Wednesday, May 30, 2012

New BitNami Stack: Node.js

And here it is! We have just released another new, and very popularly requested, BitNami Stack: Node.js! We are excited to add the BitNami Node.js Stack to the library of great web applications that are available on BitNami.org. 

Node.js is a platform built on Chrome's JavaScript runtime for easily building fast, scalable network applications. 

The BitNami Node.js Stack comes with a relocatable Node.js built with its dependencies, as well as NPM for manging modules and node-waf to build native extensions for Node.js. It also bundles a ready to use Redis server, the perfect complement to your Node.js web applications. In addition, most used modules are also included. Among others, the stack bundles:
  • Coffee Script: A friendly language that compiles into JavaScript.
  • Jade: A high performance template engine heavily influenced by Haml and implemented in JavaScript.
  • Express: High performance, high class web development for Node.js. Inspired by Sinatra. 
  • Node-dev: A development tool on top of Node.js that automatically restarts the node process when a script is modified.
As with all BitNami Stacks, this Stack is available as an installer for native installs on Linux and OS X, as a virtual machine or Amazon cloud image (AMI). 





Tuesday, May 29, 2012

New BitNami Apache Solr Stack


We are happy to announce a new member in the BitNami family: Apache Solr. It is an open source enterprise search platform from the Apache Lucene project. Major features include powerful full-text search, hit highlighting, faceted search, dynamic clustering, database integration, and rich document handling. Solr is written in Java and runs as a standalone full-text search server within a servlet container such as Jetty.

In this post, we walk you through configuring Drupal 7 with Solr in Amazon EC2. We will start with a BitNami Drupal image but these steps will also work for your own Drupal installation.

First, start two instances from the Amazon console, one with Drupal and one with Solr. You can search by name in the Community AMIs listings or you can start them directly from the BitNami Drupal and Solr pages. In this case, we will start an EBS image with Ubuntu 64 bit.



For the Solr instance, you must add a new rule to your security group. The default Solr port is 8983, so you should open it to connect the Drupal application with the Solr instance. If you know the IP address where the Drupal instance is running, you can enable connections only to that IP address.



Once the Solr and Drupal instances are running, you can check that both are running using the public domain names.

The BitNami Drupal Stack already has the Apache Solr Search Integration module installed, so you just need to enable the Solr Search and Access modules. If you do not have this module installed, you can install it from the Administration panel.

The BitNami Solr AMI ships an example already configured. To configure the Solr server properly for Drupal, copy the schema.xml and solrconfig.xml files from the Solr Search module. You can find these files in the "/opt/bitnami/apps/drupal/htdocs/sites/all/modules/apachesolr/solr-conf" folder in the Drupal instance. Copy these files into the "/opt/bitnami/apache-solr/solr/conf" directory and restart the Solr server.

$ sudo /opt/bitnami/ctlscript.sh restart solr

In the Solr admin panel, you should now see something like "drupal-3.0-beta16". If this is the case, everything is ready on the Solr side.



Now, we will configure the Drupal application. Click on the "Modules" -> "Solr Search Framework" configuration button and add a new connection:

URL: http://Solr_IP:8983/solr
Name: Remote Solr

Test the connection. If it is not able to contact the Solr server, check that the IP address is correct and the 8983 port is ready for connections. 



Now, configure the Drupal application to use Solr by default. Go to "Configuration" -> "Search settings" and enable Apache Solr search in the default search modules. If you have already content in your Drupal installation, you can re-index your site. This could take some time depending on your blog content. That's it! Test the setup by trying to use the search block in your site to see the results. 

You can find specific documentation for Drupal configuration with Solr here.

Thursday, May 24, 2012

BitNami Redmine 2.0 Released!

We are happy to announce that we have released a new version of the BitNami Redmine Stack that includes the just-released Redmine 2.0.0. This new version of Redmine adds support for the latest Rails 3 release.

In addition to this, we have improved the deployment configuration so it can benefit from the latest improvements in Rails 3.

On Linux and OS X, the default configuration now uses Passenger (a.k.a mod_rails) instead of Mongrel Cluster servers. This configuration improves the Redmine application performance for these platforms (according to these tests).

Unfortunately, Passenger is not available for Windows, so the BitNami Redmine Stack uses Thin servers instead of Mongrel to deploy the Redmine application. Different benchmark tests show that Thin performance is also better than Mongrel.

Download the free native installer or virtual machine or deploy the new Redmine 2.0.0 version to the Amazon cloud in one click from the BitNami Redmine page. Enjoy!

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Using Git with the BitNami Jenkins Stack

We are happy to announce that we have released a new version of the BitNami Jenkins Stack. Along with the upgrade to latest version, we are also including the Git plugin with Jenkins by default. It is now possible to use Jenkins to build git-based projects without setting additional binaries or plugins.

