Yevgeniy Viktorov's blog

Welcome to My Octopress Blog

2011-11-27T00:00:00-08:00

Dear friends, some time ago I made a decision to switching my blogging toolkit, you can read more on the my new blog. And I’ll keep this blog as is for historical purposes.

Sorry for any inconvenience caused.

Thanks.

Bootstrap cloud instances with a Chef and Opscode

2010-07-09T00:00:00-07:00

I was looking for cloud automation approaches and come up with some interesting pragmatic solution.

If shortly, this is about provisioning Chef Client ready server on Rackspace Cloud services with a single command. We also will be using Opscode instead of our own Chef Server.

UPDATE(31 Aug 2010): forgot to mention server_url attribute which are important for future findings of chef server, i.e. Opscode server in our case. See Bootstrap Rackspace Cloud server with chef-client daemon section.

Pre-requirements

Rackspace Cloud account
Opscode account
Follow Opscode quick start guide first

Sharpening Knife for the cloud

I’ll assume we continue with Opscode quick start guide for simplicity.

At this point you must have workstation with a basic Chef Repository and Chef Client installed.

So, let’s tweak Knife configuration to let it interact with a Rackspace Cloud API. Open ~/chef-repo/.chef/knife.rb and add the following:

knife(
  :rackspace_api_key => "Your Rackspace Cloud API key here",
  :rackspace_api_username => "Your Rackspace Cloud username here"
)

Preparing necessary cookbooks(Chef Cookbook with dependencies) and pushing them to the Opscode server:

knife cookbook site vendor chef --dependencies
rake upload_cookbooks

Ok, Knife is sharp now, cookbook opened on the right page, let’s bootstrap client ;)

Bootstrap Rackspace Cloud server with chef-client daemon

Yes, Chef Client will be running as persistent daemon in order to “talk” to Opscode server periodically(about 30 minutes).

Create ~/chef-repo/roles/chef4test.rb file with the following, replacing ORGNAME with your organization’s simple string name:

name "chef4test"
description "Bootstraping chef node"
run_list("recipe[chef::bootstrap_client]")
default_attributes "chef" => { "server_url" => "https://api.opscode.com/organizations/ORGNAME" }

And throw the following commands:

cd ~/chef-repo
rake roles
knife rackspace server create 'role[chef4test]' --server-name chef4test --image 49 --flavor 2

image 49 it’s Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (Lucid Lynx);
flavor it’s a server size, i.e. 512MB RAM with 20GB disk for $0.03 per hour in this case.

And image 4 it’s Debian 5.0 (Lenny) if you interested ;)

Now wait a little and check Opscode Console when Knife complete.

However it’s easy to discover the flavor id, I still did not found an easy way to discover image ID and using FOG library(which also required by rackspace server sub-commands of Knife btw).

Removing servers

knife rackspace server delete <ID>

You can discover server ID with a list command:

knife rackspace server list

Distribute Magento extensions as a PEAR packages

2010-05-08T00:00:00-07:00

Many users and developers do not know that Magento uses a PEAR-repository for installation and management of its extensions. Some of you might now ask: What is PEAR? PEAR (PHP Extension and Application Repository) is - as the name indicates already - a repository for PHP-extensions and applications. PEAR was set up in 2001 and is managed by the PEAR group, which was founded for this purpose. This repository currently offers more than 550 so-called packages with software provided under the PHP-license for download. Most of them are components, thus software that is not able to run on its own, which can be integrated in another software application.

Administration of the packages is done using a so-called PEAR channel, allowing the developer to download the package directly. Nevertheless, it is much more comfortable to install the packages using a local PEAR repository which is included in every current Linux-distribution and every Apple-computer.

In this post I would like to cover some practices of distributing free and paid magento extensions though PEAR channel.

Magento Connect

Magento Connect it’s not only the official marketplace for magento extensions, but also PEAR channel for distribution of core and community extensions which can be installed in the one of the following ways:

Both methods are compatible, the Magento Connect Manager it’s a web interface to PEAR command line. You can also install extensions manually, but that’s not effective and might lead to serious maintenance problems in future.

