Friday, November 30, 2012

Updated BitNami Node.JS 0.8.15 available

We are happy to announce a new version of BitNami Node.js Stack: 0.8.15. Compared with v0.6, this release brings significant improvements in performance, as well as cleanup in several core APIs and new debugging features. Some of them are the following:

- Node got a lot faster.
- Node got more stable.
- You can do stuff with file descriptors.
- The cluster module is much more awesome.
- The domain module was added.
- The repl is better.
- The build system changed from waf to gyp.
- and more!

As with all BitNami Stacks, this stack is available as a native installer for Linux and OS X, as a virtual machine or as an Amazon cloud image (AMI).

Getting started with BitNami Node.js

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 C++ extensions for Node.js. It also bundles a ready to use Redis server, a perfect complement to your Node.js web applications.



Once you have installed the stack, open the BitNami console. This console is a script to load the stack environment so you can run any command installed:

$ cd installdir
$ ./use_nodejs

You can use the node interactive shell:

$ node
> console.log('Hello world!')

Node.js comes with the npm package manager. This example shows how to install the express package globally. Express is a high performance, high class web development for Node.js inspired by Sinatra.

$ npm -g install express
$ npm -g list

Now you can create your own minimalistic project executing:

$ mkdir projects
$ cd projects
$ express sample-application

Then install the project dependencies:

$ cd sample-application
$ npm install

Now you can deploy your application:

$ node app.js
$ Express server listening on port 3000 in development mode

Finally, check the application from your browser at http://127.0.0.1:3000. You can find more info about BitNami Node.js stack at our Wiki or post any question or suggestion in our forum.


Thursday, November 29, 2012

Django 1.5 beta: GeoDjango support for PostGIS 2.0. Now all-in-one with BitNami.

The Django development team has recently released the first beta of the upcoming major version of the framework, Django 1.5. At BitNami, one of our goals is to simplify the testing of the latest versions of open source web applications and language runtimes. We are happy to announce that we have just also released our first BitNami DjangoStack with 1.5. It is completely self-contained and it will not conflict with your current development environment. You can download it, give a try and safely remove it when you are done.

Django is a high-level Python Web framework that encourages rapid development and clean, pragmatic design. If you are not familiar already with BitNami DjangoStack, it is a free packaging offering that simplifies the development and deployment of Django and Python applications.This version includes ready-to-run versions of Apache 2.2 with mod_wsgi 3.3, SQLite 3.7, MySQL 5.5, PostgreSQL 9.2 with PostGIS 2.0 (only of Linux and Mac OS X), Python 2.7 and Django 1.5. It can be deployed using all-in-one free native installers (for Linux, Mac OS X and Windows), virtual machines and Amazon Cloud Images.

The biggest new feature in Django 1.5 is the configurable User model. You can check the release notes for this version here.

Another important new feature is that GeoDjango now supports PostGIS 2.0, which is already bundled in the BitNami DjangoStack. GeoDjango makes it simple to create geographic Web applications, like location-based services. You can now check our GeoDjango Quickstart guide for details on how to use GeoDjango with PostGIS 2.0 on BitNami DjangoStack.


As a reminder, our bi-weekly contest is now open to Python web applications. If there is any application that you would like to see added to the BitNami Library visit our contest page. You can vote for the applications in our contest or also summit new applications.

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

BitNami Contest now open to Ruby and Python apps

We are holding a bi-weekly contest for deciding which apps we should be adding to the BitNami library.  Initially, it was restricted to PHP-based web applications. The first winners were TestLink and PhpCompta (still in the process of being packaged). We are happy to announce that you can now also vote for Ruby and Python web applications.

Each selected project will get free native installers, virtual machines and Amazon Cloud Images that will be kept up to date periodically. They will also get access to the hundreds of thousands of end users and developers that visit our site every month. An streamlined installation process and the extra exposure from BitNami tends to significantly raise the awareness of the winning project.




Take a minute to decide which PHP, Ruby or Python web application is packaged next by visiting our contest page.  Once you have voted, remember to share via the Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus buttons to encourage your friends to do the same. Good luck!





Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Updated Redmine stack and upgrade instructions

We are happy to announce new BitNami Redmine stacks for the 2.1.3 and 1.4.5 versions of the popular project management tool. Both versions are running now the latest stable version of Ruby, 1.9.3-p327 and the latest passenger 4 beta which significantly improve the performance of the application. Check our previous post for more details of the enhancements we have been implementing for all Ruby-based apps in the BitNami library.

