[Solved] Do you have a message queue server (eg. RabbitMQ) or cron jobs?

[echelon]

I've just signed up as I was trying to find a free host other people might be able to deploy my software on. My account creation is currently queued, so I'd like to ask some questions while I wait.

 

First off, I'm really thankful that you guys support free Python/Django hosting. I'm developing a distributed informatics platform (decentralized social networking, news, media, commenting, etc.) in Python and anyone wanting to try the software or help develop it will need a host. I thought about porting my application to Google App Engine, but that would have been a nightmare to convert my relational schema to nosql. You guys have probably saved me a ton of time and headaches.

 

Reading through a few of the forum threads, I've seen that you're adding a new server with shell access soon. Assuming that you're doing free hosting there too, is there any chance that that server will have a newer version of Python installed, such as 2.5 or 2.6? Using 2.4 won't be too big of a problem, but I'll have to switch out a few libraries.

 

Do you guys have a message queue server such as RabbitMQ installed? My code will probably function without a message queue (albeit begrudgingly), but if you happen to have one then I've certainly found everything I need. (Because of the distributed nature of the code, using a message queue is necessary for scheduling communication with the other "nodes".) Technically, SQL can serve as the message queue--but that's slow, and then I'd need a cron job to poll a script. (I'm assuming you won't let anyone daemonize anything for security reasons.) I might also be able to investigate an external message queue webservice, but I have no idea how those work or if there are any free message queue providers.

 

Please let me know if directing people here to install this software is against your terms of use. I don't want to cause any trouble. I'm doing all of this for research into evolving the web.

 

The software itself is installed on a per-user basis: it has no concept of multiple users. All information is routed node-to-node, and users are completely in control of what their software does for them. The first iteration is a social news aggregation platform (such as Reddit or Slashdot, but distributed) but I'm hoping it will evolve into much more as other developers take interest. (And I'm absolutely looking for other interested developers to join me...)

 

Thanks again! I'm really glad I found you guys!

 

 

[Wizard]

Your own dip? Just joindiaspora.

 

IIRC, we allow two cron jobs a day. I'm fairly certain that RabbitMQ is not installed. I'll ask djbob.

[Wizard]

This support request is being escalated to our root admin.

[Ashoat]

Assuming that you're doing free hosting there too, is there any chance that that server will have a newer version of Python installed, such as 2.5 or 2.6? Using 2.4 won't be too big of a problem, but I'll have to switch out a few libraries.

The thing is that CentOS is not yet compatible with a higher version of Python. I'm afraid to upgrade, because I fear it will break important Python-based utilities, like yum. However, if you have shell access then a bad version of Python shouldn't be a problem - just compile your own version on shell and make your hashbang point to your version.

 

We have no message queue server, unfortunately. Once the shell server is up, though, you should be able to install that yourself (assuming the software doesn't need root and supports the --prefix flag for configuration before compilation).

 

Make sure you only run two cron jobs each day. That doesn't mean that only two lines can be taken in your crontab - that means that you can only schedule two runs a day.

 

Directing people here isn't against our rules.