This section describes Open edX installation options and the components that each option includes. More details about the various options are at the Open edX Installation Options page on the edX wiki.
There are three virtual machine options, which install the Open edX software in a virtual Ubuntu machine. If you prefer, you can install into an Ubuntu machine of your own using the Native installation.
You can install the Open edX developer stack (devstack), the Open edX full stack (fullstack), or the Open edX analytics developer stack (analytics devstack).
The Open edX Ficus release is supported only on the Ubuntu 16.04 operating system. You can use the virtual machine installation options to run Fullstack in a Vagrant virtual machine running on Linux, Mac OS, or Windows systems, or to run Devstack or Analytics Devstack on Linux or Mac OS. See the Vagrant downloads page for information about the operating systems and architectures on which you can run Vagrant.
Devstack is a Vagrant instance designed for local development. Devstack has the same system requirements as Fullstack. This allows you to discover and fix system configuration issues early in development.
Devstack simplifies certain production settings to make development more convenient. For example, nginx and gunicorn are disabled in devstack; devstack uses Django’s runserver instead.
For information about devstack and other installation and configuration options from edX and the Open edX community, see the Open edX Installation Options page on the edX wiki.
Note
Because of the large number of dependencies needed to develop extensions to Open edX Insights, a separate development environment is available to support Analytics development. For more information, see Installing and Starting Analytics Devstack.
For more information about Vagrant, see the Vagrant documentation.
Fullstack is a Vagrant instance designed for installing all Open edX services on a single server in a production-like configuration. Fullstack is a pre-packaged Native installation running in a Vagrant virtual machine.
For information about fullstack and other installation and configuration options from edX and the Open edX community, see the Open edX Installation Options page on the edX wiki.
For more information about Vagrant, see the Vagrant documentation.
Some users might want to develop Analytics features on their instance of the Open edX platform. Because of the large number of dependencies needed to develop extensions to Analytics, edX has created a separate developer stack, known as analytics devstack. We strongly recommend that you install the analytics devstack instead of adding Analytics extensions to an instance of devstack.
Analytics devstack is a modified version of the Open edX developer stack. This development environment provides all of the services and tools needed to modify the Open edX Analytics Pipeline, Data API, and Insights projects.
The Native installation installs the Open edX software on your own Ubuntu 16.04 machine in a production-like configuration. Details are at the Open edX Native Installation page on the edX wiki.
All installations include the following Open edX components:
Devstack, fullstack and native installations also include:
Fullstack and native also include the following Open edX components:
Analytics devstack also includes the following Open edX components:
When you install an Open edX system, the following user accounts are created by default.
Account Description staff@example.comAn LMS and Studio user with course creation and editing permissions. This user is a course team member with the Admin role, which gives rights to work with the demonstration course in Studio, the LMS, and Insights. verified@example.comA student account that you can use to access the LMS for testing verified certificates. audit@example.comA student account that you can use to access the LMS for testing course auditing. honor@example.comA student account that you can use to access the LMS for testing honor code certificates.
The password for all of these accounts is edx.
When you install devstack, fullstack, or analytics devstack you can customize the environment. This section provides information about configuration options for Open edX virtual machines.
If you are installing an Open edX virtual machine on a Linux or Mac computer, you must configure your installation to use the preview feature in Open edX Studio.
/etc/hosts file, add the following line.192.168.33.10 preview.localhost
You can customize the location of the Open edX source code that gets cloned when you provision a devstack. You may want to do this to have the Open edX virtual machine work with source code that already exists on your computer.
By default, the source code location is the directory in which you run
vagrant up. To change this location, follow these steps.
VAGRANT_MOUNT_BASE environment variable to set the base
directory for the edx-platform and cs_comments_service source code
directories.