Is it possible to create a Digital Ocean droplet "template"?

Plone Support Deployment & hosting
1

With Amazon AWS, there are at least a couple of ways to make it easy for someone to deploy their own copy of an app:

  • Amazon Machine Image (essentially a snapshot of a running EC2 instance that someone else can use to make their own)
  • CloudForrmation template (a recipe for putting together more complex sets of servers or AWS resources) that someone can use to set up their own

With Linode, there are StackScripts, which are essentially a shell script that you create that others can use when they create their own Linode.

What is the equivalent for Digital Ocean? There is an app marketplace but my impression is that they don't let the public contribute to it. Their App Platform doesn't quite seem suitable either...

2

At the most basic level, Digital Ocean offers "snapshots" which are the same as AMIs. I use these all the time to quickly create dev environments of an existing production site. Snapshots can be transferred to other accounts. Incidentally, snapshots allow me to spin up working old versions of Plone with ancient python stacks, without the hassle of getting buildout to work or building compatible ssl or PIL libraries.

I have not investigated more sophisticated uses, such as Apps and the Marketplace yet.

2 Likes
3

Yeah, DO snapshots are exactly what I was hoping to use, like the AWS AMIs, except that DO doesn't let you make a snapshot public. :frowning:

This is a great tip!

4

Maybe this: https://marketplace.digitalocean.com/vendors/getting-started-as-a-digitalocean-marketplace-vendor

2 Likes
5

I do think their Apps platform would work well for small Plone sites with a Relstorage database. To be honest, I was thinking about testing that, maybe after the conference.

6

Thanks, David! I had not found that. That looks perfect.

7

Yes, that was the only way I could see it working, since they say that local (non-database) storage can't be assumed to persist. But what I want to provide is an easy way to set up a non-RelStorage installation of Plone.

8

I'm into the process now. I spoke to a rep at DO so he could determine whether or not this is a legitimate app. I seem to have convinced him :slight_smile: so there are more steps to follow before we can complete the process, but at least we are on the way! Thanks @pigeonflight!

3 Likes