If you are an existing Redmine user, the rest of the article explains step-by-step instructions on how to upgrade to the latest version using the BitNami stack. 

First, check the plugins that you are currently using and make sure that they support the latest 2.1.x version. If your plugins are not compatible with the 2.x releases, you may want to upgrade to the latest BitNami Redmine 1.4.5 version instead.

Next, create a backup of your previous installation. It is necessary to create a database backup and make a copy of your uploaded files. The steps below are valid to upgrade from a previous BitNami Redmine installation, in a non-BitNami installation the process should be similar.

$ /installdir/mysql/bin/mysqldump -u root -p bitnami_redmine > redmine_backup.sql
$ tar -czvf redmine-files.tar.gz /installdir/apps/redmine/htdocs/files

The next step is to install the new BitNami Redmine version. You can download a native installer, the virtual machine or start a new instance in the Amazon cloud. You can use the same machine or you can consider migrating your servers to the cloud (heck out some reasons why you may want to move your infrastructure to the cloud)

Once you have the new Redmine version running, install the plugins that you need. Then copy the database backup and the files directory backup to the machine and restore them. Check that you are running these command from the BitNami Redmine console, so the appropriate environment variables are preloaded.

$ /installdir/mysql/bin/mysql -u root -p bitnami_redmine < redmine_backup.sql
$ tar -xzvf redmine-files.tar.gz /installdir/apps/redmine/htdocs/

Next, migrate the database to the new version.

$ cd /installdir/apps/redmine/htdocs
$ rake db:migrate RAILS_ENV=production

If you have installed plugins, you should run the following command:

$ rake redmine:plugins:migrate RAILS_ENV=production

Alternativelt, if you are using the 1.4.x version, the migration command is the following:

$ rake db:migrate_plugins RAILS_ENV=production

If you find any issue during the migration, check our Wiki or post in our forum. Now you can start Redmine again and access it via the web. You will probably want to configure the email settings in the new Redmine installation in the "/installdir/apps/redmine/htdocs/config/configuration.yml" file. You can find here an example using a GMail account.

Finally, some users also want to change the URL to access the app from the root of the domain name (http://example.com instead of http://example.com/redmine). The below provides sample configuration changes.

DocumentRoot /installdir/apps/redmine/htdocs/public
#Alias /redmine /installdir/apps/redmine/htdocs/public
<Directory "/installdir/apps/redmine/htdocs/public">
  Options -MultiViews
  allow from all
</Directory>
#<Location /redmine>
#  SetEnv RAILS_RELATIVE_URL_ROOT "/redmine"
#  RackBaseURI /redmine
#</Location>
PassengerPreStart http://example.com/

That's all! Enjoy your new, faster than ever Redmine, powered by BitNami.

Monday, November 19, 2012

Updated BitNami Redmine stacks (Ruby 1.9, Passenger 4)


We are happy to announce that BitNami Redmine, BitNami RubyStack and other Ruby-based stacks have been updated to include Ruby 1.9 and Passenger 4 beta with one goal in mind: improving performance. There are benchmarks that prove Ruby 1.9 is almost 2x faster than 1.8 version, and it feels even faster in the real world. 

The following are several BitNami applications that have been re-released with Ruby 1.9 support:

Redmine, project management tool.
Spree, an e-commerce platform.
Tracks, a web-based application to help you implement the GTD methodology.
Radiant, a Ruby On Rails CMS. We have upgraded it to 1.1.0 version.
- In addition to that, all of the BitNami PHP-based modules like WordPress, Drupal, Joomla!, SugarCRM and others will run well on top of RubyStack.


         


The default configuration for production environments for Linux and OS X is now Apache running with the Passenger module. However, if you prefer to use Nginx with Passenger, BitNami RubyStack ships the Nginx server and the Passenger extension already compiled and ready-to-use! Please see below for how easy it is to enable Nginx server with Passenger.

$ cd /opt/bitnami (or your installation directory)
$ ./ctlscript.sh stop apache

Edit the "nginx/conf/nginx.conf" and add the public path to your application. For example, Redmine application:

 server {
    listen 80; (or a different port)
    root /opt/bitnami/apps/redmine/htdocs/public;
    passenger_enabled on;
    rails_env production;
    passenger_base_uri /redmine;
 }

Disable Apache server and enable Nginx.

$ mv apache2/scripts/ctl.sh apache2/scripts/ctl.sh.disable
$ mv nginx/scripts/ctl.sh.disable nginx/scripts/ctl.sh
$ ./ctlscript.sh start nginx

On Windows, all BitNami Ruby-based stacks ship DevKit, a development tool kit for adding gems that require C/C++ extensions easily. Now it is even easier to customize your applications or extend their functionality adding plugins.

