
sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

You should now be able to visit your server in a web browser and see your new CKAN instance.

Troubleshooting

Default Apache Welcome Page

If you see a default Apache welcome page where your CKAN front page should be, it may be because the default Apache config file is overriding your CKAN config file (both use port 80), so disable it and restart Apache:

$ sudo a2dissite default
$ sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

403 Forbidden and 500 Internal Server Error

If you see a 403 Forbidden or 500 Internal Server Error page where your CKAN front page should be, you may have a problem with your unix file permissions. The Apache web server needs to have permission to access your WSGI script file (e.g. /usr/local/demo.ckan.net/pyenv/bin/demo.ckan.net.py) ''and all of its parent directories''. The permissions of the file should look like -rw-r--r-- and the permissions of each of its parent directories should look like drwxr-xr-x.

IOError: sys.stdout access restricted by mod_wsgi

If you're getting 500 Internal Server Error pages and you see IOError: sys.stdout access restricted by mod_wsgi in your log files, it means that something in your WSGI application (e.g. your WSGI script file, your CKAN instance, or one of your CKAN extensions) is trying to print to stdout, for example by using standard Python print statements. WSGI applications are not allowed to write to stdout. Possible solutions include:

  1. Remove the offending print statements. One option is to replace print statements with statements like print >> sys.stderr, "..."

  2. Redirect all print statements to stderr:

    import sys
    sys.stdout = sys.stderr
    
  3. Allow your application to print to stdout by putting WSGIRestrictStdout Off in your Apache config file (not recommended).

Also see https://code.google.com/p/modwsgi/wiki/ApplicationIssues

Log Files

In general, if it's not working look in the log files in /var/log/apache2 for error messages. demo.ckan.net.error.log should be particularly interesting.

modwsgi wiki

Some pages on the modwsgi wiki have some useful information for troubleshooting modwsgi problems:

Mounting CKAN at a non-root URL

CKAN (since version 1.6) can run mounted at a 'sub-directory' URL, such as http://mysite.com/data/. This is achieved by changing the WSGIScriptAlias first parameter (in the Apache site config). e.g.:

WSGIScriptAlias /data /home/dread/etc/ckan-pylons.py

CORS

As of CKAN v1.5 CORS is built in to CKAN so for CKAN >= 1.5 no modifications to your webserver config are needed.

CORS = Cross Origin Resource Sharing. It is away to allow browsers (and hence javascript in browsers) make requests to domains other than the one the browser is currently on.

In Apache you can enable CORS for you CKAN site by setting the following in your config:

Header always set Access-Control-Allow-Origin "*"
Header always set Access-Control-Allow-Methods "GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, OPTIONS"
Header always set Access-Control-Allow-Headers "X-CKAN-API-KEY, Content-Type"

# Respond to all OPTIONS requests with 200 OK
# This could be done in the webapp
# This is need for pre-flighted requests (POSTs/PUTs)
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} OPTIONS
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1 [R=200,L]