How to Install Ralph on POP! OS Latest

Introduction

Ralph is a network device manager written in the Django framework. This tutorial will guide you through the installation process of Ralph on POP! OS latest version.

Prerequisites

Before we begin, ensure that you have the following requirements:

POP! OS latest version
sudo access to the system
Internet connection

Step 1: Install dependencies

To install the dependencies required to run Ralph, open a terminal window and execute the following command:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y postgresql libpq-dev libxml2-dev libxslt-dev libldap2-dev libsasl2-dev libffi-dev libssl-dev

Step 2: Install Virtualenv

Virtualenv is used to create isolated Python environments to avoid confusions with the system's Python version.

To install Virtualenv, execute the following command:

sudo apt-get install -y virtualenv

Step 3: Clone Ralph from the Git repository

To clone the Ralph Git repository, execute the following command:

git clone -b develop https://github.com/allegro/ralph.git

Step 4: Create a Virtual Environment

Execute the following command to create a virtual environment named ralph-env:

virtualenv -p python3 ralph-env

Step 5: Activate the Virtual Environment

To activate the Virtual Environment, execute the following command:

source ralph-env/bin/activate

Step 6: Install Ralph

Execute the following command to install Ralph:

pip install -r ralph/requirements.txt

Step 7: Configure the database

1. Create a PostgreSQL user

We first create a PostgreSQL user for Ralph:

sudo -u postgres createuser -P ralph

It will prompt you to create a password for the new user.

2. Create a PostgreSQL database

Then we create a PostgreSQL database for Ralph:

sudo -u postgres createdb -O ralph ralph

3. Configure Ralph

To configure Ralph, we need to edit the settings/local.py file. Execute the following command to create the file:

cp ralph/settings/local.py{.dist,}

Edit the file with a text editor and configure the database settings:

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.postgresql',
        'NAME': 'ralph',
        'USER': 'ralph',
        'PASSWORD': 'password',
        'HOST': 'localhost',
        'PORT': '5432',
    }
}

Replace the database name, username, and password with the ones you created in step 7.

Step 8: Migrate the database

Execute the following command to migrate the database:

./manage.py migrate

Step 9: Create a superuser

Execute the following command to create a superuser:

./manage.py createsuperuser

It will prompt you to create a username, email address, and password.

Step 10: Run Ralph

Execute the following command to run Ralph on the default port 8000:

./manage.py runserver

Conclusion

You have successfully installed Ralph on POP! OS latest version. You can now log in to the Ralph web interface at http://localhost:8000 and start configuring your network devices.

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