[Radiant] Questions about deployment

Tue Jun 3 12:22:03 CDT 2008

Hi Anton,

I feel your pain, as I also follow the pattern of filling content into  
the database locally, and then deploy with that data later.

I use MySQL locally and on Dreamhost, and if you can live with that  
(MySQL is quite easy to install and manage), you can do as I do, which  
is not optimal or beautiful, but quite effective: Use mysqldump.

To export your local database, run this command from the root of your  
application:
mysqldump -u root radiant_development > ./db/dump.sql

Then upload the file to Dreamhost, and import it (make sure the  
database is created and empty):
mysql -u dh_mysql_user -pdh_mysql_pw radiant_production < ./db/dump.sql

If you have uploaded files using gallery, page_attachments or  
something else locally, you must also upload these manually from  
public to public.

/Casper

On 03/06/2008, at 13:45, Anton Aylward wrote:

> Thank you for this, Casper.
> I'm a Dreamhost customer and and this has cleaned up some 'failed to
> start' problems I've been having.
> Its also made deploying some examples I have on my laptop easier since
> now I can just have Apache deal with them on an as-needed basis  
> instead
> of having to do a "cd ~/Ruby/<application>; ./script/server &" each  
> time.
>
> However there is one aspect of deploying on Dreamhost that I'd like to
> ask the group here about, and that is getting the content of the
> database out there.
>
> My first deployment of Radiant on Dreamhost last year I had  
> developed on
> my laptop using SQlite3.  The laptop runs Linux, not Windows.  I  
> used a
> CSS file in the file system (lacking sophistication and  
> understanding of
> Radiant at that time).  I SFTP'd the files, including the database, to
> the Dreamhost machine but the application wouldn't start.  It couldn't
> open the database.  I don't know if this was a word-length, library or
> version problem.  The application content was small enough that I  
> could
> create a new database on Dreamhost and paste the pages in.
>
> Radiant is more sophisticated now.  The sites I'm developing use
> extensions such as attachments, galleries, and of course the brilliant
> styles_n_scripts.  Even before the site content is added there is a  
> lot
> of the site structure in the database now.  And before adding 'real'
> content I find that I lay out the hierarchy/structure and few pieces  
> of
> boilerplate like a 'site map', 'About', and content and feedback  
> pages.
>
> So I have a very simple problem of how do I get this database that  
> I've
> developed as a the template or basic site content out to Dreamhost?
>
> Reality is that by the time I've worked a bit it is more than just a
> template, not least of all because the actual CSS and actual logos and
> and snippets that deal with names etc are in the database too, as well
> as many place-holders.  You know how it goes.
>
> I've just spent a very futile week prior to deploying my new web  
> site on
> Dreamhost trying to convert a Sqlite3 database to a MySQL database  
> on my
> laptop.  I tried this so that I could "debug" any problems ahead of  
> time.
>
> There have been nothing but problems.  I have had no success.
>
> I started with the import/export extension.  It doesn't work.  At the
> very least it only knows about some of the tables.  I corresponded  
> with
> Sean about the problem and tried his suggestions.  Zilch.
>
> I also searched the web.  There are many articles about converting
> Sqlite3 to MySQL.  The ones on the MySQL site are plain wrong!  Others
> admit to things like differencing SQL syntax but their 'fixes' are
> incomplete.  Even after much hand editing of the Sqlite3 ".dump" file
> MySQL kept erroring. Some problems I could not find any reason for  
> even
> though the revised syntax was A-OK according to the MySQL  
> documentation.
>
> Chris Dwan posted a tool that allowed copy from one DB to another.
> http://blog.radixhound.com/2008/4/28/backing-up-radiant-cms-using-sqlite3
> I'm going to try this today on my laptop.  I'll report on how it goes.
>
> However there is still the problem of getting the database running on
> Dreamhost and getting content into it there.
>
> The reason I'm writing about this at length is that I am very  
> surprised
> that Rails doesn't have tools for all this as part of its baseline.
> Rails2 has moved to Sqlite3 as its default, and that's fine for
> development.  But I get to wonder if there are going to be more  
> projects
> that are like Radiant in that the database has a template and  
> structure
> that is part of the application and needs to be 'portable' as well.
>
> Rails really needs something that can do database export/import in a
> comprehensive and complete manner.
>
>
> Casper Fabricius said the following on 03/06/08 03:17 AM:
>> Hi Nate,
>>
>> I recently updated the guide for deploying Radiant to Dreamhost,
>> another shared host:
>> http://wiki.radiantcms.org/How_To_Deploy_on_Dreamhost
>>
>> I don't know Railsplayground, but assuming you have SSH access you
>> should be able to follow this guide, substituting the steps for
>> creating the website and a database with whatever you do at
>> Railsplayground. Also, my blog entry has examples of rolling two
>> popular extensions into the deployment package:
>> http://casperfabricius.com/blog/2008/05/24/radiant-cms-on-dreamhost-with-phusion-passenger/
>
> -- 
> Expecting life to treat your fairly because you are a good person is
> like expecting an angry bull not to charge because you are a  
> vegetarian.
>   -- Shari R Barr
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