This page describes how to setup a working Python development environment that can be used in developing cinder on Ubuntu, Fedora or Mac OS X. These instructions assume you’re already familiar with git. Refer to GettingTheCode for additional information.
Following these instructions will allow you to run the cinder unit tests. Running cinder is currently only supported on Linux, although you can run the unit tests on Mac OS X.
Cinder development uses virtualenv to track and manage Python dependencies while in development and testing. This allows you to install all of the Python package dependencies in a virtual environment or “virtualenv” (a special subdirectory of your cinder directory), instead of installing the packages at the system level.
Note
Virtualenv is useful for running the unit tests, but is not typically used for full integration testing or production usage.
Note
Feel free to add notes and change according to your experiences or operating system.
Install the prerequisite packages.
On Ubuntu (tested on 12.04-64 and 14.04-64):
sudo apt-get install python-dev libssl-dev python-pip git-core libmysqlclient-dev libpq-dev libffi-dev libxslt-dev
On Fedora-based distributions e.g., Fedora/RHEL/CentOS/Scientific Linux (tested on CentOS 6.5):
sudo yum install python-virtualenv openssl-devel python-pip git gcc libffi-devel libxslt-devel mysql-devel postgresql-devel
On openSUSE-based distributions (SLES 12, openSUSE 13.1, Factory or Tumbleweed):
sudo zypper install gcc git libmysqlclient-devel libopenssl-devel postgresql-devel python-devel python-pip
Install virtualenv:
sudo easy_install virtualenv
Check the version of OpenSSL you have installed:
openssl version
If you have installed OpenSSL 1.0.0a, which can happen when installing a MacPorts package for OpenSSL, you will see an error when running cinder.tests.auth_unittest.AuthTestCase.test_209_can_generate_x509.
The stock version of OpenSSL that ships with Mac OS X 10.6 (OpenSSL 0.9.8l) or Mac OS X 10.7 (OpenSSL 0.9.8r) works fine with cinder.
The unit tests will run by default inside a virtualenv in the .venv directory. Run the unit tests by doing:
./run_tests.sh
The first time you run them, you will be asked if you want to create a virtual environment (hit “y”):
No virtual environment found...create one? (Y/n)
See Unit Tests for more details.
You can manually install the virtual environment instead of having run_tests.sh do it for you:
python tools/install_venv.py
This will install all of the Python packages listed in the requirements.txt file into your virtualenv. There will also be some additional packages (pip, setuptools) that are installed by the tools/install_venv.py file into the virtualenv.
If all goes well, you should get a message something like this:
Cinder development environment setup is complete.
To activate the Cinder virtualenv for the extent of your current shell session you can run:
$ source .venv/bin/activate
Or, if you prefer, you can run commands in the virtualenv on a case by case basis by running:
$ tools/with_venv.sh <your command>
Once your work is complete you may wish to contribute it to the project. Cinder uses the Gerrit code review system. For information on how to submit your branch to Gerrit, see GerritWorkflow.