UPDATE: RightScale has released version 13.2 of their server templates. I have updated the scripts to reflect the various changes and bug fixes in the new templates.
RightScale has released a beta server template for Django which makes it incredibly easy to get a server up and running on EC2. One drawback with this server template is that it is configured to work with a load balancer which isn’t always necessary.
To create a custom server template that doesn’t require a load balancer, start with the Base ServerTemplate for Linux (current version is 13.2) (be sure to use the Chef-based template rather the RightScript-based version). Then add the necessary scripts so that your boot and operational configs look like the following:
Now you’ve got a server that runs Apache, mod_wsgi and Django 1.4. It will also pull your code down from GIT or SVN and will install any PIP packages from your requirements.txt file (I prefer to install this stuff as part of the initial server config as shown below, or via a controlled server upgrade rather than automatically via requirements.txt).
But what about missing or outdated software? The following is a sample script that installs and upgrades a whole bunch of stuff. It also reconfigs Apache and runs compress. This was added as the last script in the template’s boot scripts. (Note – this script assumes you’re using the Ubuntu RightImage)
