Running in Production#

The production environment uses nginx for HTTPS/TLS support.

Prerequisites#

Before starting, you will need to:

  1. Create docker-compose.yml by copying the template:

    cp docker-compose.yml.template docker-compose.yml

    Then add valid TLS certificates to the nginx container via volumes in docker-compose.yml.

  2. Create nginx.conf by copying the template:

    cp nginx.conf.template nginx.conf

    Then replace <your_domain.com> with your actual domain.

By default, TLS certificates are expected at:

  • /etc/ssl/certs/cert.pem

  • /etc/ssl/private/server.key

These paths can be customised in nginx.conf.

First-Time Setup#

If you are running e-Babylab for the first time, execute the following steps in order:

  1. Start e-Babylab in production mode:

    docker compose up -d --build

  2. Set up the database:

    docker compose exec web python manage.py migrate

  3. Expose static files (e.g. JavaScript files):

    docker compose exec web python manage.py collectstatic

  4. Create a superuser for logging into the admin interface:

    docker compose exec web python manage.py createsuperuser

After starting, e-Babylab will be available at https://<your_domain.com>:8443/admin.

Subsequent Runs#

For subsequent runs, start e-Babylab using:

docker compose up -d

Database Admin (pgAdmin)#

pgAdmin is included in the production environment but does not expose a public port for security reasons. To access it, use SSH port forwarding from your local machine:

ssh -L 5050:localhost:5050 user@your-server

Then visit http://localhost:5050 in your browser.

Executing Django Commands#

To run Django management commands inside the container:

docker compose exec web python manage.py <command> [options]

All available commands can be found in the Django documentation.