Welcome to Melissi Server’s documentation!

Installing

To host your own melissi server (aka Hive)

Melissi is a cloud storage server written in Django. Each server is called a Hive.

Ultimattely the hives will be able to communicate with each other, forming a federated network of cloud storage servers. You will have control of your data and your infrastracture and still be able to share files with others, even if they live in different hives.

If you want can host your own hive and be the master of you data and your infrastracture, then this document is for you.

If you just want a place to store your data then you can use a hive controlled by someone else. You can join a hive controlled by your friends, your university or your company.

Things To Know

1. Melissi server is currently alpha software. Things may and will change drastically, as the project evolves and matures.

2. You shouldn’t trust melissi to backup your data. Melissi is a storage platform not a backup platform.

3. If things go bad, or you get stuck feel free to ping us at @melissiproject, or #melissiproject on freenode.

4. Please fill bug reports on github, the more the bug reports and better the software will be.

Preparing You System

To install your own hive:

1. Make sure you have a recent Python installed.

   Most distributions come with python preinstalled, so probably you need to do nothing. Check if you have python using the following command

   ~$ python --version

2. Install virtualenv and pip

   Virtualenv creates a virtual python environment, in which we will install melissi and all its dependencies (e.g. Django). This way your melissi installation won’t conflict with any other python projects / installs you may have on your server. PIP is a package manager for python.

   • For Debian systems

     ~$ sudo apt-get install python-pip python-virtualenv

   • For Fedora system

     ~$ su -c "yum install python-pip python-virtualenv"

3. Install git

   We use git to version our code. To get the latest melissi source code you need to install git.

   • For Debian systems

     ~$ sudo apt-get install git

   • For Fedora systems

     ~$ su -c "yum install git"

4. Installing Extra Packages (Optional)

   Because we are building melissi inside a virtual enviroment you will need to download some extra packages to be able to compile some python modules, such as the MySQL-python

   • Mysql on Debian Systems

     Install python development files, needed to build python mysql connector.

     ~$ sudo apt-get install python-dev

     Install MySQL

     ~$ sudo apt-get install mysql-server libmysqlclient-dev

   • PosteSQL on Debian Systems

     Install python and postgresql development files, needed to build python postgresql connector.

     ~$ sudo apt-get install python-dev

     Install PostgreSQL

     ~$ sudo apt-get install postgresql libpg-dev

   • Mysql on Fedora

     Install python development files, needed to build python mysql connector.

     ~$ su -c "yum install python-devel"

     Install MySQL

     ~$ su -c "yum install mysql mysql-devel"

   • PosteSQL on Fedora

     Install python and postgresql development files, needed to build python postgresql connector.

     ~$ su -c "yum install python-devel"

     Install PostgreSQL

     ~$ su -c "yum install postgresql postgresql-devel"

Getting Melissi Source

You can get the source from our git repository.

1. Move to the directory you want to install melissi

   ~$ mkdir /srv/melissi
   ~$ cd /srv/melissi

2. Fetch the source code

   ~$ git clone git://github.com/melissiproject/server.git

Installing Melissi

Move to the directory you cloned melissi server and run the melissi-installer. Melissi installer will download from pypi all the needed python packages to run melissi.

~$ cd /srv/melissi/server
~$ ./scripts/melissi-installer.py --install

Note

It is recomended that you use melissi with a good database backend like MySQL or PostgreSQL. Do install the needed support you can should use the –mysql and / or –postgresql flags among the –install flag.

~$ ./scripts/melissi-install.py --install --mysql

If no flags are used then your hive will be able to run only using sqlite.

Warning

To install the mysql or postesql backends you need to execute the steps in section extra-packages

Configuring Your Hive

Before running your hive you need to configure at least the database settings and the storage path. All configuration options are located in file local_settings.py.

1. Copy settings template

~$ cp local_settings.py.example local_settings.py

2. Edit using you favorite editor local_settings.py

   • Set DATABASES

     This is the database to be used for melisi. You can refer to Django’s documentation on Databases if you need more help.

   • Set SECRET_KEY

     A random secret key used as a seed in secret-key hashing algorithms. For more see Django’s documentation on SECRET_KEY

   • Set MELISSI_STORE_LOCATION

     Point to a directory to store uploaded data to.

     Note

     Since this directory is going to store the data from all user of your hive make sure that you save enough storage for everything.

   • Set MELISSI_REGISTRATIONS_OPEN (Default: False)

     Set either to True or False if you want or not other to be able to create accounts on your hive.

3. Setup the database

   ~$ source env/bin/activate

   (env)~$ python manage.py syncdb
   (env)~$ python manage.py migrate mlscommon

   Warning

   When executing syncdb answer no to the question whether to create a superuser or not, or the setup will fail.

4. Setup a superuser

   (env)~$ python manage.py createsuperuser

Running Your Hive

Test Setup: Using internal webserver

You can run your hive in test mode using django’s internal webserver.

(env)~$ python manage.py runserver

Note

Your hive listens by default on localhost:8000. To listen to another port or interface you can execute runserver command with extra parameters

(env)~$ python manage.py runserver 0.0.0.0:8000

bind to all available interfaces on port 8000

Warning

The communication between your hive and clients will not be encrypted.

Real Setup: Nginx and Gunicorn

Warning

This section is incomplete

1. gunicorn

   ~$ cd /path/you/installed/melissi
   ~$ pip -E env install gunicorn

2. nginx

   1. install
   2. setup
   3. ssl (optional but recommended)

3. Install supervisor

Updating Your Hive

1. Update the source

   ~$ cd /path/you/installed/melissi
   ~$ ./scripts/melissi-installer.py --upgrade

2. If first step completes without errors, when run the install script, to download new packages

   ~$ ./scripts/melissi-install.py --install

3. Synchronize and migrate database

   ~$ source env/bin/activate

   (env)~$ cd melisi
   (env)~$ python manage.py syncdb
   (env)~$ python manage.py migrate mlscommon

4. Restart your server

Hive Administration

Things To Know

Adding and Removing Users

You can use Django’s Admin with you superuser account to add and remove users.