Management commands

This reference describes management commands supported by the venueless server. Generally, to run any command with our recommended Docker-based setup, you use a command line like this:

$ docker exec -it venueless.service venueless <COMMAND> <ARGS>

We will not repeat the first part of that in the examples on this page. In the development setup, it looks like this instead:

$ docker-compose exec server python manage.py <COMMAND> <ARGS>

User management

createsuperuser

The createsuperuser allows you to interactively create a user for the backend configuration interface.

Database management

migrate

The migrate command updates the database tables to conform to what venueless expects. As migrate touches the database, you should have a backup of the state before the command run. Running migrate if venueless has no pending database changes is harmless. It will result in no changes to the database.

If migrations touch upon large populated tables, they may run for some time. The release notes will include a warning if an upgrade can trigger this behaviour.

Note

Currently, this command is run by default during server startup.

showmigrations

If you ran into trouble during migrate, run showmigrations. It will show you the current state of all venueless migrations. It may be useful debug output to include in bug reports about database problems.

World management

create_world

The interactive create_world command allows you to create an empty venueless world from scratch:

> create_world
Enter the internal ID for the new world (alphanumeric): myevent2020
Enter the title for the new world: My Event 2020
Enter the domain of the new world (e.g. myevent.example.org): venueless.mydomain.com
World created.
Default API keys: [{'issuer': 'any', 'audience': 'venueless', 'secret': 'zvB7hI28vbrI7KtsRnJ1TZBSN3DvYdoy9VoJGLI1ouHQP5VtRG3U6AgKJ9YOqKNU'}]

clone_world

The interactive clone_world command allows you to create a venueless world while copying all settings and rooms (but not users and user-generated content) from an existing one:

> clone_world myevent2019
Enter the internal ID for the new world (alphanumeric): myevent2020
Enter the title for the new world: My Event 2020
Enter the domain of the new world (e.g. myevent.example.org): venueless.mydomain.com
World cloned.

generate_token

The generate_token command allows you to create a valid access token to a venueless world:

> generate_token myevent2019 --trait moderator --trait speaker --days 90
https://venueless.mydomain.com/#token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9…

list_worlds

The list_worlds command allows you to list all worlds in the database:

> list_worlds
ID                  Title                             URL
myevent2019         My Event 2019                     https://2019.myevent.com
myevent2020         My Event 2020                     https://2020.myevent.com

import_config

The import command allows you to import a world configuration from a JSON file. It is mainly used during development and testing to get started quickly. It takes a filename as the only argument. Note that the command looks for the file within the Docker container:

> import_config sample/worlds/sample.json

Connection management

Connection management commands allow you to operate on the current user sessions on your system. They are useful during system maintenance.

connections list

Shows a list of connection labels and their estimated number of current connections. The estimated number might be significantly higher than expected if connections where dropped without a cleanup, and old connection labels might be lingering around for a couple of seconds. Connection labels are composed by the git commit ID of the venueless build and the environment (read from the VENUELESS_ENVIRONMENT environment variable, unknown) by default. Sample output:

> connections list
label                              est. number of connections
411b261.production                 3189

connections drop

Tells the server to drop all connections, optionally filtered with a specific connection label. For example, you might want to drop all connections still connected to an old version:

> connections drop 411b261.*

The server will send out a message to all workers still having clients with this version to close these connections immediately. If you do not want to drop all at once, you can pass a sleep interval, e.g. a number of milliseconds to wait between every message that is sent out:

> connections drop --interval 50 411b261.*

connections force_reload

Tells the server to send a force-reload command to all connections, optionally filtered with a specific connection label. For example, you might want to force-reload all connections still connected to an old version:

> connections force_reload 411b261.*

This will not close the connections server-side, but instead instruct browsers to reload the application, e.g. to fetch a new JavaScript application version. If you do not want to reload all at once, you can pass a sleep interval, e.g. a number of milliseconds to wait between every message that is sent out:

> connections force_reload --interval 50 411b261.*

Debugging

shell_plus

The shell_plus command opens a shell with the venueless configuration and environment. All database models and some more useful modules will be imported automatically.