Instructions

Supported Platforms

Pulp should work on any operating system that can provide a Python 3.8+ runtime environment and the supporting dependencies e.g. a database. Pulp has been demonstrated to work on Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, CentOS, and Mac OSX.

Note

Pulp 3 currently does not have an AppArmor Profile. Until then, any environment you run Pulp 3 in must have AppArmor either permissive or disabled. There are risks associated with this decision. See your distribution’s docs for more details

PyPI Installation

  1. (Optional) Create a user account & group for Pulp 3 to run under, rather than using root. The following values are recommended:

    • name: pulp

    • shell: The path to the nologin executable

    • home: DEPLOY_ROOT

    • system account: yes

    • create corresponding private group: yes

  2. Install python3.8(+) and pip.

  3. Create a pulp venv:

    $ python3 -m venv pulpvenv
    $ source pulpvenv/bin/activate
    

Note

On some operating systems you may need to install a package which provides the venv module. For example, on Ubuntu or Debian you need to run:

$ sudo apt-get install python3-venv
  1. Install Pulp using pip:

    $ pip install pulpcore
    

Note

To install from source, clone git repositories and do a local, editable pip installation:

$ git clone https://github.com/pulp/pulpcore.git
$ pip install -e ./pulpcore[postgres]
  1. Configure Pulp by following the configuration instructions.

  2. Set SECRET_KEY and CONTENT_ORIGIN according to the settings.

  3. Create MEDIA_ROOT and WORKING_DIRECTORY with the prescribed permissions proposed in the settings.

  4. Go through the Database Setup, Redis, and Systemd sections.

  5. Run Django Migrations:

    $ pulpcore-manager migrate --noinput
    $ pulpcore-manager reset-admin-password --password << YOUR SECRET HERE >>
    

Note

The pulpcore-manager command is manage.py configured with the DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE="pulpcore.app.settings". You can use it anywhere you would normally use manage.py.

Warning

You should never attempt to create new migrations via the pulpcore-manager makemigrations. In case, new migrations would be needed, please file a bug against the respective plugin. How to File an Issue

Note

In place of using the systemd unit files provided in the systemd-setup section, you can run the commands yourself inside of a shell. This is fine for development but not recommended in production:

$ /path/to/python/bin/pulpcore-worker --resource-manager
$ /path/to/python/bin/pulpcore-worker
  1. Collect Static Media for live docs and browsable API:

    $ pulpcore-manager collectstatic --noinput
    
  2. Run Pulp:

    $ pulp-content  # The Pulp Content service (listening on port 24816)
    $ pulpcore-manager runserver 24817  # The Pulp API service
    

Database Setup

You must provide a PostgreSQL database for Pulp to use. At this time, Pulp 3.0 will only work with PostgreSQL.

PostgreSQL

Installation package considerations

To install PostgreSQL, refer to the package manager or the PostgreSQL install docs. Oftentimes, you can also find better installation instructions for your particular operating system from third-parties such as Digital Ocean.

On Ubuntu and Debian, the package to install is named postgresql. On Fedora and CentOS, the package is named postgresql-server.

User and database configuration

The default PostgreSQL user and database name in the provided server.yaml file is pulp. Unless you plan to customize the configuration of your Pulp installation, you will need to create this user with the proper permissions and also create the pulp database owned by the pulp user. If you do choose to customize your installation, the database options can be configured in the DATABASES section of your server.yaml settings file. See the Django database settings documentation for more information on setting the DATABASES values in server.yaml.

UTF-8 encoding

You must configure PostgreSQL to use UTF-8 character set encoding.

Post-installation setup

After installing and configuring PostgreSQL, you should configure it to start at boot, and then start it:

$ sudo systemctl enable postgresql
$ sudo systemctl start postgresql

Redis

Pulp can use Redis to cache requests to the content app. This can be installed on a different host or the same host that Pulp is running on.

To install Redis, refer to your package manager or the Redis download docs.

For Fedora, CentOS, Debian, and Ubuntu, the package to install is named redis.

After installing and configuring Redis, you should configure it to start at boot and start it:

$ sudo systemctl enable redis
$ sudo systemctl start redis

Systemd

To run the four Pulp services, systemd files needs to be created in /usr/lib/systemd/system/. The Pulp 3 Ansible Installer makes these for you, but you can also configure them by hand from the templates below. Custom configuration can be applied using the Environment option with various Pulp settings.

  1. Make a pulpcore-content.service file for the pulpcore-content service which serves Pulp content to clients. We recommend starting with the pulpcore-content template and setting the variables according to the pulpcore_content config variables documentation

  2. Make a pulpcore-api.service file for the pulpcore-api service which serves the Pulp REST API. We recommend starting with the pulpcore-api template and setting the variables according to the pulpcore-api config variables documentation

  3. Make a pulpcore-worker@.service file for the pulpcore-worker processes which allows you to manage one or more workers. We recommend starting with the pulpcore-worker template and setting the variables according to the pulp_workers config variables documentation

  4. Make a pulpcore-resource-manager.service file which can manage one pulpcore-resource-manager process. We recommend starting with the pulpcore-resource-manager template and setting the variables according to the pulp_resource_manager config variables documentation

These services can then be started by running:

sudo systemctl start pulpcore-resource-manager
sudo systemctl start pulpcore-content
sudo systemctl start pulpcore-api
sudo systemctl start pulpcore-worker@1
sudo systemctl start pulpcore-worker@2

SSL

Users should configure HTTPS communication between clients and the reverse proxy that is in front of pulp services like pulpcore-api and pulpcore-content. The Pulp Installer provides three different options for configuring SSL certificates for nginx and httpd reverse proxies.

  1. By default, the installer will generate a new Certificate Authority and use it to sign an SSL certificate. In this case, the Pulp administrator will need to distribute the Certificate Authority certificate or the SSL certificate to all clients that wish to communicate with Pulp. Clients will need to import one of these certificates to their system CA trust store.

    The default location for the CA certificate is /etc/pulp/certs/root.crt. The default location for the SSL certificate is /etc/pulp/certs/pulp_webserver.crt.

  2. If you already have an SSL Cerificate that you want to be used by the reverse proxy to encrypt communication with clients, the Pulp Installer supports providing a path for pulp_webserver_tls_cert and pulp_webserver_tls_key. The administrator is still responsible for making sure that clients trust the Certificate Authority that signed the SSL certificate.

  3. The Pulp Installer also supports using services that use the ACME protocol, e.g. https://letsencrypt.org/, to generate trusted SSL certificates. See the Pulp Installer documentation for instructions and an example playbook.