Deployment Documents for April 2023

Implementation Plan for Deploying to Production Server ("libapps")

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Pre-Deployment Backup

• Confirm in Github that the old "main" branch has been copied over to a new branch "rollback_main".
• Confirm in Github that the "deploy" branch has been copied over to "main".
• SSH into the production server. Navigate to /etc/postfix/ and make a copy of the main.cf file.
• Next, navigate to /etc/systemd/system/ and make a copy of the postfix.service file.

Set New Environment Variables

• Navigate to /opt/webapps/aaec/static.
• Open the environment variables file with nano .env.production.local.
• Add the following to the "mail variables" section: MAIL_SMTP_ADDRESS='libapps.libraries.uc.edu'
• Save and exit nano by pressing Control-X, then Y to confirm the changes, and Enter to close the editor.

Updating Mail Configuration

• Find out the IP address for the server by typing in ifconfig and note down the IP address.
• Navigate to /etc/postfix and open main.cf with nano by typing sudo nano main.cf.
• Inside the main.cf file, scroll down several pages to find the line that says inet_interfaces = localhost.
• Change it to inet_interfaces = 127.0.0.1, ::1, our.ip.address.here, replacing "our.ip.address.here" with the IP address noted earlier.
• Save and exit nano by pressing Control-X, then Y to confirm the changes, and Enter to close the editor.
• Restart postfix with the command: sudo systemctl restart postfix.
• Ensure aaec will restart on reboot with the following command: sudo systemctl enable puma-aaec.
• Copy the postfix.service file from /lib/systemd/system/postfix.service to /etc/systemd/system/postfix.service. Leave the old file in place. You can do this with the command: sudo cp /lib/systemd/system/postfix.service /etc/systemd/system/postfix.service
• Change directory to /etc/systemd/system and open the file postfix.service with nano (nano postfix.service)
• Change the line After=syslog.target network.target to the following two lines:
  • After=syslog.target network-online.target
  • Wants=network-online.target
• Reload the postfix settings with the command: sudo systemctl daemon-reload.
• Restart postfix with sudo systemctl restart postfix.

Test That Other Applications Can Still Mail

• Ensure that other applications running on libapps can still send mail.
• Test this by going to https://libapps.libraries.uc.edu/application_portfolio/users/sign_in and initiating a password reset for Janell's account. This will send her an email, confirming that the mailing capability is functioning as expected.

Deploy Application

• Make sure you're using your local terminal, not the SSH terminal.
• From the AAEC project, make sure you are on the branch "main".
• Do a git pull to verify you have the most recent version of the branch.
• Execute the command cap production deploy. This command will deploy the application, restart the server, and run migrations.
• We do not need to run the seeds command because the database is already seeded.

Verify the Deployment: Post-deploy Testing

• Check the application logs for any immediate errors during startup: tail -f log/production.log.
• Access the application through http://libapps.libraries.uc.edu/aaec to ensure it's running as expected.
• We should only be able to see the page that states that the time for submissions has passed.
• Perform manual testing by:
  • Set the expiration date to something in the future by:
    • From the ssh terminal, navigate to /opt/webapps/aaec/static.
    • Open the .env file with nano .env.production.local.
    • Change the line EXPIRATION_DATE="Jul 15 2020" to some date in the future.
    • Save and exit the file
  • Restart the server with sudo systemctl restart puma-aaec.
  • Run through the manual testing script found at https://github.com/uclibs/aaec/wiki/Manual-Testing.
  • Test the email functionality by entering Janell as a submitter with her correct UC email address, make a submission, and look for an email.
  • If everything checks out, return the expiration date to its original value:
    • From the ssh terminal, navigate to /opt/webapps/aaec/static.
    • Open the .env file with nano .env.production.local.
    • Change the line back to EXPIRATION_DATE="Jul 15 2020".
    • Save and exit the file
  • Restart the server with sudo systemctl restart puma-aaec.

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Troubleshooting

• Try restarting the puma with sudo systemctl restart puma-aaec.

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Pre-Deploy Testing Already Completed

• Deploy the application to our QA server
• Set the mailer config options as done in the Implementation section, only on the libappstest server.
• Ensure all tests are passing
• The libappstest server has an expiration date in the future, so no .env file changes are needed.
• Test using the manual testing script at https://github.com/uclibs/aaec/wiki/Manual-Testing.
• Enter Janell as a submitter with her correct UC email address, make a submission, and look for an email.

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Walkback

Reset Environment Variables

• Navigate to /opt/webapps/aaec/static.
• Open the environment variables file with nano .env.production.local.
• Remove the following from the "mail variables" section: MAIL_SMTP_ADDRESS='libapps.libraries.uc.edu'
• Save and exit nano by pressing Control-X, then Y to confirm the changes, and Enter to close the editor.

Reset Mail Configuration

• Navigate to /etc/postfix and open main.cf with nano by typing sudo nano main.cf.
• Inside the main.cf file, scroll down several pages to find the line that says inet_interfaces = 127.0.0.1, ::1, our.ip.address.here.
• Change it to inet_interfaces = localhost.
• Save and exit nano by pressing Control-X, then Y to confirm the changes, and Enter to close the editor.
• Restart postfix with the command: sudo systemctl restart postfix.
• Ensure aaec will restart on reboot with the following command: sudo systemctl enable puma-aaec.
• Remove the duplicated postfix.service file /etc/systemd/system/postfix.service.
  • Navigate to /etc/systemd/system/ --IMPORTANT--
  • Remove the file with sudo rm postfix.service.
  • Do not touch the original postfix.service file at /lib/systemd/system/postfix.service
• Reload the postfix settings with the command: sudo systemctl daemon-reload.
• Restart postfix with sudo systemctl restart postfix.

Test That Other Applications Can Still Mail

• Ensure that other applications running on libapps can still send mail.
• Test this by going to https://libapps.libraries.uc.edu/application_portfolio/users/sign_in and initiating a password reset for Janell's account. This will send her an email, confirming that the mailing capability is functioning as expected.

Rollback the deployment

• Make sure you're using your local terminal, not the SSH terminal.
• From the AAEC project, make sure you are on the branch "rollback_main".
• Do a git pull to verify you have the most recent version of the branch.
• Execute the command cap production deploy. This command will deploy the application, restart the server, and run migrations.
• We do not need to run any more migrations at this point because the original migrations will be in place.

At this point, we should only be able to see the page that states that the time for submissions has passed. No errors should be present in the web console. If we manually type in the URL libapps.libraries.uc.edu/aaec/manage, we will get the admin login page. We will be able to log in with the admin name and password, located at https://github.com/uclibs/config_vault/blob/main/aaec/libapps-.env.production.local. From there we should be able to access older publications and user information. There is not currently a manual testing script for the old deployed version.