Weblate now available in BitNami


Weblate is now part of the BitNami library. Weblate is a web-based translation tool with tight Git integration. It features a simple and clean user interface, propagation of translations across subprojects, consistency checks and automatic linking to source files. Weblate is written in Python and powered by the Django application framework.


Weblate lets you handle several projects and languages simultaneously with an easy-to-use and clear interface.

Weblate dashboard

The list of features includes:
  • Easy web-based translation
  • Propagation of translations across sub-projects (for different branches)
  • Tight git integration - every change is represented by Git commit
  • Usage of Django's admin interface
  • Upload and automatic merging of translation files
  • Links to source files for context
  • Allows to use machine translation services
  • Message consistency checks
  • Tunable access control
  • Wide range of supported translation formats (Gettext, Qt, Java, Windows, Symbian and more)
You can now download free, ready to run native installers for OS X and Linux, virtual machines and Amazon EC2 images coming soon.

You can find more information about this project in its official web http://weblate.org and related documentation on http://weblate.readthedocs.org/en/latest/.

If you want your project to be featured as part of BitNami, you can propose it in our bi-weekly contest



Friday, November 16, 2012

BitNami Cloud Hosting support for RHEL 6.3, Amazon Linux

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BitNami Cloud Hosting simplifies the deployment of popular web applications and development runtimes on the Amazon Cloud. It provides the same ease of use and convenience that you have come to expect from BitNami stacks but also adds automatic backups, monitoring, one-click resizing and many more features. We have a diverse user base, ranging from students to governments to web developers and enterprise business users. Different users favor different underlying operating systems for deployment, either because of personal preferences/expertise or because it is a company standard. We offer you a choice of Ubuntu, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Fedora and Amazon Linux.

Today we released updated versions of RHEL and Amazon Linux in our platform: RHEL 6.3 and Amazon Linux 2012.09.0   To take advantage of them just log in to your console and click "New server" You will be running an instance with your favorite OS and apps in just a few minutes. Enjoy!

Thursday, November 15, 2012

BitNami Support for AWS Sydney Region

Earlier this week Amazon announced a new cloud region for Asia Pacific, located in beautiful Sydney. This means Australian customers will be able to have local access to high-performance, low latency Amazon Cloud services, instead of having to resort to the Tokyo or Singapore regions. I took us a couple of days longer than usual, but we are happy to announce that since yesterday all BitNami applications are available for deployment in the Sydney region. This includes ready-to-run AMIs in both EBS and instance-store flavors for 50+ of the leading open source web applications and development frameworks.

In addition to supporting the library of BitNami applications, we have added support for this new region to BitNami Cloud Hosting, a self-service application portal that allows you build and launch servers in the AWS cloud. With BitNami Cloud Hosting, each server can be automatically backed up periodically, monitored and resized as needed, all with the click of a button, making it the perfect complement to the regular AWS Console. Now that's what we call a real cloud :)

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Test drive Ruby 2.0 today with BitNami Rubystack


The next major Ruby release (2.0.0) is currently planned for February. A preliminary version (Ruby 2.0.0-preview1) has been made available by the Ruby development team in order to give developers a chance to test their projects with this version and see if they are "Ruby 2.0 ready". At BitNami, one of our goals is to simplify the testing of the latest versions of open source web applications and language runtimes. We are happy to announce that we have just released an updated BitNami Rubystack with Ruby 2.0.0. It is completly self-contained and it will not conflict with your current development environment. You can download it, give a try and safely remove it when you are done.

In the ruby-dev mailing list developers are encouraged to check the compatibility of their Ruby 1.9 programs with 2.0.0 and report if they run into problems:
We have taken considerable care in source-level compatibility with 1.9. We believe all "normal" programs will work without modification. So, please give it a try, and report if your program does not work. 
Yusuke Endoh

If you are not familiar already with BitNami RubyStack, it is a free packaging offering that simplifies the development and deployment of Ruby on Rails applications. This version includes ready-to-run versions of Apache 2.2.23, MySQL 5.5.28, Ruby 2.0.0-preview1 and Rails 3.2.8. It also includes RVM 1.11.3.5, NGinx 1.3.4, Passenger 3.0.17, SQLite 3.7.10, Git 1.7.11.3 and all required dependencies. It can be deployed using all-in-one free native installers (for Linux and Mac OS X), virtual machines and Amazon Cloud Images.

