GeoNode Basic Installation

Overview

The followings are the easiest and recommended ways to deploy a full-stack GeoNode server on your host.

1. First Step: Deploy GeoNode on a local server, running as http://localhost/ service. GeoServer will be also available at http://localhost/geoserver/

2. Second Step: Deploy GeoNode on a production server, running as https://my_geonode.geonode.org/ service. GeoServer will be also available at https://my_geonode.geonode.org/geoserver/

3. Third Step: Customize .env to match your needs

4. Fourth Step: Secure your production deployment; change the admin passwords and OAUth2 keys

5. Further Production Enhancements

First Step: Deploy GeoNode on a local server

Docker Setup for Ubuntu (20.04)

# install OS level packages..
sudo add-apt-repository universe
sudo apt-get update -y
sudo apt-get install -y git-core git-buildpackage debhelper devscripts python3.10-dev python3.10-venv virtualenvwrapper
sudo apt-get install -y apt-transport-https ca-certificates curl lsb-release gnupg gnupg-agent software-properties-common vim

# add docker repo and packages...
sudo mkdir -p /etc/apt/keyrings
curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg
sudo chmod a+r /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg
echo "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu $(lsb_release -cs) stable" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/null

sudo apt-get update -y
sudo apt-get install -y docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io docker-compose
sudo apt autoremove --purge

# add your user to the docker group...
sudo usermod -aG docker ${USER}
su ${USER}

Create an instance of your geonode-project

Let’s say your project is named my_geonode perform the following steps:

git clone https://github.com/GeoNode/geonode-project.git -b 4.1.x

# Ubuntu
source /usr/share/virtualenvwrapper/virtualenvwrapper.sh
mkvirtualenv --python=/usr/bin/python3 my_geonode

Alterantively you can also create the virtual env like below
python3.8 -m venv /home/geonode/dev/.venvs/my_geonode
source /home/geonode/dev/.venvs/my_geonode/bin/activate

pip install Django==3.2.13

# CentOS
virtualenv -p python3 my_geonode
source my_geonode/bin/activate

django-admin startproject --template=./geonode-project -e py,sh,md,rst,json,yml,ini,env,sample,properties -n monitoring-cron -n Dockerfile my_geonode

# If the previous command does not work for some reason, try the following one
python -m django startproject --template=./geonode-project -e py,sh,md,rst,json,yml,ini,env,sample,properties -n monitoring-cron -n Dockerfile my_geonode

Prepare the .env file

GeoNode uses an .env where the environment variables required by Docker and GeoNode itself must be configured. A simple way to generate a basic .env is using the create-envfile.py utility command. If run without arguments it will generate a valid .env for a local deployment.

The command accepts the following arguments:

• –https: Enable SSL. It’s disabled by default

• –env_type:

  • When set to prod DEBUG is disabled and the creation of a valid SSL is requested to Letsencrypt’s ACME server

  • When set to test DEBUG is disabled and a test SSL certificate is generated for local testing

  • When set to dev DEBUG is enabled and no SSL certificate is generated

• –hostname: The URL that will serve GeoNode (localhost by default)

• –email: The administrator’s email. Notice that a real email and valid SMPT configurations are required if –env_type is set to prod. Letsencrypt uses email for issuing the SSL certificate

• –geonodepwd: GeoNode’s administrator password. A random value is set if left empty

• –geoserverpwd: GeoNode’s administrator password. A random value is set if left empty

• –pgpwd: PostgreSQL’s administrator password. A random value is set if left empty

• –dbpwd: GeoNode DB user role’s password. A random value is set if left empty

• –geodbpwd: GeoNode data DB user role’s password. A random value is set if left empty

• –clientid: Client id of Geoserver’s GeoNode Oauth2 client. A random value is set if left empty

• –clientsecret: Client secret of Geoserver’s GeoNode Oauth2 client. A random value is set if left empty

Build and run

docker compose build
docker compose up -d

• You can follow the containers startup by running the following commands from my_geonode root folder:

  # GeoNode Container
  docker-compose logs -f django
  
  # GeoServer Container
  docker-compose logs -f geoserver
  
  # DB Container
  docker-compose logs -f db
  
  # NGINX Container
  docker-compose logs -f geonode
  

• If any error occurs, try to catch the error stacktrace by running the following commands from my_geonode root folder:

  # GeoNode “entrypoint.sh” Logs
  tail -F -n 300 invoke.log
  

Connect to http://localhost/

The startup typically takes some time, so be patient…

If everything goes well, you should be able to see from the geonode startup logs a line similar to the following one:

<some date> [UWSGI] Uwsgi running...

