Gbib development

This page is for developers, it's not relevant for QA.

Box-specific development can happen on the devbox, a development version of the browserbox with git, gcc etc. For testing during development, a special command on the box can pull in the CGIs that were compiled on the devbox. The devbox listens to http on 1236 and for ssh on 1237.

(sidenote: All virtual machines live in qateam/VirtualBox VMs/. The central virtualbox xml config file where they are registered is ~/.config/VirtualBox/VirtualBox.xml )

To start the devbox, you need to login as qateam onto hgwdev.

From hgwdev, you can then connect to the box with "ssh devbox". This works, because of the .ssh/config file:

 Host devbox
 Hostname localhost
 Port 1237
 User browser

You can start and stop browserbox-dev with the aliases devStart and devStop.

typical development cycle

start browserbox-dev:

 devStart

connect + git pull + compile:

 ssh devbox
 compileCgis

You can now test the CGIs on port 1236 of hgwdev. You can also hack on the /home/browser/kent directory and e.g. run makes in there.

To do a more realistic test, the alpha binaries can also be put into the final browserbox.

To copy the alpha binaries into the browserbox: Copy them from the devbox to alpha distribution rsync server directory (this command is defined in qateam's .bashrc) by running this command as qateam on hgwdev while the devbox is running (this will ssh into the devbox and rsync the binaries onto hgwdev):

 boxUpdateAlpha

Now start the browserbox and pull the alpha binaries from the rsync server:

 boxStart
 ssh box
 updateBrowser alpha

You can now use the alpha CGIs on port 1234 of hgwdev or use ssh port forwarding to access them from localhost:1234.

When you're done: stop the development box:

 devStop