JayRam Nai's blog
Open edX tips & tricks (for pre Tutor era)

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

Open edX tips & tricks (for pre Tutor era)

JayRam Nai's photo
JayRam Nai
·

4 min read

Table of contents

Change access permission of pem file

sudo chmod 400 my_private_key.pem

SSH into your server

ssh -i my_private_key.pem ubuntu@<ip_of_your_server>

Set the OPENEDX_RELEASE variable

# For native installation  
export OPENEDX_RELEASE=open-release/maple.master  

# For devstack docker installation  
export OPENEDX_RELEASE=maple.master

Check logs

  • Request logs and errors from the LMS & CMS. If you're getting a 500 error on a certain request, look here.

      sudo tail -f /edx/var/log/lms/edx.log  
  sudo tail -f /edx/var/log/cms/edx.log

  • Startup error messages and debug output from the running LMS & CMS Django process. If you're getting a startup error, look here.

      sudo tail -f /edx/var/log/supervisor/lms-stderr.log  
  sudo tail -f /edx/var/log/supervisor/cms-stderr.log

  • Debug output from the supervisor task manager. If you make changes to the supervisor task definitions, look here.

      sudo tail -f /edx/var/log/supervisor/supervisord.log

  • Errors from the Nginx proxy server that front-ends both the LMS and CMS. Mostly access or configuration-related errors. If you're getting a 4xx or 5xx error, look here

      sudo tail -f /edx/var/log/nginx/error.log

  • Access logs for all requests to the server. If you want to see apache style logs for every request your server is getting, look here.

      sudo tail -f /edx/var/log/nginx/access.log

  • Error from LMS workers. If you're getting worker errors, look here.

      sudo tail -f /edx/var/log/supervisor/lms_default_1-stderr.log  
  sudo tail -f /edx/var/log/supervisor/lms_high_1-stderr.log  
  sudo tail -f /edx/var/log/supervisor/lms_high_mem_1-stderr.log

  • Error from CMS workers. If you're getting worker errors, look here.

      sudo tail -f /edx/var/log/supervisor/cms_default_1-stderr.log  
  sudo tail -f /edx/var/log/supervisor/cms_high_1-stderr.log

  • Errors from Forum service. If you're getting any errors in Forum, look here.

      sudo tail -f /edx/var/log/supervisor/forum-stderr.log

  • On devstack docker installation

      make <service_name>-logs  
  # For LMS  
  make lms-logs

Running your server in debugging mode

sudo /edx/bin/supervisorctl stop lms

# For ironwood and earlier releases
sudo -u www-data /edx/bin/python.edxapp /edx/app/edxapp/edx-platform/manage.py lms runserver 8000 --settings production

# For koa and later releases
cd /edx/app/edxapp/edx-platform
source /edx/app/edxapp/edxapp_env
sudo -E -u www-data /edx/app/edxapp/venvs/edxapp/bin/python manage.py lms runserver 8000 --settings production

# Once you are done with the debugging
Ctrl + c
sudo /edx/bin/supervisorctl start lms

Check your configurations

  • Most configuration parameters for the app.

    • Feature flags

    • backend server locations

    • theme related settings

  • Authentication parameters for the app

    • API Keys

    • Database passwords

    • occasional settings that are paired with authentication

# For ironwood and earlier releases  
sudo nano /edx/app/edxapp/lms.env.json  
sudo nano /edx/app/edxapp/cms.env.json  
sudo nano /edx/app/edxapp/lms.auth.json  
sudo nano /edx/app/edxapp/cms.auth.json  

# For juniper and later releases  
sudo nano /edx/etc/lms.yml  
sudo nano /edx/etc/studio.yml

Install nano in lms shell in devstack docker

make lms-shell  
apt-get install nano

manage.py commands

  • List all manage.py commands

      # For Native Installation  
  sudo -H -u edxapp bash  
  source ~/edxapp_env  
  cd ~/edx-platform  
  ./manage.py lms --settings production help  

  # For devstack docker installation  
  make lms/studio-shell  
  ./manage.py lms --settings devstack_docker help

  • Delete a course in Open edX

      ./manage.py cms delete_course course-v1:edX+DemoX+Demo_Course --settings <your_settings>

  • Open Django shell (InteractiveConsole)

      ./manage.py lms shell --settings <your_settings>

  • Compile SCSS files

      ./manage.py lms compile_sass --settings <your_settings>

  • Collect static files

      # For LMS  
  ./manage.py lms --settings <your_settings> collectstatic --ignore "fixtures" --ignore "karma_*.js" --ignore "spec" --ignore "spec_helpers" --ignore "spec-helpers" --ignore "xmodule_js" --ignore "geoip" --ignore "sass" --noinput > /dev/null  

  # For CMS  
  ./manage.py cms --settings <your_settings> collectstatic --ignore "fixtures" --ignore "karma_*.js" --ignore "spec" --ignore "spec_helpers" --ignore "spec-helpers" --ignore "xmodule_js" --ignore "geoip" --ignore "sass" --noinput > /dev/null

  • Copy programs data into the LMS

      ./manage.py lms cache_programs --settings <your_settings>

  • Compile Translation files

      ./manage.py lms compilejsi18n --settings <your_settings>  
  ./manage.py lms compilemessages --settings <your_settings>

  • Reindex courses

      # reindexes courses with provided keys
  ./manage.py cms reindex_course <course_id_1> <course_id_2> ...

  # reindexes all available courses
  ./manage.py cms reindex_course --all

Refresh course metadata in the discovery

Discovery maintains metadata for program and course information. To ingest metadata into discovery from LMS, e-commerce, and the marketing site run the following commands in devstack to enter the discovery shell and refresh the metadata.

make discovery-shell  
./manage.py refresh_course_metadata

Supervisor commands on native installation

  • Restart Supervisor service

      sudo systemctl restart supervisor

  • See what services are running

      sudo /edx/bin/supervisorctl status

  • Restarting services

      # LMS  
  sudo /edx/bin/supervisorctl restart lms  

  # Workers  
  sudo /edx/bin/supervisorctl restart edxapp_worker:

  • Stop services

      # LMS  
  sudo /edx/bin/supervisorctl stop lms  

  # Workers  
  sudo /edx/bin/supervisorctl stop edxapp_worker:

Update Assets

# To update lms and cms assets  
paver update_assets --settings <your_settings>  

# To update lms assets  
paver update_assets lms --settings <your_settings>  

# To update cms assets  
paver update_assets cms --settings <your_settings>

MySQL Access

mysql -h <host> -u <username> -p<password>

Create MySQL user and grant privileges

mysql -u root  
use edxapp  
CREATE USER 'edxapp001'@'%' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';  
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON edxapp.* TO 'edxapp001'@'%';  

use edxapp_csmh  
CREATE USER 'edxapp_cmsh001'@'%' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';  
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON edxapp_csmh.* TO 'edxapp_cmsh001'@'%';  

CREATE USER 'migrate'@'%' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';  
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON edxapp.* TO 'migrate'@'%';  
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON edxapp_csmh.* TO 'migrate'@'%';  

# if required  
FLUSH PRIVILEGES

MongoDB Access

mongo --port 27017 -u admin -p password --authenticationDatabase admin

Install requirements in edx-platform

cd ~/edx-platform  
make requirements

Renew SSL Cert

certbot-auto --renew-by-default

References:

#howtosopen edxEdxDjangoPython