Jenkins can clone git repositories as source code for building one or more tasks, similar to how it works for cvs and subversion. With git, it is possible to both have Jenkins check the git repository for changes periodically and set up a hook to notify Jenkins about a commit. Setting up Jenkins to poll periodically is easier and therefore we will use this method in this example. Setting up push notifications is intended for more experienced git and Jenkins users and is described in the push notification from repository section of the Jenkins Git Plugin homepage.

To get started, we can create a new task that will use git as its source code repository. The 'Source Code Management' section of new and existing tasks will now allow selecting 'Git' for source code. We can set up local repositories by specifying the directory of the repository as well as remote repositories using the URL in the form of 'ssh://user@remoteserver/repository.git'. Some servers provide read-only access using git protocol - such as GitHub, where it is 'git://github.com/username/repository.git'.



For a simple repository with just the 'master' branch, that will be enough for Jenkins to retrieve the source code and automatically build it.

We can also set up Jenkins to poll the SCM for changes. To do this, simply go to 'Build Triggers' and enable 'Poll SCM'. This causes a text area for providing a schedule to be shown. The format is same as in 'crontab', so '*/5 * * * *' causes Jenkins to check for changes every 5 minutes.



We should also set up how our application is built. For this example, we can simply create 'script.sh' in our git repository, set its permissions to '0755' and run it from Jenkins to build our application. To do this, go to the 'Build' section of the task, choose 'Execute shell' from the 'Add build step' dropdown and specify the shell script to run:



One very interesting feature of the Jenkins git plugin is that it can be used to build any branch. By default the 'Branch Specifier' is empty, which indicates Jenkins should check all branches for changes. This may be convenient for some branches - such as 'master' being the current version and 'legacy' being the previous version, which is still being maintained. If more than one branch is modified, Jenkins runs multiple builds for the task - one for each branch.

However, in many cases not all branches should be built whenever a change occurs. To only build the two branches above, we can set 2 branch specifiers as follows:



With this setup, whenever a change is pushed to 'master' or 'legacy' branch, they are automatically built when Jenkins fetches the changes and detects an update.

Monday, May 21, 2012

New How-to Guide: Upgrading from an Older BitNami AMI to a New One

At BitNami, we strive to always provide you with the most up-to-date versions of all of the applications and supporting software that we package. In connection with this, we are constantly publishing updated BitNami Stacks. In fact, just this month-to-date, we have already published over 20 BitNami Stack updates!

One of the many benefits of running BitNami in the cloud is that you can easily clone servers to apply updates before promoting an updated server into production. This is made even easier with BitNami Cloud Hosting, our platform for deploying and managing web apps in the cloud. We have put together a how-to guide to walk you through the process of upgrading your BitNami instance from one AMI version to another, which will work for both AMIs launched directly through Amazon as well as those launched with BitNami Cloud Hosting. In addition to this general guide, we have also put together tutorials for upgrading servers running BitNami Wordpress, Joomla! and Drupal on the Amazon cloud.

Enjoy!

Thursday, May 17, 2012

BitNami Django Stack Now Includes Python 2.7 and PostGIS Support

We are happy to report that BitNami Django Stack has been updated to include support for PostGIS and Python 2.7! While we already had this on our to-do list, feedback from several users inspired us to get it out the door earlier that planned. Thank you to everyone who took the time to let us know that they would like to see this, and please keep the feedback coming!

Note that currently, the built-in PostGIS integration is only for Linux and Mac OS X. You can manually install it on Windows (take a look at this). You may also want to check out our PostGIS Quick Start guide.


Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Amazon Linux Support Added in BitNami Cloud Hosting



We are happy to announce we just released support for Amazon Linux on BitNami Cloud Hosting! Amazon Linux is a distribution of Linux optimized for the Amazon Cloud that is binary compatible with RHEL and CentOS. As with the RHEL support in BitNami Cloud Hosting, we use the native Amazon Linux Stack for deploying the BitNami applications. This means that they are installed on top of the MySQL, Apache, and other components that come bundled with the operating system, allowing you to make use of the OS tools to keep your server up to date.

The Amazon Linux AMI is a supported and maintained Linux image provided by Amazon Web Services for use on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2). It is designed to provide a stable, secure, and high performance execution environment for applications running on Amazon EC2. It also includes several packages that enable easy integration with AWS, including launch configuration tools and many popular AWS libraries and tools. Amazon Web Services also provides ongoing security and maintenance updates to all instances running the Amazon Linux AMI. Updates are provided via a pre-configured yum repository hosted in each Amazon EC2 region. Security updates are automatically applied on the initial boot of the AMI. Upon login, the Message of the Day (/etc/motd) indicates whether or not any additional updates are available.

The Amazon Linux AMI is now available at no additional charge in BitNami Cloud Hosting. For more information on Amazon Linux, please visit the Amazon Linux AMI page.

Sign up for free today to run your favorite open source applications on Amazon Linux in the cloud with BitNami Cloud Hosting!

Thursday, May 10, 2012

BitNami Brings Your Favorite Apps to HP Cloud Services



Today, HP's new public cloud offering, HP Cloud Services, was released into public beta. We are very happy to announce that we have made two of the BitNami "bundle" Stacks available on HP Cloud Services: DevPack and WebPack.

