3.1. Open edX Platform Installation Options

This section describes Open edX installation options and the components that each option includes.

3.1.1. Open edX Platform Virtual Machines

You can install the Open edX developer stack (devstack), the Open edX full stack (fullstack), or the Open edX analytics developer stack (analytics devstack).

  • Devstack is a Vagrant virtual machine instance designed for local development. For more information, see Open edX Devstack.
  • Fullstack is a Vagrant virtual machine instance designed for deploying all edX services on a single server. For more information, see Open edX Fullstack.
  • Analytics devstack is a modified version of the devstack virtual machine that allows you to run edX Analytics. For more information, see Open edX Analytics Devstack.

3.1.1.1. Open edX Devstack

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.

Devstack is in the edx configuration repository on GitHub.

For information about devstack and other installation and configuration options from edX and the Open edX community, see the edx configuration repository wiki. Specifically, the following pages have more information about devstack.

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.

3.1.1.2. Open edX Fullstack

Fullstack is a Vagrant instance designed for deploying all edX services on a single server. Fullstack is in the edx configuration repository on GitHub.

For information about fullstack and other installation and configuration options from edX and the Open edX community, see the edx configuration repository wiki.

For more information about Vagrant, see the Vagrant documentation.

3.1.1.2.1. Ubuntu 12.04 64-bit

You can install fullstack on a single Ubuntu 12.04 64-bit server. More Ubuntu information is planned for future versions of this guide.

For information about Ubuntu and other installation and configuration options from edX and the Open edX community, see the edx configuration repository wiki.

3.1.1.3. Open edX Analytics Devstack

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.

3.1.2. Virtual Machine Components

Fullstack, devstack, and analytics devstack all include the following edX components.

  • The Learning Management System (LMS).
  • edX Studio.
  • Discussion Forums.
  • Open Response Assessments (ORA).

Devstack also includes the following edX components.

  • A demonstration edX course.
  • EdX Search.

Fullstack also includes the following edX components.

  • XQueue, the queuing server that uses RabbitMQ for external graders.
  • Discern, the machine-learning-based automated textual classification API service.
  • Ease, a library for the classification of textual content.

Analytics devstack also includes the following edX components.

  • edX Analytics Data API.
  • edX Insights.
  • The components needed to run the Open edX Analytics Pipeline. This is the primary extract, transform, and load (ETL) tool that extracts and analyzes data from the other Open edX services.

3.1.2.1. Default Accounts

When you install devstack, fullstack, or analytics devstack, the following user accounts are created by default.

Account Description
staff@example.com An 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.com A student account that you can use to access the LMS for testing verified certificates.
audit@example.com A student account that you can use to access the LMS for testing course auditing.
honor@example.com A student account that you can use to access the LMS for testing honor code certificates.

The password for all of these accounts is edx.

3.1.3. Virtual Machine Configuration Options

When you install devstack, fullstack, or analytics devstack you can customize the environment. This section provides information about configuration options for edX virtual machines.

3.1.3.1. Set Up Ability to Preview Units (Mac/Linux Only)

If you are installing an edX virtual machine on a Linux or Mac computer, you must configure your installation to use the preview feature in edX Studio.

  1. Connect to the Devstack virtual machine.
  2. In the etc/hosts file, add the following line.
192.168.33.10 preview.localhost

3.1.3.2. Customize the Source Code Location

You can customize the location of the edX source code that gets cloned when you provision an edX virtual machine. You may want to do this to have the 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.

  1. Connect to the Devstack virtual machine.
  2. Set the VAGRANT_MOUNT_BASE environment variable to set the base directory for the edx-platform and cs_comments_service source code directories.