First steps

How to create and bootstrap a buildout

To create a buildout and run the build, you just need 1 file and 2 commands:

• Create a single buildout.cfg file.
• Be sure you installed all your build dependencies
• Bootstrap the buildout with: python bootstrap.py
• Run the build with: bin/buildout

The same with more details below :

Creating the buildout

Create a buildout.cfg file in an empty directory, containing the configuration of the example 6.1 section.

Installing build dependencies

You basically need typical development tools needed to build all the Python dependency eggs of OpenERP. You can do this by yourself with your system or Linux distribution.

Or if you’re using a Debian based distribution, we provide a single dependency package you can use to install all dependencies in one shot:

Add the following line in your /etc/apt/sources.list:

deb http://apt.anybox.fr/openerp common main

If you don’t want your system to complain about non-signed packages, have it accept the signing key, e.g. by issuing:

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver hkp://subkeys.pgp.net --recv-keys 0xE38CEB07

(sometimes, the key server is too busy, you may need to wait a few minutes and try again)

Install the dependency package:

$ sudo aptitude update
$ sudo aptitude install openerp-server-system-build-deps

You can uninstall this package with aptitude after the build to automatically remove all un-needed dependencies, but you need to install run dependencies before that

$ sudo aptitude install openerp-server-system-run-deps
$ sudo aptitude remove openerp-server-system-build-deps

Please note that these package will have your system install the client part of PostgreSQL software only. If you want a PostgreSQL server on the same host, that’s not in the recipe scope, just install it as well.

Bootstrapping the buildout

Bootstrapping the buildout consists in creating the basic structure of the buildout, and installing buildout itself in the directory. Once it’s been done, everything is under tight control.

The easiest way to bootstrap is to use the bootstrap.py script:

$ wget https://raw.github.com/buildout/buildout/master/bootstrap/bootstrap.py

As of zc.buildout version 2.2, strong isolation from the system-wide Python installation has been abandoned because of its redundancy with the very popular virtualenv. Besides, the bootstrap actually fails if a version of setuptools older than 0.7 is present system-wide (happens easily enough at the time of this writing).

The universal current way of doing is therefore to start from a virtualenv without setuptools. For virtualenv >= 1.9, just do:

$ virtualenv sandbox --no-setuptools

For older versions of virtualenv:

$ virtualenv sandbox
$ sandbox/bin/pip uninstall setuptools pip

Note

to install virtualenv.

• Debian family: sudo aptitude install python-virtualenv
• Redhat/Fedora/CenOS family: sudo yum install python-virtualenv

Finally, perform the bootstrap with the virtualenv’s Python:

$ sandbox/bin/python bootstrap.py

Warning

boostrap.py will fail if you don’t already have a valid buildout.cfg file. Don’t hesitate over options, you can bootstrap with a really minimal one and tweak it later.

From now on, all buildout related operations, including OpenERP startup script, custom scripts will be protected by the virtualenv.

Note

nothing, not even zc.buildout actually gets installed by buildout in such a virtualenv. It’s totally safe if you’re managing several buildouts to share a single such virtualenv among all of them.

Note

since the bootstrap operation is so sensitive, we recommend package managers to include the precise bootstrap.py in their distributed buildout, and to bundle a future-proof shell script, using options such as -v.

Running the build

This is the day-to-day operation. Just run

$ bin/buildout

And rerun to apply any changes you could later make to buildout.cfg.

Starting OpenERP

Just run

$ bin/start_openerp

Example OpenERP 7.0 buildouts

This example builds the latest nightly OpenERP 7 version. Note how most Python distribution versions are pinned.

While not mandatory, version pinning is an important part of the buildout culture. Note also how even zc.buildout and the current recipe versions can be pinned:

[buildout]
parts = openerp
versions = versions
find-links = http://download.gna.org/pychart/

[openerp]
recipe = anybox.recipe.openerp[bzr]:server
version = nightly 7.0 latest

[versions]
setuptools = 1.1.0
zc.buildout = 2.2.1
zc.recipe.eggs = 2.0.0
anybox.recipe.openerp = 1.7.1
babel = 0.9.6
Pillow = 1.7.1
pywebdav = 0.9.4.1
PyXML = 0.8.4
pyyaml = 3.10
werkzeug = 0.8.3
zsi = 2.0-rc3
feedparser = 5.1.1
gdata = 2.0.16
lxml = 2.3.3
psycopg2 = 2.4.4
pydot = 1.0.28
pyparsing = 1.5.6
python-dateutil = 1.5
python-ldap = 2.4.9
python-openid = 2.2.5
pytz = 2012b
vatnumber = 1.0
vobject = 0.8.1c
xlwt = 0.7.3

Of course, installing the latest nightly release provided by OpenERP is not really interesting. The flexibility is.

