After completing these instructions you will be able to run the test server and interact with the Django based Specify webapp in your browser on your local machine.

Intstructions for deployment follow.

Specify 7 requires Python 2.7 which is the default for recent Linux distributions.

Other required software:

• Git to obtain the Specify 7 repository
• Python-pip to install Python dependencies
• Python and MySQL development packages to compile the Python MySQL driver
• The build-essential packages for compiling the Python MySQL driver
• NodeJS to execute the Javascript minimization tool
• Specify6 for common resource files

On Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install \
    git python-pip python-dev libmysqlclient-dev \
    build-essential curl

curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_4.x | sudo -E bash -

sudo apt-get install nodejs

To install Specify6, follow the Specify6 installation instructions, or copy an existing installation if you have one.

Clone this repository.

git clone git://github.com/specify/specify7.git

You will now have a specify7 directory containing the source tree.

Pip is used to install the required Python libraries. For development purposes you may wish to use a Python virtual environment. On a dedicated server for deployment, it is simpler to install the requirements global which requires running pip as superuser.

pip install -r specify7/requirements.txt

The Javascript dependencies and sources for the browser need to be packaged.

make -C specify7

When the Specify7 repository is updated, this step should be repeated.

In the directory specify7/specifyweb/settings you will find the specify_settings.py file. Make a copy of this file as local_specify_settings.py and edit it. The file contains comments explaining the various settings.

For development purposes, Django debugging should be turned on. It will enable stacktraces in responses that encounter exceptions, and allow operation with the unoptimized Javascript files.

Debugging can be enabled by creating the file specify7/specifyweb/settings/debug.py with the contents, DEBUG = True.

Specify7 can be run using the Django development server. If you are using Python virtual environment, you will of course need to activate it first.

python specify7/specifyweb/manage.py runserver

This will start a development server for testing purposes on localhost:8000.

Start by following the development instructions above, but don't enable debugging (or disable it if you enabled it previously).

For production environments, Specify7 can be hosted by Apache. The following packages are needed:

• Apache
• mod-wsgi to connect Python to Apache

On Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install apache2 libapache2-mod-wsgi

In the specify7 directory you will find the specifyweb_apache.conf file. Make a copy of the file as local_specifyweb_apache.conf and edit the contents to reflect the location of Specify6 and Specify7 on your system. There are comments showing what to change.

Then, remove the default Apache welcome page.

sudo rm /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default.conf

And make a link to your local_specifyweb_apache.conf file.

sudo ln -s `pwd`/specify7/local_specifyweb_apache.conf /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/

After changing Apache's config files, restart it.

sudo invoke-rc.d apache2 restart