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

TestLink now available in BitNami

TestLink is the first winner of the BitNami bi-weekly packaging contest. TestLink is a web-based test management application that helps you to manage the QA process. It offers support for test cases, test suites, test plans, test projects, user management and reporting.

Thanks to the community votes, TestLink was selected to be packaged as part of the BitNami Library. You can now download free, ready to run native installers for Windows, OS X and Linux, virtual machines and Amazon EC2 images. We hope this will help spread the adoption of TestLink.

Francisco Mancardi, one of the lead TestLink developers was kind enough to answer some questions for those of you who may not be familiar with the project.

1. What is the goal of the TestLink application?
In an ideal world, testing would be a pretty straightforward process. A test team takes the product requirements, writes a test specification document, reviews the tests, and then runs them all for each version of the product. The team is composed of full-time staff, and everyone knows exactly what is expected of them. In practice few organisations have that luxury. 
TestLink is a test management application, aimed to simplify the life of QA people. Its goal is to offer features present on commercial-grade applications, while remaining open source. 
The purpose of TestLink is to answer questions such as:
- For which requirements do we still need to write or update test cases?
- Which tests do you want me to run for this version?
- How much progress have we made on testing this release?
- Which test cases are currently failing, and what are the errors?
- On which version was this group of test cases last run, and is it time we ran them again?
- And ultimately: is this version of the product fit for release?


2. What are some of the features of TestLink?
Test Case Management, including versioning, Test Case Reuse, Test Step Reuse Requirement Management, with revisions and versions. Bug Tracker System integration (Bugzilla, Mantis, Redmine, Jira, Trac, YouTrack, FogBugz, ...) Test case results can be recorded via XML-RPC API Reports & Charts.


3. Which projects or organizations are using TestLink currently?  What kind of projects do they use it for?


Some organization have publicly announced on www.teamst.org, that they use TestLink, while for others we only know due to mails. The list include: 
Philips Lighting (Eindhoven, The Netherlands)
Jetminds
Mobotix
Gruppo Tesi
Acronis
General Motors Europe
Dolby Laboratories
Samsung India Software Operations
Talend
Texas Instruments Inc
Tata Consulting Services
Openbravo


4. What do you expect will be the main benefits of having BitNami packages available for TestLink?


I hope new users will find it easier to get started, mainly through the use of the virtual machine. In addition I hope the visibility TestLink will get, will make its use wider on the Software Development Community.

We are glad TestLink is now part of BitNami. Would you like your favorite app to be part of BitNami? Be sure to suggest and vote for it in our contest

Monday, November 12, 2012

Learn How to Run Liferay in the Cloud

Last week, we put on a joint webcast with Liferay on running Liferay in the cloud, which is now available online. During the presentation, we cover the benefits of running Liferay in the cloud as well as some of the pitfalls to watch out for. We then discuss cloud deployment options and show you how to deploy Liferay to the cloud with BitNami Cloud Hosting.

Learn more and sign up for BitNami Cloud Hosting on our Liferay in the cloud page.



New BitNami PHP 5.4 xAMP stacks

We are happy to announce that all of the BitNami PHP-based development stacks have been updated to include PHP 5.4, Apache 2.4 and PostgreSQL 9.2 support. 

You can download LAMP stack for Linux, MAMP stack for OS X and WAMP stack for Windows to develop PHP-based applications on your Desktop, using your favorite Operating System. There are also virtual machines available for download and cloud images to deploy them on Amazon EC2 directly. They ship the following main components:
  • PHP 5.4.8
  • Apache 2.4.3
  • MySQL 5.5.21
  • phpMyAdmin 3.5.3
  • Optional frameworks:
    • ZendFramework 2.0.3
    • CodeIgniter 2.1.3
    • Symfony 2.1.3
    • CakePHP 2.2.3
    • Smarty 3.1.12
    • Laravel 3.2.11


We have also upgraded the PostgreSQL based stacks to the the latest stable version, PostgreSQL 9.2.0. Because the LAPP, MAPP and WAPP stacks are available as native installers, virtual machine images and AMIs, you can develop on a local machine natively or in a virtual environment and then deploy the application to Amazon EC2 for testing and production.

BitNami has a popular module-based system. You can easily install additional BitNami applications on top of the LAMP, MAMP and WAMP stacks. Check our documentation to know how to add WordPress, Joomla!, Drupal, SugarCRM and other popular apps on top of these stacks.

