0. Prerequisites (Debian installation)

0.1 Installing required OS packages

sudo apt-get install python-dev python-pip git

This will install Python libraries and Git.

0.2.1 Installing MySQL

sudo apt-get install libmysqlclient-dev mysql-client mysql-server

This will install MySQL server, it will ask you to set a root password [ROOT_PASSWORD] for the MySQL server, if you haven’t already set up MySQL in the past. Remember the password.

0.2.2 Creating a local MySQL database and user (optional)

Open the MySQL shell

mysql -u root -p

and execute following queries to setup the DB

CREATE DATABASE tumedical;
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON tumedical.* to tumedical_user identified by 'strong_password';

2. Setup your virtual environment

2.1. Create a virtual environment

Alternative 1:

Create an virtualenv (using virtualenv):

$ virtualenv tumedical_ve

The virtual environment should be enabled afterwards. For starting/continuing working on the project using the virtualenv, activate the virtual env using

$ source tumedical_ve/bin/activate

Alternative 2:

Create an virtualenv (using virtualenvwrapper):

$ mkvirtualenv tumedical_ve

The virtual environment should be enabled afterwards. For starting/continuing working on the project using the virtualenv, activate the virtual env using

$ workon tumedical_ve

2.2 Installing required python packages

Update pip

pip install -U pip

2.2.1 Remove InsecurePlatformWarning

Run the following command to remove the Warning

sudo pip install requests[security]

If an error occures try to install these packages

sudo apt-get install libffi-dev libxml2-dev libxslt-dev python-dev python-setuptools

2.3 Setup your virtualenv postactivate hook (optional)

This step is optional but recommended.
Every time, a virtualenv is activated with virtualenvwrappers’ workon command, a postactivate script is executed. This comes in handy to autmatically setup a projects’ environment variables and automate some reoccuring tasks. For more details on virtualenvwrapper hooks, see virtualenvwrapper: Per-User Customization.

You might consider to use this example postactivate script (located at $VIRTUAL_ENV/bin/postactivate)

 #!/bin/bash
 # This hook is run after this virtualenv is activated.
 ​
 export DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE="tumedical.settings.local"
 cd /path/to/tumedical.git/
 ​
 git fetch --all
 git status

Note: You’ll need to re-active your virtual environment after each change to it’s postactivate hook to take effect. Just run workon vp again, to make sure your current venv session has executed the postactivate hook.

3. Initialize the database with Django

Activate your env and change dir to your local forks’ git repository (if not done yet).

workon tumedical_ve
cd /path/to/tumedical.git

3.1 Run migrate management command to setup non-existing tables

./manage.py migrate

3.2 Add a superuser

./manage.py createsuperuser

You will be asked for username, email and password (twice). Remember that username and password.

4. Try running the server

./manage.py runserver

Try opening http://localhost:8000/ in your browser.

Tutorial based on https://github.com/volunteer-planner/volunteer_planner