Connect to http://localhost/

The default credentials are:

• GeoNode (http://localhost/) admin:

  username: admin password: admin

• GeoServer (http://localhost/geoserver/) admin:

  username: admin password: geoserver

Second Step: Deploy GeoNode on a production server

In the case you would like to deploy to, let’s say, https://my_geonode.geonode.org/, you will need to change .env as follows:

DOCKER_ENV=production
SITEURL=https://my_geonode.geonode.org/
NGINX_BASE_URL=https://my_geonode.geonode.org/
ALLOWED_HOSTS=['django',]
GEOSERVER_WEB_UI_LOCATION=https://my_geonode.geonode.org/geoserver/
GEOSERVER_PUBLIC_LOCATION=https://my_geonode.geonode.org/geoserver/
HTTP_HOST=
HTTPS_HOST=my_geonode.geonode.org
HTTP_PORT=80
HTTPS_PORT=443
LETSENCRYPT_MODE=production # This will use Letsencrypt and the ACME server to generate valid SSL certificates

These variables are automatically set by the create-envfile.py script if the --https and --hostname variables are used.

Warning

When LETSENCRYPT_MODE is set to production a valid email and email SMPT server are required to make the system generate a valid certificate.

Restart the containers

Whenever you change someting on .env file, you will need to rebuild the container

Warning

Notche that the following command drops any change you might have done manually inside the containers, except for the static volumes.

docker-compose up -d

Troubleshooting

If for some reason you are not able to reach the server on the HTTPS channel, please check the NGINX configuration files below:

1. Enter the NGINX container

   docker-compose exec geonode sh
   

2. Install an editor if not present

   apk add nano
   

3. Double check that the nginx.https.enabled.conf link has been correctly created

   ls -lah
   

   

   If the list does not match exactly the figure above, please run the following commands, and check again

   rm nginx.https.enabled.conf
   ln -s nginx.https.available.conf nginx.https.enabled.conf
   

4. Inspect the nginx.https.enabled.conf contents

   nano nginx.https.enabled.conf
   

   Make sure the contents match the following

   Warning

   Change the Hostname accordingly. This is only an example!

   # NOTE : $VARIABLES are env variables replaced by entrypoint.sh using envsubst
   # not to be mistaken for nginx variables (also starting with $, but usually lowercase)
   
   # This file is to be included in the main nginx.conf configuration if HTTPS_HOST is set
   ssl_session_cache   shared:SSL:10m;
   ssl_session_timeout 10m;
   
   # this is the actual HTTPS host
   server {
       listen              443 ssl;
       server_name         my_geonode.geonode.org;
       keepalive_timeout   70;
   
       ssl_certificate     /certificate_symlink/fullchain.pem;
       ssl_certificate_key /certificate_symlink/privkey.pem;
       ssl_protocols       TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2;
       ssl_ciphers         HIGH:!aNULL:!MD5;
   
       include sites-enabled/*.conf;
   }
   
   # if we try to connect from http, we redirect to https
   server {
       listen 80;
       server_name  my_geonode.geonode.org; # TODO : once geoserver supports relative urls, we should allow access though both HTTP and HTTPS at the same time and hence remove HTTP_HOST from this line
   
       # Except for let's encrypt challenge
       location /.well-known {
           alias /geonode-certificates/.well-known;
           include  /etc/nginx/mime.types;
       }
   
       # Redirect to https
       location / {
       return 302 https://my_geonode.geonode.org/$request_uri; # TODO : we should use 301 (permanent redirect, but not practical for debug)
       }
   }
   

   Warning

   Save the changes, if any, and exit!

5. Reload the NGINX configuration

   nginx -s reload
   2020/06/24 10:00:11 [notice] 112#112: signal process started
   /etc/nginx# exit
   

6. It may be helpful to disable https to isolate the source of errors. After reverting the HTTPS-related changes in the .env file, repeat the above steps and ensure that the nginx.http.enabled.conf link has been correctly created.

   ln -s nginx.conf nginx.http.enabled.conf
   nano nginx.http.enabled.conf
   

Customize .env to match your needs

In the case you would like to modify the GeoNode behavior, always use the .env file in order to update the settings.

If you need to change a setting which does not exist in .env, you can force the values inside my_geonode/settings.py

Refer to the section: Settings

You can add here any property referred as

Env: PROPERTY_NAME

Restart the containers

Whenever you change someting on .env file, you will need to rebuild the containers.

Warning

Be careful! The following command drops any change you might have done manually inside the containers, except for the static volumes.

docker-compose up -d django

[Optional] Configure your SSL Certificates

In production deployment mode, GeoNode uses by default Let’s Encrypt certificates

You may want to provide your own certificates to GeoNode

docker exec -it nginx4my_geonode_geonode sh -c 'mkdir /geonode-certificates/my_geonode'

wget --no-check-certificate 'http://<url_to_your_chain.crt>' \
    -O chain.crt

wget --no-check-certificate 'http://<url_to_your_key.key>' \
    -O my_geonode.key

docker cp chain.crt nginx4my_geonode_geonode:/geonode-certificates/my_geonode

docker cp my_geonode.key nginx4my_geonode_geonode:/geonode-certificates/my_geonode

docker-compose exec geonode sh
apk add vim

vim nginx.https.enabled.conf

-ssl_certificate     /certificate_symlink/fullchain.pem;
-ssl_certificate_key /certificate_symlink/privkey.pem;
+ssl_certificate       /geonode-certificates/my_geonode/chain.crt;
+ssl_certificate_key   /geonode-certificates/my_geonode/my_geonode.key;

nginx -s reload
exit