Introduction to Configuring GeoNode (Basics)

GeoNode is built on the Django framework. As a Django application, GeoNode adheres to the common rules of a Django project.

In particular, every Django project must have a special python file called settings.py that will be used to set the global variables and behavior of the entire framework.

Some settings variables are mandatory for a Django project, such as the version, site url, allowed hosts, database configuration, debug mode, etc. For more information on the most common Django settings check out the official Django documentation.

GeoNode Settings

GeoNode, of course, also has the settings.py file. It can be located in the /opt/geonode/geonode/settings.py directory.

• Open a file system browser and a text editor to inspect the contents of the GeoNode settings file.

  

There are plenty of variables listed in the settings file, most of them have a similar notation to the following one:

SITEURL = os.getenv('SITEURL', _default_siteurl)

That means that GeoNode first looks for the variable value in the System Environment and, if no value or variable has been found, it falls back to a default one.

You can find a full list of available settings from the official GeoNode documentation here.

Exercise: Settings Update to Toggle User Registration

Changing some GeoNode settings can be done by:

1. Updating or adding the corresponding ENV variable value

2. Restarting the Django service

• Go to the folder /opt/geonode/ and enable the Python virtualenv by typing:

  workon geonode
  

• Edit the UWSGI file setting the system ENV by typing:

  sudo vim /etc/uwsgi/apps-enabled/geonode.ini
  

• Search for the line

  env = ACCOUNT_OPEN_SIGNUP=True
  

  and change it to False

  env = ACCOUNT_OPEN_SIGNUP=False
  

  save and close by typing the sequence ESC :wq!

• Restart the UWSGI service by typing:

  touch geonode/wsgi.py
  

• Check the GeoNode logs in order to be sure that everything is ok

  sudo tail -500f /var/log/uwsgi/app/geonode.log
  

• Once the service has successfully restarted, refresh the GeoNode home page, sign out if logged in, and verify that the user registration is now disabled

  

Next Section: Introduction to Administering GeoNode (Basics)