BitNami DevPack provides an instant deployment environment for some of the most popular web development runtimes and servers, including PHP, Django, Ruby on Rails, Tomcat, MySQL, PostgreSQL and dozens of others. Everything you need to get started developing and hosting your own applications on HP Cloud Services.

BitNami WebPack includes ready to run versions of three of the most popular open source blog and CMS engines: WordPress, Drupal and Joomla!. It will allow you to deploy fully featured websites in minutes which you can later customize with thousands of plugins and addons available for these platforms.

Both of these BitNami images are available now on HP Cloud Services (you will see them in the default set of images you can choose from.) To learn more about the images and running them on HP Cloud Services, check the BitNami wiki.We plan on bringing more of the BitNami Application Library to HP Cloud Services over time. 
HP is currently offering 50% discounts on its service during the public beta, so give it a try!

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

RubyStack now with RVM and DevKit support

We are happy to announce that we added support for RVM in BitNami RubyStack for OS X and Linux. RubyStack is a popular all-in-one package for everything that you need to get started with Ruby development in general and Rails in particular. It includes Apache, MySQL, SQLite, ImageMagick, Passenger, etc. RubyStack is free and can be downloaded as native installers, VMWare images or launched as Amazon Machine Images.

This new release of RubyStack includes RVM, a command-line tool which allows you to easily install, manage, and work with multiple Ruby environments from interpreters to sets of gems. This is convenient if you need to maintain multiple projects, dependent on different Ruby versions.

To install different Ruby versions it is necessary to have already installed the main compilation tools. These tools are already included inside our RubyStack Virtual Machines and Amazon Cloud Images. If you are using the native installer, you can check the RVM requirements running the following command:

$ rvm requirements

You can list the installed Ruby versions and use one of them. RubyStack 3.2.3-0 installs and configures Ruby 1.9.3-p194.

$ rvm use system

$ ruby --version
ruby 1.9.3p194 (2012-04-20 revision 35410) [x86_64-linux]

You can install another Ruby version, for example:

$ rvm install ruby-1.8.7-p358

You can find more info at BitNami RVM wiki and at the official RVM site.

For Windows users, RubyStack now ships DevKit. It is a toolkit that makes it easy to build and use native C/C++ extensions for Ruby on Windows like JSON, Thin and others.

Friday, May 4, 2012

JRuby 1.6.7.2




We have released an updated BitNami JRuby Stack. According to the official JRuby site all users are encouraged to upgrade to this new JRuby version:

"This is a special release of JRuby which only updates our shipped copy of RubyGems to version 1.8.24. This version of RubyGems is the first version to verify that a RubyGems server certficate is valid. This helps to prevent a “man in the middle” style of attack when someone controls a portion of the network between you and the RubyGems server. All users are encouraged to upgrade to JRuby 1.6.7.2."

Apart from JRuby, this stack also includes updated Tomcat and Java versions.

If you haven't started with JRuby yet and you want to give it a try, take a look at our Quick Start Guide.

Enjoy!

Thursday, May 3, 2012

BitNami Magento Stack Updated


We have just released an updated BitNami Magento Stack that includes Magento Community 1.7.0.

This new version help merchants provide a more personalized shopping experience for their customers with the following improvements:

  • Improved customer segmentation and ordering capabilities.
  • Added auto generation of coupon codes
  • Added EU VAT ID validation service integration
  • Implemented DHL for Europe
  • Added the Cash On Delivery and Bank Transfer payment methods

Check the full list of enhancements here.

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

2012 Future of Cloud Survey

We have partnered with North Bridge Venture Partners and 37 other leading cloud organizations to sponsor the 2nd annual Future of Cloud Computing Survey. The survey will capture current perceptions, sentiments and future expectations of cloud computing from industry experts, users and vendors of cloud software, support and services. The goal of the survey is to measure how and to what extent the cloud is being used, the key drivers of growth and change in the cloud, and the impact the cloud is having on IT and business operations. The survey will explore areas such as current use, drivers, barriers, and future plans regarding cloud computing. The survey will also reveal profile information on the types of cloud services currently being used.

Please take a moment to share your thoughts on the future of cloud computing. The survey closes June 1st and the results will be published publicly at www.northbridge.com/software around the end of the month. You can also request that the results be sent to you via email when you complete the survey.


BitNami Supports Ubuntu 12.04

Last week, Ubuntu 12.04 was released, and we are happy to report that  our BitNami virtual machine images and cloud templates (AMIs) have been updated to include this latest and greatest release of Ubuntu! Because 12.04 is an LTS, or "Long Term Support" release, this version of Ubuntu will be supported for 5 years, so you can feel confident deploying systems of all types on it.

The BitNami VMs and AMIs make it incredibly easy to check out Ubuntu 12.04 - just fire up a VM in a virtual environment or spin up a cloud instance and you will be good to go. Enjoy!