3. cubicweb-ctl tool

cubicweb-ctl is the swiss knife to manage CubicWeb instances. The general syntax is

cubicweb-ctl <command> [options command] <arguments commands>

To view available commands

cubicweb-ctl
cubicweb-ctl --help

Please note that the commands available depends on the CubicWeb packages and cubes that have been installed.

To view the help menu on specific command

cubicweb-ctl <command> --help

3.1. Command to create a cube

• newcube, create a new cube on the file system based on the name given in the parameters. This command create a cube from a skeleton that includes default files required for debian packaging.

3.2. Command to create an instance

• create, creates the files for the instance configuration
• db-create, creates the system database of an instance (tables and extensions only)
• db-init, initializes the system database of an instance (schema, groups, users, workflows...)

By default, those three commandes are encapsulated in create so that they can be executed consecutively.

3.3. Command to create an instance for Google AppEngine datastore source

• newgapp, creates the configuration files for an instance

This command needs to be followed by the commands responsible for the database initialization. As those are specific to the datastore, specific Google AppEgine database, they are not available for now in cubicweb-ctl, but they are available in the instance created.

For more details, please see gaecontents .

3.4. Commands to control instances

• start, starts one or more or all instances
• stop, stops one or more or all instances
• restart, restarts one or more or all instances
• status, returns the status of the instance

3.5. Commands to maintain instances

• upgrade, launches the existing instances migration when a new version of CubicWeb or the cubes installed is available
• shell, opens a migration shell for manual maintenance of the instance
• db-dump, creates a dump of the system database
• db-restore, restores a dump of the system database
• db-check, checks data integrity of an instance. If the automatic correction is activated, it is recommanded to create a dump before this operation.
• schema-sync, synchronizes the persistent schema of an instance with the instance schema. It is recommanded to create a dump before this operation.

3.6. Commands to maintain i18n catalogs

• i18ncubicweb, regenerates messages catalogs of the CubicWeb library
• i18ncube, regenerates the messages catalogs of a cube
• i18ninstance, recompiles the messages catalogs of an instance. This is automatically done while upgrading.

See also chapter internationalisation.

3.7. Other commands

• list, provides a list of the available configuration, cubes and instances.
• delete, deletes an instance (configuration files and database)

3.7.1. Create an instance from an existing cube

To create an instance from an existing cube, execute the following command

cubicweb-ctl create <cube_name> <instance_name>

This command will create the configuration files of an instance in ~/etc/cubicweb.d/<instance_name>. The tool cubicweb-ctl allows you to execute the command db-create and db-init when you run create so that you can complete an instance creation in a single command.

If you decide not to execut those commands while cubicweb-ctl create, then you will have to execute them seperately(cubicweb-ctl db-create, cubicweb-ctl db-init ) otherwise your installation will not be complete and you will not be able to launch your instance.

3.7.2. Creation of an instance from a new cube

Create first your new cube cube

cubicweb-ctl newcube <mycube>

This will create a new cube in /path/to/forest/cubicweb/cubes/<mycube> for a Mercurial forest installation, or in /usr/share/cubicweb/cubes for a debian packages installation, and then create an instance as explained just above.