Openshift app with flask, sqlalchemy and sqlite -

Question

I have a problem pretty much exactly like this: How to preserve a SQLite database from being reverted after deploying to OpenShift?

I don't understand his answer fully and clearly not enough to apply it to my own app and since I can't comment his answer (not enough rep) I figured I had to make ask my own question.

Problem is that when pushing my local files (not including the database file) my database on openshift becomes the one I have locally (all changes made through the server are reverted).

I've googled alot and pretty much understand the problem being that the database should be located somewhere else but I can't grasp fully where to place it and how to deploy it if it's outside the repo.

EDIT: Quick solution: If you have this problem, try connecting to your openshift app with rhc ssh appname and then cp app-root/repo/database.db app-root/data/database.db if you have the openshift data dir as reference to SQLALCHEMY_DATABASE_URI. I recommend the accepted answer below though!

I've attached my filestructure and here's some related code:

config.py

import os
basedir = os.path.abspath(os.path.dirname(__file__))

SQLALCHEMY_DATABASE_URI = 'sqlite:///' + os.path.join(basedir,     'database.db')
SQLALCHEMY_MIGRATE_REPO = os.path.join(basedir, 'db_repository')

app/__ init.py__

from flask import Flask
from flask.ext.sqlalchemy import SQLAlchemy

app = Flask(__name__)
#so that flask doesn't swallow error messages
app.config['PROPAGATE_EXCEPTIONS'] = True
app.config.from_object('config')
db = SQLAlchemy(app)

from app import rest_api, models

wsgi.py:

#!/usr/bin/env python
import os

virtenv = os.path.join(os.environ.get('OPENSHIFT_PYTHON_DIR', '.'), 'virtenv')

#
# IMPORTANT: Put any additional includes below this line.  If placed above    this
# line, it's possible required libraries won't be in your searchable path
#

from app import app as application

## runs server locally
if __name__ == '__main__':
    from wsgiref.simple_server import make_server
    httpd = make_server('localhost', 4599, application)
    httpd.serve_forever()

filestructure: http://sv.tinypic.com/r/121xseh/8 (can't attach image..)

Answer 1

Via the note at the top of the OpenShift Cartridge Guide:

"Cartridges and Persistent Storage: Every time you push, everything in your remote repo directory is recreated. Store long term items (like an sqlite database) in the OpenShift data directory, which will persist between pushes of your repo. The OpenShift data directory can be found via the environment variable $OPENSHIFT_DATA_DIR."

You can keep your existing project structure as-is and just use a deploy hook to move your database to persistent storage.

Create a deploy action hook (executable file) .openshift/action_hooks/deploy:

#!/bin/bash

# This deploy hook gets executed after dependencies are resolved and the
# build hook has been run but before the application has been started back
# up again.

# if this is the initial install, copy DB from repo to persistent storage directory
if [ ! -f ${OPENSHIFT_DATA_DIR}database.db ]; then
  cp -rf ${OPENSHIFT_REPO_DIR}database.db ${OPENSHIFT_DATA_DIR}/database.db 2>/dev/null
fi

# remove the database from the repo during all deploys
if [ -d ${OPENSHIFT_REPO_DIR}database.db ]; then
  rm -rf ${OPENSHIFT_REPO_DIR}database.db
fi

# create symlink from repo directory to new database location in persistent storage
ln -sf ${OPENSHIFT_DATA_DIR}database.db ${OPENSHIFT_REPO_DIR}database.db

As another person pointed out, also make sure you are actually committing/pushing your database (make sure your database isn't included in your .gitignore).