Installing the Numbas editor on Ubuntu#

These are outline instructions on setting up the Numbas editor with a backend MySQL database.

The Numbas editor uses Django, a web framework written in the Python programming language. Django has many configuration options, which we won’t detail here. For more information, consult the Django documentation.

Note

The following instructions are for a server running Ubuntu 24.04 or newer.

Essential package installation#

Install required packages using the apt packaging system:

apt install nginx git-core mysql-server \
mysql-common python3 acl libmysqlclient-dev python3-dev \
supervisor python3-pip python3-virtualenv pkg-config

Virtualenv#

Rather than rely on the system-wide Python executable and libraries, a more flexible approach is to use virtualenv, which is a tool to create an isolated Python environment.

Create a user group which will have access to the virtualenv, and add yourself to it:
```
groupadd numbas
usermod your_username -a -G numbas,www-data
```
You might need to start a new terminal, or log out and back in, for the group change to take effect.

Create the virtualenv in a suitable location:

mkdir /opt/numbas_python
setfacl -dR -m g:numbas:rwx /opt/numbas_python
virtualenv -p python3 /opt/numbas_python

Activate the virtualenv:
```
source /opt/numbas_python/bin/activate
```
(This ensures that subsequent python packages are installed in this isolated environment, and not in the system environment.)

Database#

Open the MySQL client:
```
mysql
```
Create a MySQL database called numbas_editor:
```
create database numbas_editor;
```

Create a database user and grant privileges on numbas_editor database, with a password of your choice:

create user 'numbas_editor'@'localhost' identified by 'password';
grant all privileges on numbas_editor.* to 'numbas_editor'@'localhost';

Create directories and set permissions#

Create the following directories outside the web root, so they’re not accessible to the public:
```
mkdir /srv/numbas{,/compiler,/editor,/media,/previews,/static}
```

Set the correct ownership and permissions:

cd /srv/numbas
chmod 2770 media previews
chmod 2750 compiler static
chgrp www-data compiler media previews static
setfacl -dR -m g::rwX media previews
setfacl -dR -m g::rX compiler static

Clone the editor and compiler repositories#

Clone the Numbas repository:

git clone https://github.com/numbas/Numbas /srv/numbas/compiler

Clone the editor under the webroot directory:

git clone https://github.com/numbas/editor /srv/numbas/editor

Install the Python module dependencies of the editor (in the virtualenv):

pip install -r /srv/numbas/editor/requirements.txt
pip install -r /srv/numbas/compiler/requirements.txt
pip install mysqlclient gunicorn

Configuration#

Run the “first setup” script:
```
cd /srv/numbas/editor
python first_setup.py
```
This will configure the editor based on your answers to a few questions, and write the file numbas/settings.py.

If you’ve been following these instructions exactly, you can accept the defaults for each question.

If you make any mistakes, you can run the script again, or edit numbas/settings.py directly.

Create the supervisor, gunicorn and nginx config files and enable the site.

Make a directory for log files:

mkdir /var/log/numbas_editor
chown www-data:www-data /var/log/numbas_editor

Edit /srv/numbas/editor/web/gunicorn.conf.py with these contents:

# Serve on port 8001
bind = "0.0.0.0:8001"
# Number of worker processes to run. Increase when there is more traffic.
workers = 1
# Access log - records incoming HTTP requests
accesslog = "/var/log/numbas_editor/numbas_editor_access.log"
# Error log - records Gunicorn server goings-on
errorlog = "/var/log/numbas_editor/numbas_editor_error.log"
# Whether to send Django output to the error log
capture_output = True
# How verbose the Gunicorn error logs should be
loglevel = "info"

Edit /etc/supervisor/conf.d/numbas_editor.conf with these contents:

[program:numbas_editor]
command=/opt/numbas_python/bin/gunicorn -c /srv/numbas/editor/web/gunicorn.conf.py web.wsgi:application
directory=/srv/numbas/editor/
user=www-data
autostart=true
autorestart=true
stopasgroup=true
environment=DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE=numbas.settings
numprocs=1

Overwrite /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default with these contents:

server {
    listen 80;

    client_max_body_size 100M;

    location = /favicon.ico { access_log off; log_not_found off; }
    location /static/ {
        alias /srv/numbas/static/;
    }
    location /media/ {
        alias /srv/numbas/media/;
    }
    location /numbas-previews {
        alias /srv/numbas/previews/;
        add_header 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' '*';
    }

    location / {
        include proxy_params;
        proxy_pass http://localhost:8001;
        proxy_read_timeout 120s;
    }
}

Restart supervisor and nginx:
```
systemctl restart nginx supervisor
```

Point a web browser at the server hosting the editor.

Ongoing maintenance#

To keep the editor up to date, run the following script:

source /opt/numbas_python/bin/activate
cd /srv/numbas/compiler
git pull origin master
pip install -r requirements.txt
cd /srv/numbas/editor
git pull origin master
python manage.py migrate
python manage.py collectstatic --noinput
pip install -r requirements.txt
supervisorctl restart numbas_editor

Note that if any changes are made to the editor code, including editing the settings files, then for the web server to recognise these changes you must either run the command touch web/django.wsgi, or restart the Apache server.

Installing the Numbas editor on Ubuntu

Contents

Installing the Numbas editor on Ubuntu#

Essential package installation#

Virtualenv#

Database#

Create directories and set permissions#

Clone the editor and compiler repositories#

Configuration#

Ongoing maintenance#