If you developing Open Source extensions this is the best way to go, after you get familiar with packaging a magento extension continue with ”Creating a Magento Community extension” :)

Simple personal PEAR channel

There are three more or less known implementations we can use to establish own PEAR channel:

Every solution has it’s advantages/disadvantages, you have to read more about it’s features. Here I would like to describe one use case for setting up private(password protected) channel and in order to keep things simple and clean I’ll be using Pirum, because: Pirum consists of just one file, a command line tool, written in PHP. There is no external dependencies, no not need for a database, no need to setup credentials, and nothing need to be installed or configured.

Private channel using Subversion

A PEAR channel server managed by Pirum is simply a directory full of static XML files. As such, the server can be hosted on any shared host, without the need for PHP or any other web server technology installed. i.e. on any http/https accessible server and it’s very popular setup when subversion served by webserver with the help of WebDAV module.

PEAR compatible channels can be password protected. Password protection is done via a HTTP Basic Authentication (.htaccess and .htpassword on Apache). i.e. this is how password protection works for subversion when it served by webserver.

When I realize this I was felt lucky that in addition to multiple git repositories on per project basis the codebasehq allow to create subversion repositories the same way. So, in order to proceed you must have password protected subversion repository accessible though http/https protocol, but don’t worry, I mentioned codebasehq because they also have Free Account you could use for this little experiment ;)

Intstall the Pirum and create your channel

As described at Pirum website, but with the following adjustments in the pirum.xml file, prior to build command:

use “tinycarts” for alias (it’s to simplify example, you can use your own alias after you get familiar with the concept)
use tinycarts.github.com for the name (for same as above reason)
url must pointing to the repository, i.e. http://mysite.svn.codebasehq.com/foobar/pear/

Releasing package

During channel creation step we used “tinycarts” as alias and name for our channel, this is to make it possible to use the following package in this experiment: Lib_Tinycarts_Debug

Simply download and execute the following command:

 php pirum add pear /path/to/saved/Lib_Tinycarts_Debug-1.0.0.tgz

Import channel into repository

 cd pear
 svn import . http://mysite.svn.codebasehq.com/foobar/pear

NOTE if you also considered to go with codebasehq for this experiment:

mysite - the name of site you choose when sign up for account
foobar - the project short name
pear - subversion repository short name

Using your PEAR Channel Server

Here is minor problem, you need to associate the login/password with a channel, but you can’t discover the channel because it’s already password protected :) So, you need to do some routine, i.e. discover the channel using the channel.xml file manually, execute the following command in magento directory:

./pear channel-add /path/to/saved/channel.xml

Now the PEAR manager needs to know about the channel’s username and password. We tell him by using set-config in connection with the channel option:

./pear config-set -c tinycarts username johndoe
./pear config-set -c tinycarts password secret

And finally install the Lib_Tinycarts_Debug package:

./pear install tinycarts/Lib_Tinycarts_Debug

NOTE: if after you set the login/password you still can’t access the package, try to clear the cache with the following command:

./pear clear-cache

I found it simple and useful for ongoing developments for particular client.

faett.net tools

As described in press release:

Companies offering extensions for Magento can now distribute their products as PEAR packages in their shops. This is much easier than the somehow complicated solution using zip-files and ftp-upload. The components provided by faett.net allow

This is last minute found and I had not chance to try it myself, but it looks very promising, see the following posts for the more info:

This way seems ideal for distributing paid extensions and will lead in better connection with your customers. And even more simplify their life when they host magento at the servers with no SSH, like cloudsites by Rackspace Cloud.

Using FirePHP with Magento

2009-08-05T00:00:00-07:00

The good example of FirePHP usage in Magento has been introduced by ActiveCodeline in his post Utilize FireBug (and FirePHP) to speed up Magento development early this year. Here I would like to show you another place you can utilize that function in :)

UPDATE: the FirePHP wrapper class now available as a magento extension though tinycarts channel, simply proceed with the following commands under the top directory of your magento instance:

./pear channel-discover tinycarts.github.com
./pear install tinycarts/Lib_Tinycarts_Debug

And skip to usage example.

FirePhp wrapper

Create Firephp.php file in lib/Tinycarts/Debug, or checkout(or download) it from github TinycartsLibs.

The static send() method it’s exact copy of acl() function introduced by ActiveCodeline.

