Setup of Your Laptop Dev Environment (Canvas assignment)

Completion of the following setup tasks are all to be submitted in a single Canvas assignment. Keep a log of any errors or difficulties you encounter, and include those with your submission.

Windows with the WSL

This doc assumes you are using the WSL in the way described in the 201 prework, or in this guide.

Create Directory

Create a directory $wr/codefellows/301/ to hold your work for this course, by running the command:

mkdir -p $wr/codefellows/301

Install Heroku CLI

Go to this link and follow the standalone install instructions (NOT the Windows instructions, NOT the Ubuntu instructions). This will install the Heroku CLI on your Ubuntu FS. This allows the CLI to run in a POSIX environment, fixing the Heroku:pg push issue that exists on Windows.

Verify Installation

From the command line, type heroku --version to verify that your Heroku installation was successful. Skip taking a screenshot (for your canvas assignment) until you can verify PostgreSQL as well.

You are now done with the Heroku CLI! Next you will be installing PostgreSQL 10!

Install Nodemon

In Code 301, Nodemon is a tool that is used to restart the server when changes are made in your server code.

In your terminal, run npm i -g nodemon. Run the command nodemon –version to confirm proper installation of Nodemon.

Install PostgreSQL using WSL

This doc explains how to install PostgreSQL 10 for Windows WSL

We are installing this through the Ubuntu command line since we want this software to run in the Linux environment. You can check out the PostgreSQL Linux install docs here.

Install

1. Open a terminal (the Ubuntu app) and then go to the root of the Ubuntu Subsystem by typing cd ~ .
2. Run lsb_release -a and make note of the Codename listed.
3. Type sudo nano ../../etc/apt/sources.list. This will open a file on Ubuntu using the Nano editor.
4. At the bottom of this file, paste in the line deb http://apt.postgresql.org/pub/repos/apt/ CODENAME-pgdg main, replacing CODENAME with the word you noted in step 2.
5. When that’s done, press ctrl + x together to close the file, press y when prompted to save your changes, and enter to finally close.
6. Next, copy these 2 lines and paste them into your terminal:

     wget --quiet -O - https://www.postgresql.org/media/keys/ACCC4CF8.asc | sudo apt-key add -
     sudo apt-get update
   

   This will add postgresql 10 to your repositories so you can install the latest version of Postgresql.

7. After the update is complete, enter in the line sudo apt-get install postgresql-10 and press y when prompted.
8. To launch the postgres service, type sudo service postgresql start.

Postgres User Setup

Verifying Installation And Setting A Password

• You should be able to run the command sudo -u postgres psql. You will be asked for your administrator password - this is what you usually enter when you run sudo commands. This will log you into the psql prompt as the user postgres.
• You should now have a prompt that looks like postgres=#. You can run SQL commands from here, which must end in semicolons.
• If you were not prompted for a default user or password, we will set one using psql. If you type \du, you can get a list of users associated with PostgreSQL. You should see a single user, postgres. You will need to set up a new role for your machine’s default user. This is the username that appears at the beginning of your terminal prompt, and when you log into your machine.
• In your SQL shell, type the following: CREATE ROLE your-username-here WITH LOGIN PASSWORD 'your-password-here';, replacing “your-password-here” with whatever you want it to be. Remember that your password must be wrapped in quotes. The username should not be wrapped in quotes. Don’t forget the semicolon.
• If successful, you will receive the feedback CREATE ROLE.
• Now we need to grant that user administrative control. In your SQL shell, type the following: ALTER ROLE your-username-here WITH superuser;, replacing “your-username-here” with the username you created a role for in the previous step.
• If successful, you will receive the feedback ALTER ROLE.
• Next, we need to create a default database for your new user and assign ownership of it to your new account. In the SQL shell, type the following: CREATE DATABASE your-username-here;, replacing “your-username-here” with your username. On success, you will receive the feedback CREATE DATABASE.
  • Note: You might get a WARNING: could not flush dirty data: Function not implemented warning many times when you run this command. This is okay! Let the command keep running, and you should eventually see success.
• To change the owner of your database from the postgres user to your user, type the folliwing: ALTER DATABASE your-username-here OWNER TO your-username-here;, replacing “your-username-here” with your username. On success, you will receive the feedback ALTER DATABASE.
• Close your SQL shell with \q or ctrl-D. Type psql again and your SQL shell should now open as your default user. Hooray!

If Using PostgreSQL Version > 11 OR Having Postgres Issues

• Using your ubunutu WSL terminal, navigate to /etc/postgresql/11/main and open the postgresql.conf file with code postgresql.conf

• Search for the setting fsync, it may be commented out.

• The full line should read exactly:

   fsync=off # flush data to disk for crash safety  
  

Suggestion

Since typing out sudo service postgresql start all the time can be tedious, and you’ll need to run this when you restart your computer, we recommend you set up an alias for this.

1. Open a terminal and type cd ~, then type nano .profile. This will open your .profile which controls what your terminal does and looks like.
2. Add this line next to any other aliases that you have:

   alias pgstart='sudo service postgresql start'
   

   This will allow you to type pgstart to start running the psql service. This is an example of a Quality of Life enhancement, something that makes your life easier and faster as a developer.

You can change pgstart to what ever you want, but just be careful you don’t overwrite something that postgres might use.

Final Steps

When you are finished installing the Heroku CLI and PostgreSQL, please move here to complete your Final Steps.