This product offering has been deprecated

Overview

Use the Private Assembla Amazon Machine Image (AMI) to quickly launch a server on Amazon EC2. The Private Assembla AMI includes the Assembla application with a deployment stack consisting of Ruby, mod_passenger, MySQL, Apache, and Debian Linux 5.0.

Before you start, you will need:

An Amazon Web Services account. This will allow you to start and manage the server instance on EC2.
An SMTP account, so that your application can send email. (Note: Gmail SMTP limits outbound mail to 500 messages per day.)

You don't need, but may want:

A DNS server and account if you plan not to use an IP address as the server name.
A signed and verified PKI certificate if you plan to support https and SSL.

Known problems in the current release

You must restart Apache (as root, issue "/etc/init.d/apache2 restart") after booting the image in order to use Subversion repositories.)

1. Launch Private Assembla on EC2

Purchase Private Assembla image, either the 100 user instance or the 500 user instance. Amazon will link you to this page. There are two Amazon Machine Images available:
- ami-bddf3cd4 (100-user version)
- ami-bfdf3cd6 (500-user version)
If you don't already have an EC2 keypair, generate one. See here for Amazon console instructions, or How to Generate an SSH Key Pair for Amazon command-line instructions.
Launch an instance using the Amazon console or Amazon command-line interface. The Amazon console instructions are here. The Amazon command-line command is:
- ec2-run-instances ami-bddf3cd4 -k <your keypair name> -t m1.large (for the 100-user version)
- ec2-run-instances ami-bfdf3cd6 -k <your keypair name -t m1.large (for the 500-user version)
Use the Amazon console or Amazon command-line interface to determine when the instance has booted. The command-line command is:
- ec2-describe-instances
Connect to the instance and log into the server as userid "root". See these instructions.

Note that the system time is set to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).

2. Choose and configure your host name

You can refer to your Private Assembla server by its IP address or by a hostname.

Option 1 - IP address

Use the IP address to quickly set up a test installation. When configuring Private Assembla in the next step, enter the IP address in the Basic tab field "Private Assembla host". Thereafter, you will access Private Assembla using URLs of the form http://<IP address>.

Option 2 - Hostname in a Domain Name Server

You can use a Domain Name Server (DNS) so distributed desktop users can access the application using that name. You can use either the public hostname Amazon assigns you, your existing DNS infrastructure, or Assembla's DNS service.

To use Amazon's public hostname:

Do nothing now. You will be configuring this name during step three.

To use existing DNS infrastructure:

Choose your host name. You will be configuring this name during step three.
Add an entry for this name to DNS, mapped to your Private Assembla server's IP address.
If the DNS server you are using is private (not on the Internet), add its address to the Private Assembla image. Edit /etc/resolv.conf and add the following line:
nameserver <your DNS server address>

To use Assembla's DNS server, which requires that you connect to the public Internet:

Do nothing now. Private Assembla will assign you a host name during step three. It will then automatically add an entry in our DNS server mapping your IP address to your assigned host name.

3. Configure Private Assembla

Using Private Assembla's configuration tool to configure it.

Open a browser to http://<private assembla host>:8585 or the URL listed on the console.
Set configuration parameters according to your requirements. These parameters are located on multiple configuration tabs:
- License
- Basic
- User Restrictions
- HTTP Security
- Email
When you are satisfied, go to the Done tab, and press "Submit and write the configuration." The configuration tool will re-configure and restart Private Assembla.
Validate your Outbound Email settings:
- Login as root in a server window
- # cd /root/assembla-config/configserv/script
- # ./runner validate_smtp.rb
- If successful, you will receive a test email at the "Private Assembla admin email" you configured earlier.
As a security precaution, shutdown the configuration tool by killing the process.
- Login as root in a server window
- # ps -ef | grep 8585
- # kill <process id>

If your client browsers use a proxy server, add exceptions to each client browser for the Private Assembla server name.

4. Administer Private Assembla

Login as the Assembla administrator.
- Open a browser to http://<private assembla host>.
- Click on Login at the top right. Use the master Login ID "super" and password "super"
Change the profile for super
- Click to the Profile tab.
- Under the Information tab, enter your information (make sure to change E-mail and Phone).
- Click Submit
Change the password for super
- Click to the Profile tab.
- Under the Information tab, enter a new password in "Password" and "Confirm Password"
- Click "Change password"
Edit the home page
- Click to the Start tab
- Under "My Spaces", click home
- Inside the home space, click "Edit this page".
- Modify the page text as a wiki, click "Preview change" (optional), and click "Save changes"
Add administrative users.
- Click to the Spaces tab
- Click on the ADMIN space.
- In the Team tab, add new administrators by providing their email addresses under "Invite multiple members by email." Invite yourself; you should generally use your own account rather than super when administering the application.
  Note: Be careful when creating administrators. They have high privileges, can see the Admin tools, can log in as any user and can modify any space.
- Click Invite, type an invitation message, and click "Invite Users"

Your application should be working and ready to test.

5. Using the Administrative interface

If you are a member of the ADMIN team (super, or someone invited by super) you have the following super-user privileges:

You have all permissions in any space
You can log in as a user, from their user profile. This is often an important way to resolve user problems.
You can use the Administrative interface. To use the administrative interface, go to the /admin URL in your server ( http://<private assembla host>/admin).

6. Add space configurations

A Private Assembla workspace can have a many different configurations of tools and content. To make it easier to create workspaces, we provide a catalog of "Configurations". You will see this catalog under the "Get a Space" tab. You can make your own configurations, and you can add and remove configurations from the catalog. Each configuration starts as a "template space" - a space that you configure, and then copy to make the new workspace. Lastly, you add the template space to the catalog.

Click here to learn more about configurations and template spaces.

First, you must create a new space to be used as a template. Configure it as you wish (make sure to "Allow Edit for public access"). To submit this space as a template, navigate to the "Get a Space" page (use the /catalog URL). Select "Add Configurations" and select "click here to submit it as a catalog configuration".

An administrator must approve all new catalog entries before they will show in the list of configurations. To approve, go to the administrative interface (use the /admin URL) and select the tab for "Content". Under "Catalog", select "Unapproved". You will see submitted configurations. You can select a configuration from the left column of this list, and edit its status to set it as Approved (and optionally, Featured).