MealandMail: A Python repository from markbreneman

MongoDB library - Mongoengine

Adding Mongoengine to requirements.txt

Mongoengine==0.7.5
unidecode

Getting Started with MongoDB on Heroku

We will be using MongoLabs as our MongoDB host service, they have a free starter plan that we can easily associate with our Heroku accounts. When we have added the MongoLabs service we will have a connection string that includes username, password and URI to the database server.

Step 1 : Download code, setup Git, heroku create

Download the sample code from Github
Navigate to code directory in Terminal. Create Git repo
```
 git init
 git add .
 git commit -m "initial commit"
```
Create virtual environment and install requirements
```
 virtualenv venv
 . runpip
```
Create a new Heroku app
```
 heroku create
```

Step 2 : Adding MongoLabs to your Heroku App

Heroku offers a lot of different Add-ons for your apps. Many different types of databases, image tools, cache utilities are available from 3rd party companies. Many offer a trial plan to test and develop with before you commit to a paid plan.

MongoLabs offers a 500MB MongoDB instance for free (see here) : ) How wonderful.

To install the MongoLabs

Navigate to the code folder of your app
In Terminal, add the MongoLab starter plan
```
  heroku addons:add mongolab:starter
```

This has added MongoLab to your app.

Step 3: Configure your local environment

When adding Add-ons, Heroku will add the required configuration variables for the services including username, password, urls, etc.

We must create a local configuration file to allow our local development server to connect to the MongoLabs MongoDB instance. We can grab a copy of our Heroku configuration variables and put them inside a .env file, our environment variable file.

Run the following command inside your code folder.

heroku config --shell | grep MONGOLAB_URI > .env

This will create a new file, .env and it will contain a single line starting with MONGOLAB_URI and followed by a long connection url. This is the username and password for your MongoLabs account.

.env

MONGOLAB_URI=mongodb://heroku_app8083291:sadlfkweweroi........

Step 4: Add .env to .gitignore file

We want GIT to ignore the .env file, VERY IMPORTANT This keeps our environment variables safe and they won't get included inside our GIT repository (or worse, get pushed to Github).

Open your .gitignore file and add '.env' on a new line. Save the file.

.gitignore

.env

Step 5: Start your servers

. start

foreman start