BitNami PHP-based modules for LAMP, MAMP and WAMP stacks

Friday, November 9, 2012

Try out LimeSurvey 2.0 with BitNami


After a long wait, LimeSurvey 2.0 was finally released a few weeks ago. LimeSurvey is a popular and feature-rich open source online survey tool.  You can learn more about LimeSurvey at the LimeSurvey website. We are glad to announce that this latest version is  available on BitNami and ready for you to give it a try.

LimeSurvey allows users to quickly create intuitive, powerful, online question-and-answer surveys that can work for tens to thousands of participants without much effort. The survey software itself is self-guiding for the respondents who are participating.

The BitNami packages for LimeSurvey provide all-in-one free native installers, virtual machines and Amazon Cloud Images that simplify LimeSurvey installation and hosting. The stacks include a pre-configured version of LimeSurvey and all of its required dependencies. This version of the LimeSurvey stacks for BitNami also includes major upgrades to base components such as Apache 2.4 and PHP 5.4.8. Give LimeSurvey a try now!

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Learn All About the Amazon Cloud with the Pragmatic Programmer

Have you been wanting to learn about the cloud, but not sure where to start? Good news! A six-episode webcast series that gives you an in-depth introduction to the various web services available from Amazon is now available from the Pragmatic Programmer. Authored by Jesse Anderson, the series targets users who are new to the cloud, with content tailored for novice to mid-range expertise levels. Jesse’s material is useful for both developers and managers. It covers the main Amazon Web Services’ technologies like EC2 and S3. It also covers the lesser known, but incredibly useful technologies like Elastic Load Balancer, CloudFront, Elastic MapReduce, and Relational Database Service. Each episode covers several Amazon Web Services technologies, discusses the theories behind them, and presents practical exercises. We were very happy to hear that Jesse chose to use BitNami AMIs to showcase various aspects of AWS.

To purchase individual episodes or the full series, visit The Pragmatic Programmer.

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

TestLink Wins the First BitNami Contest - Will Your App Be Next?


Congratulations to the first winner of the BitNami packaging contest, TestLink! TestLink is a web-based test management application that helps you to manage the QA process. It offers support for test cases, test suites, test plans, test projects, user management and reporting.

TestLink received the most votes in the first iteration of the BitNami packaging contest and it will become the next application to join the BitNami family. As with all BitNami-packaged applications, it will soon be available in a complete, ready-to-run package that you can download as a free native installer, virtual appliance and cloud template for the Amazon cloud.

Would you like your favorite app to be part of BitNami? Be sure to vote for it! Now that the first contest period is over, all of the vote counters will be reset and the contest will run again for another two weeks. Will the next app be ResourceSpace, PrestaShop or OrangeHRM, all of which were also in the running in the last contest? Or will it be some other another app? Your vote can help decide!

Friday, November 2, 2012

Free Webcast: Running Liferay in the Cloud with BitNami

Last week, we announced that Liferay Enterprise Edition is now available in BitNami Cloud Hosting. Liferay is a complete, Java-based portal platform. It can be used as a web content management system, an integration platform, a collaboration platform, a social application platform or any combination thereof. 

Next week, we will be presenting a joint webcast with Liferay to discuss the benefits of running Liferay in the cloud and show you how to deploy your own Liferay server with BitNami. Here are the details:

Running Liferay in the Cloud

Summary:   Everyone is talking about the cloud, but does running Liferay in the cloud make sense for your business? In this webinar, we will cover the benefits of running Liferay in the cloud as well as some of the pitfalls to watch out for. We will then discuss your options for cloud deployments and show you how to deploy Liferay to the cloud with BitNami Cloud Hosting. While this presentation will aim to provide you with the knowledge you need to decide whether or not running in Liferay in the cloud is the best option for you, we will also discuss some of the more technical aspects of deploying Liferay, as well as some sizing recommendations in terms of what setup will work best for your needs.

When: Wednesday, November 7, 2012 10:00 AM Pacific

Even if you aren't available to attend at that time, sign up! We will send you a link to view the recorded webcast at your convenience.

If you are interested in learning more about running Liferay in the cloud, you may also want to download our free whitepaper.

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Lower prices for Amazon EC2

Good news! Yesterday Amazon announced that it is lowering its prices for standard instances in the North Virginia and Oregon regions. If you are using BitNami in the Amazon Cloud, you will benefit from the price reduction right away because we do not have any extra surcharge over the standard Amazon prices. As a reminder, you can launch BitNami apps from the Amazon AMI Catalog, the AWS Marketplace or from our own service BitNami Cloud Hosting.