DevOps: CICD with Git GitLab Jenkins, Docker and Django

Choose and download Ubuntu ISO images to install on a virtual machine, selecting desktop 22.04 LTS or 22.10, and server 20.04 LTS from ubuntu.com.

Learn how to connect to VirtualBox virtual machines using SSH by locating IP addresses, switching from NAT to bridged adapters, and enabling internet and local network access.

Open a command line terminal to SSH into the remote server using a valid user and IP address, then enter the password to access. Type exit to end the session.

Explore Digital Ocean, a cloud platform that launches droplets quickly and charges for resources. Sign up to receive a $200 credit valid for 60 days and practice creating virtual servers.

Log into a Digital Ocean droplet via SSH using the IP address, enter the root password if prompted, and create a non-root admin user.

Learn how to create a non-root admin user on a Digital Ocean server, grant sudo privileges, and perform initial system updates securely.

Set up and activate a Python virtual environment to isolate Django project dependencies, install virtualenv, and manage project-specific packages across platforms.

Install Django in your Python virtual environment, create a Django project named polling, run the development server on localhost:8000, and explore the polling tutorial to build a polling application.

Discover GitLab's features for source code management, CI/CD, issue tracking, wiki, and API, plus access control and collaboration, as a popular open-source alternative to GitHub.

Create a remote gitlab.com repository by forming a training group, making a blank project, and pushing local code, while keeping the group private and postponing auto devops for Jenkins.

Add SSH keys from your development machine to your GitLab account to authenticate via SSH, boosting security, convenience, and automation when pushing code.

Install psycopg2 and gunicorn to connect a Django app with PostgreSQL, update requirements.txt with pip freeze, and push changes to the remote repository.

Configure django to store static assets by setting static URL and static root in settings.py, placing files in base directory's static folder, ignoring the folder in git, and committing changes.

Install the necessary programs to run Python applications on the production server as the deploy user, updating packages and installing python3-pip, PostgreSQL, PostgreSQL contrib, and nginx.

Set up a Postgres database for the application on the production server by creating Pauline_DB and Pauline_user, granting all privileges, and securely storing the credentials for later use.

Set up Nginx to pass requests to Gunicorn with a server block listening on port 80, serving static files, and proxies to Gunicorn socket, then enable sites and restart Nginx.

Configure local DNS on Windows by mapping the server IP 192.168.2.33 to polling.test in the hosts file using administrator privileges, then reload the page.

Add a deploy script to automate Django redeployment, including virtual environment activation, code pull, dependencies installation, migrations, static collection, and server reloads to reduce errors.

Learn to expose a locally hosted Jenkins server to the internet using Ngrok, configure the HTTP port 8080, obtain the auth token, and access the public HTTP and HTTPS URLs.

Install and uninstall Jenkins plugins using the manage plugins interface, search for Blue Ocean, install with dependencies, and remove or disable plugins with restart prompts.

Configure Jenkins to send email notifications using the email extension plugin, set up smtp credentials, and test the configuration to receive real-time build alerts for pipeline failures.

Install the Git and GitLab plugins in Jenkins to enable connections with GitLab, then restart Jenkins as needed to activate triggers and display build results in the GitLab UI.

Learn to securely connect Jenkins to GitLab using a personal access token, create and save credentials, and test the integration to enable automated workflows.

Learn to add a Jenkins file to your project in Git, understand declarative vs scripted pipelines in groovy, and implement a three-stage ci-cd pipeline—build, test, deploy.

Enable passwordless ssh from Jenkins to the deploy user on the production server by generating ssh keys and adding the public key to authorized_keys, then deploy via the pipeline.

Watch a hands-on demo of continuous integration and deployment using git and Jenkins, pushing the contact us feature to production via automated tests.

Configure a Jenkins pipeline to send email notifications on failure via the post section in the Jenkinsfile, including subject, from email, and details like project name, build number, and URL.

Learn how a failing automated test stops a Jenkins pipeline from deploying to production, with real-time GitLab triggering, test verification in Django and email notifications.

Extend your ci cd pipeline to continuous delivery by deploying to a staging server that mimics production, with human input before deployment, and set up staging environment identical to production.

Deploy the project to a DigitalOcean droplet by creating a dedicated deploy user, generating ssh keys, and cloning the private GitLab repository.

Configure Jenkins to require human input before deploying to production, using a gated input step in the deploy to production stage to approve or abort after staging tests.

Push the GitLab CI configuration to trigger a pipeline that runs in a Docker-based shared runner, automatically cloning code, checking out master, and executing build, test, and deploy stages.

Learn to run and troubleshoot a self-hosted GitLab runner by configuring runner tags in the project config, triggering pipelines, inspecting the build console, and resolving bash_logout environment issues.

Configure the GitLab runner on the runner's droplet, install python3-pip to satisfy the CI requirements, and set up SSH keys to authorize deployment access.

Demonstrates a GitLab CI pipeline that automatically tests and deploys code from development to production, and upgrades to staging with human approval.