Here’s an example with the latest versions of the 7.0 Bazaar branches on Launchpad as lightweight checkouts (to avoid hour long downloads). We don’t repeat the buildout and versions sections:

[openerp]
recipe = anybox.recipe.openerp[bzr]:server
version = bzr lp:openobject-server/7.0 openerp-7.0 last:1 bzr-init=lightweight-checkout
addons = bzr lp:openobject-addons/7.0 addons-7.0 last:1 bzr-init=lightweight-checkout
         bzr lp:openerp-web/7.0 addons-web-7.0 last:1 subdir=addons bzr-init=lightweight-checkout

Now imagine how easily one can switch branches and redistribute a ready-to-run buildout on some dedicated support branch, Git mirrors, etc.

The next example is on 6.1 and demonstrates both how to add specific addons directories, and how uniform it is.

Example OpenERP 6.1 buildout with a custom addon

Here is a very simple example for a latest OpenERP 6.1 nightly and a custom addon hosted on Bitbucket:

[buildout]
parts = openerp
versions = versions
find-links = http://download.gna.org/pychart/

[openerp]
recipe = anybox.recipe.openerp:server
version = nightly 6.1 latest
addons = hg https://bitbucket.org/anybox/anytracker addons-at default

[versions]
MarkupSafe = 0.15
Pillow = 1.7.7
PyXML = 0.8.4
babel = 0.9.6
feedparser = 5.1.1
gdata = 2.0.16
lxml = 2.3.3
mako = 0.6.2
psycopg2 = 2.4.4
pychart = 1.39
pydot = 1.0.28
pyparsing = 1.5.6
python-dateutil = 1.5
python-ldap = 2.4.9
python-openid = 2.2.5
pytz = 2012b
pywebdav = 0.9.4.1
pyyaml = 3.10
reportlab = 2.5
simplejson = 2.4.0
vatnumber = 1.0
vobject = 0.8.1c
werkzeug = 0.8.3
xlwt = 0.7.3
zc.buildout = 1.5.2
zc.recipe.egg = 1.3.2
zsi = 2.0-rc3

Note

with OpenERP 6.1 the web client is natively included in the server as a simple module. In that case you don’t need to write a separate part for the web client, unless that’s what you really want to do.

Example OpenERP 6.0 buildout (server and clients)

Here is a sample buildout with version specification, 2 OpenERP servers (with one using the latest 6.0 branch on the launchpad) using only NETRPC and listening on 2 different ports, and 2 web clients:

[buildout]
parts = openerp1 web1 openerp2 web2
#allow-picked-versions = false
versions = versions
find-links = http://download.gna.org/pychart/

[openerp1]
recipe = anybox.recipe.openerp:server
version = 6.0.3
options.xmlrpc = False
options.xmlrpcs = False

[web1]
recipe = anybox.recipe.openerp:webclient
version = 6.0.3

[openerp2]
recipe = anybox.recipe.openerp[bzr]:server
version = bzr lp:openobject-server/6.0 openobject-server-6.x last:1

options.xmlrpc = False
options.xmlrpcs = False
options.netrpc_port = 8170

[web2]
recipe = anybox.recipe.openerp:webclient
version = 6.0.3
global.openerp.server.port = '8170'
global.server.socket_port = 8180

[versions]
MarkupSafe = 0.15
Pillow = 1.7.7
anybox.recipe.openerp = 0.9
caldav = 0.1.10
collective.recipe.cmd = 0.5
coverage = 3.5
distribute = 0.6.25
feedparser = 5.0.1
lxml = 2.1.5
mako = 0.4.2
nose = 1.1.2
psycopg2 = 2.4.2
pychart = 1.39
pydot = 1.0.25
pyparsing = 1.5.6
python-dateutil = 1.5
pytz = 2012b
pywebdav = 0.9.4.1
pyyaml = 3.10
reportlab = 2.5
vobject = 0.8.1c
z3c.recipe.scripts = 1.0.1
zc.buildout = 1.5.2
zc.recipe.egg = 1.3.2
Babel = 0.9.6
FormEncode = 1.2.4
simplejson = 2.1.6

Continuously tested examples

Other examples are available in the buildbot subdirectory of the source distribution archive of this recipe (the tar.gz file that can be downloaded from the PyPI), and are continuously tested in the anybox buildbot which is powered by anybox.buildbot.openerp.

See also Continuous integration for more details about these tested examples.

Other sample buildouts

Here are a few ready-to-use buildouts:

(Be sure to install system dependencies first)

OpenERP with the development branches of the Magento connector addons:

$ hg clone https://bitbucket.org/anybox/openerp_connect_magento_buildout
$ cd openerp_connect_magento_buildout
$ python bootstrap.py
$ bin/buildout
$ bin/start_openerp

OpenERP with the development branches of the Prestashop connector addons:

$ hg clone https://bitbucket.org/anybox/openerp_connect_prestashop_buildout
$ cd openerp_connect_prestashop_buildout
$ python bootstrap.py
$ bin/buildout
$ bin/start_openerp