Deployment Guide

Deploy Pestle to production with confidence using these guides for various environments.

Deployment Options

1. Docker Compose (Recommended for Small Teams)

Simplest production deployment for teams up to 50 users.

Prerequisites

• Linux server (Ubuntu 22.04 recommended)
• Docker 20.10+ and Docker Compose 2.0+
• Domain name with DNS configured
• SSL certificate (Let's Encrypt recommended)

Deployment Steps

# 1. Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/your-org/pestle.git
cd pestle

# 2. Configure environment
cp .env.example .env
nano .env  # Edit with your settings

# 3. Start services
docker-compose -f docker-compose.prod.yml up -d

# 4. Run migrations
docker-compose exec backend python manage.py migrate

# 5. Create superuser
docker-compose exec backend python manage.py createsuperuser

# 6. Collect static files
docker-compose exec backend python manage.py collectstatic --noinput

Production docker-compose.yml

version: '3.8'
services:
  backend:
    image: pestle/backend:latest
    environment:
      - DATABASE_URL=postgres://user:pass@db/pestle
      - SECRET_KEY=${SECRET_KEY}
      - ALLOWED_HOSTS=${DOMAIN}
    depends_on:
      - db
      - redis
    restart: always

  frontend:
    image: pestle/frontend:latest
    environment:
      - PUBLIC_API_URL=https://${DOMAIN}/api
    restart: always

  db:
    image: postgres:14
    volumes:
      - postgres_data:/var/lib/postgresql/data
    restart: always

  redis:
    image: redis:7-alpine
    restart: always

  nginx:
    image: nginx:alpine
    ports:
      - "80:80"
      - "443:443"
    volumes:
      - ./nginx.conf:/etc/nginx/nginx.conf
      - ./certs:/etc/nginx/certs
    depends_on:
      - backend
      - frontend
    restart: always

volumes:
  postgres_data:

2. Kubernetes (Enterprise Scale)

For large deployments with high availability requirements.

Helm Installation

# Add Pestle Helm repository
helm repo add pestle https://charts.pestle.com
helm repo update

# Create namespace
kubectl create namespace pestle

# Install with custom values
helm install pestle pestle/pestle \
  --namespace pestle \
  -f values.yaml

Sample values.yaml

replicaCount:
  backend: 3
  frontend: 2

ingress:
  enabled: true
  className: nginx
  hosts:
    - host: pestle.yourcompany.com
      paths:
        - path: /
          pathType: Prefix
  tls:
    - secretName: pestle-tls
      hosts:
        - pestle.yourcompany.com

postgresql:
  enabled: true
  auth:
    database: pestle
    username: pestle

redis:
  enabled: true

resources:
  backend:
    requests:
      cpu: 500m
      memory: 512Mi
    limits:
      cpu: 2000m
      memory: 2Gi

3. Cloud Platform Deployment

AWS

• Compute: ECS Fargate or EKS
• Database: RDS PostgreSQL
• Cache: ElastiCache Redis
• Storage: S3 for media files
• CDN: CloudFront

Azure

• Compute: AKS or Container Apps
• Database: Azure Database for PostgreSQL
• Cache: Azure Cache for Redis
• Storage: Blob Storage

GCP

• Compute: GKE or Cloud Run
• Database: Cloud SQL PostgreSQL
• Cache: Memorystore Redis
• Storage: Cloud Storage

SSL/TLS Configuration

Let's Encrypt with Certbot

# Install certbot
apt install certbot python3-certbot-nginx

# Obtain certificate
certbot --nginx -d pestle.yourcompany.com

# Auto-renewal (added automatically)
certbot renew --dry-run

Environment Variables

Post-Deployment Checklist

1. ☐ SSL certificate installed and auto-renewing
2. ☐ Database backups configured
3. ☐ Monitoring and alerting set up
4. ☐ Log aggregation configured
5. ☐ Admin account created with strong password
6. ☐ SSO/SAML configured (if applicable)
7. ☐ Email notifications tested
8. ☐ Firewall rules reviewed

Upgrading

# Pull latest images
docker-compose pull

# Apply database migrations
docker-compose exec backend python manage.py migrate

# Restart services
docker-compose up -d