Usage

Go into one of your template files like /catalog/product/view.phtml and call this function like:

NOTE: to let it send debug messages you have to uncomment Mage::setIsDeveloperMode(true); in your index.php in development environment ONLY!!!. Next time I’ll tell you how to split environment and do not bother index.php at all ;)

UPDATE: sinse 1.4 release developer mode can be enabled by defining special environment variable MAGE_IS_DEVELOPER_MODE at your development machine, see configure_magento_error_page.

Using sfWidgetFormReCaptcha with ajax enabled forms

2009-05-30T00:00:00-07:00

In this post I wold like to make a note about usage of sfWidgetFormReCaptcha with ajax enabled forms.

The sfWidgetFormReCaptcha renders a ReCaptcha widget, i.e. let you protect your forms with visual code generated by ReCaptcha, but I assume you already familiar with this widget, visit plugin page if not ;)

Current implementation will not work out of box with ajax enabled forms, because, according implementation, ajax response will include link to external resource, e.g. recaptcha_ajax.js, and browser will throw security issue.

Solution

Remove recaptcha_ajax.js inclusion from widget and put into header of your page.

Step 1. Create sfWidgetFormReCaptcha2

We will be creating sfWidgetFormReCaptcha2.class.php file which simply extends original sfWidgetFormReCaptcha and overrides render(...) method. You can put into apps/frontend/lib/widget/.

Step 2. Modify your form class

Modify your form class and add following, e.g. simply replace sfWidgetFormReCaptcha to sfWidgetFormReCaptcha2

NOTE: The usage of ReCaptcha widget and validator explained here

Step 3. Include ReCaptcha api

For example, put into your template ;)

NOTE: Above template must be processed with regular(non ajax) response at least once, i.e. first time page requested!

How to override email templates in Magento

2009-05-23T00:00:00-07:00

In this post I would like to share the idea of overriding default email templates in a programmatic way and on per design basis. So, you can copy email templates from app/locale/en_US/template/email to app/design/frontend/<yourInterface>/default/locale/en_US/template/email and modify them as you like.

NOTE: I’ll use naming from some real project, i.e. you most likely will need to change TJU_ prefix and tjuInterface to the name of your design package. This has been tested with magento 1.3.1 and might not work(or to be different) for others versions.

Step 1. Override Translate model

Translate model “responsible” for the path to email templates, see getTemplateFile method in app/code/core/Mage/Core/Model/Translate.php. We will be creating 3 files to extend it’s default functionality:

app/code/local/TJU/Core/Model/Translate.php;
app/code/local/TJU/Core/etc/config.xml;
app/etc/modules/TJU_All.xml.

1.1 Create Translate model class in app/code/local/TJU/Core/Model/Translate.php.

1.2 Configure magento to use your class instead of default one. Create app/code/local/TJU/Core/etc/config.xml.

1.3 Enable our module. Create app/etc/modules/TJU_All.xml.

1.4 Clear cache, just rm -rf var/* for now ;)

Step 2. Modify email templates

Now copy email templates from app/locale/en_US/template/email to app/design/frontend/tjuInterface/default/locale/en_US/template/email and modify them as you like.

I also found nice script which helps to override all dummy data at once, take a look, pls. For some reason it did not work out of box for me, with magento 1.3.1, so I made some adjustments, see below.

Create email.sh file and make it executable.

Thanks.

References

Customize Models

Lorem Ipsum

2009-05-22T00:00:00-07:00

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Yevgeniy Viktorov's blog

Welcome to My Octopress Blog

Bootstrap cloud instances with a Chef and Opscode

Pre-requirements

Sharpening Knife for the cloud

Bootstrap Rackspace Cloud server with chef-client daemon

Removing servers

Related posts

Distribute Magento extensions as a PEAR packages

Magento Connect

Simple personal PEAR channel

Private channel using Subversion

Intstall the Pirum and create your channel

Releasing package

Import channel into repository

Using your PEAR Channel Server

faett.net tools

Using FirePHP with Magento

FirePhp wrapper

Usage

Using sfWidgetFormReCaptcha with ajax enabled forms

Solution

Step 1. Create sfWidgetFormReCaptcha2

Step 2. Modify your form class

Step 3. Include ReCaptcha api

How to override email templates in Magento

Step 1. Override Translate model

Step 2. Modify email templates

References

Lorem Ipsum