Step-by-Step Installation

For a simpler setup using Docker images, see Using Docker instead.

In these instructions, we’ll use VirtualBox and Ubuntu 22.04 to create a disposable sandbox for Allura development/testing. Allura should work on other Linux systems (including OSX), but setting up all the dependencies will be different.

  • Download and install VirtualBox for your platform.

  • Download a server image of Ubuntu 22.04 64-bit ISO.

  • Create a new virtual machine in Virtual Box, selecting Ubuntu (64 bit) as the OS type. The rest of the wizards’ defaults are fine.

  • When you launch the virtual machine for the first time, you will be prompted to attach your installation media. Browse to the ubuntu-22.04.2-live-server-amd64.iso that you downloaded earlier.

  • After a text-only installation, you may end up with a blank screen and blinking cursor. Press Alt-F1 to switch to the first console.

  • Consult available documentation for help installing Ubuntu.

System Packages

Before we begin, you’ll need to install some system packages. Allura currently supports Python 3.8 through 3.11. The steps below use Python 3.11.

~$ sudo apt-get update
~$ sudo apt-get install gpg gpg-agent
~$ sudo apt-get install software-properties-common
~$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:deadsnakes/ppa
~$ sudo apt-get update
~$ sudo apt-get install git-core python3.11 python3.11-dev gcc libmagic1 libssl-dev libldap2-dev libsasl2-dev libjpeg8-dev zlib1g-dev libffi-dev

To install MongoDB, follow the instructions here.

Optional, for SVN support:

~$ sudo apt-get install subversion libsvn-dev make g++ python3-svn

Setting up a python virtual environment

The first step to installing the Allura platform is installing a virtual environment via venv. This helps keep our distribution python installation clean.

~$ sudo apt-get install python3.11-venv

Then create a virtual environment. We’ll call our Allura environment ‘env-allura’.

~$ python3.11 -m venv env-allura

This gives us a nice, clean environment into which we can install all the allura dependencies. In order to use the virtual environment, you’ll need to activate it:

~$ source env-allura/bin/activate

You’ll need to do this whenever you’re working on the Allura codebase so you may want to consider adding it to your ~/.bashrc file.

Creating the log directory

(env-allura)~$ sudo mkdir -p /var/log/allura
(env-allura)~$ sudo chown $(whoami) /var/log/allura

Installing the Allura code and dependencies

Now we can get down to actually getting the Allura code and dependencies downloaded and ready to go. If you don’t have the source code yet, run:

(env-allura)~$ mkdir src
(env-allura)~$ cd src
(env-allura)~/src$ git clone https://gitbox.apache.org/repos/asf/allura.git/

If you already reading this file from an Allura release or checkout, you’re ready to continue.

We’ll upgrade pip to make sure its a current version, and then install all Allura python dependencies with it.

(env-allura)~/src$ cd allura
(env-allura)~/src/allura$ pip install -U pip
(env-allura)~/src/allura$ pip install -r requirements.txt

This may take a little while.

Optional, for SVN support: install the wheel package then use the pysvn-installer script to build a pysvn wheel.

(env-allura)~/src/allura$ pip install wheel
(env-allura)~/src/allura$ curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/reviewboard/pysvn-installer/master/install.py | python

Next, run this to set up all the Allura tools:

(env-allura)~/src/allura$ ./rebuild-all.bash

Note

If you only want to use a few tools, run this instead:

(env-allura)~/src/allura$ cd Allura
(env-allura)~/src/allura/Allura$ python setup.py develop
(env-allura)~/src/allura/Allura$ cd ../ForgeWiki   # required tool
(env-allura)~/src/allura/ForgeWiki$ python setup.py develop
# repeat for any other tools you want to use

Initializing the environment

The Allura forge consists of several components, all of which need to be running to have full functionality.

SOLR search and indexing server

We have a custom config ready for use.

(env-allura)~$ cd /tmp
(env-allura)/tmp$ sudo apt-get install openjdk-8-jre-headless unzip
(env-allura)/tmp$ wget -nv https://archive.apache.org/dist/lucene/solr/5.3.1/solr-5.3.1.tgz
(env-allura)/tmp$ tar xvf solr-5.3.1.tgz solr-5.3.1/bin/install_solr_service.sh --strip-components=2
(env-allura)/tmp$ sudo ./install_solr_service.sh solr-5.3.1.tgz

(env-allura)/tmp$ cd ~/src/allura
(env-allura)~/src/allura$ sudo -H -u solr bash -c 'cp -R solr_config/allura/ /var/solr/data/'
(env-allura)~/src/allura$ sudo service solr start

Create code repo directories

The default configuration stores repos in /srv, so we need to create those directories:

~$ sudo mkdir /srv/{git,svn,hg}
~$ sudo chown $USER /srv/{git,svn,hg}
~$ sudo chmod 775 /srv/{git,svn,hg}

If you don’t have sudo permission or just want to store them somewhere else, change the /srv paths in development.ini

If you want to set up remote access to the repositories, see SCM Host Setup

Allura task processing

Allura uses a background task service called “taskd” to do async tasks like sending emails, and indexing data into solr, etc. Let’s get it running

(env-allura)~$ cd ~/src/allura/Allura
(env-allura)~/src/allura/Allura$ nohup paster taskd development.ini > /var/log/allura/taskd.log 2>&1 &

A few more steps, if using git

If you’re using a released version of Allura, these are already done for you.

Otherwise, install nodejs via the Ubuntu instructions or other instructions. Then run:

(env-allura)~$ cd ~/src/allura
(env-allura)~$ npm ci
(env-allura)~$ npm run build

The application server

In order to initialize the Allura database, you’ll need to run the following:

For development setup:

(env-allura)~/src/allura/Allura$ paster setup-app development.ini

For production setup:

(env-allura)~/src/allura/Allura$ ALLURA_TEST_DATA=False paster setup-app development.ini

This shouldn’t take too long, but it will start the taskd server doing tons of stuff in the background. Once this is done, you can start the application server:

(env-allura)~/src/allura/Allura$ gunicorn --reload --paste development.ini -b :8080  # add --daemon to run in the background

Next Steps

Go to the Allura webapp running on your local machine port 8080.