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+## Setting up a local development environment
+
+This document is intended to guide you through setting up a local development environment for
+Colouring London. This guide assumes you already have Ubuntu 18.04 server installed, typically
+installed in a virtual environment such a Virtual Box and are able to SSH into your Ubuntu
+installation for convenience.
+
+First upgrade the installed packages to the latest versions, to remove any security warnings.
+
+```
+sudo apt-get update
+sudo apt-get upgrade
+```
+
+#### Installing the tools and components
+
+Now we install some essential tools.
+
+`sudo apt-get install -y build-essential git vim-nox wget curl`
+
+Now install python and related tools.
+
+`sudo apt-get install -y python3 python3-pip python3-dev python3-venv`
+
+Next install postgres and postgis to enable support for geographical objects.
+
+`sudo apt-get install -y postgresql postgresql-contrib libpq-dev postgis postgresql-10-postgis-2.4`
+
+and additional geo-spatial tools
+
+`sudo apt-get install -y gdal-bin libspatialindex-dev libgeos-dev libproj-dev`
+
+Now clone the colouring london codebase.
+
+`git clone https://github.com/tomalrussell/colouring-london.git`
+
+Now install Node. It is helpful to define some local variables.
+
+```
+NODE_VERSION=v8.11.3
+DISTRO=linux-x64
+wget -nc https://nodejs.org/dist/$NODE_VERSION/node-$NODE_VERSION-$DISTRO.tar.xz
+sudo mkdir /usr/local/lib/node
+sudo tar xf node-$NODE_VERSION-$DISTRO.tar.xz -C /usr/local/lib/node
+sudo mv /usr/local/lib/node/node-$NODE_VERSION-$DISTRO /usr/local/lib/node/node-$NODE_VERSION
+rm node-$NODE_VERSION-$DISTRO.tar.xz
+```
+
+Now add the Node installation to the path and export this to your bash profile.
+
+```
+cat >> ~/.profile <<EOF
+export NODEJS_HOME=/usr/local/lib/node/node-$NODE_VERSION/bin
+export PATH=\$NODEJS_HOME:\$PATH
+EOF
+```
+
+You can check the updated variables as follows
+
+```
+echo $PATH
+echo $NODEJS_HOME
+```
+
+#### Configuring Postgres
+
+Now we configure postgres. First ensure postgres is running.
+
+`service postgresql start`
+
+Ensure the `en_US` locale exists.
+
+`sudo locale-gen en_US.UTF-8`
+
+Configure the database to listen on network connection.
+
+`sudo sed -i "s/#\?listen_address.*/listen_addresses '*'/" /etc/postgresql/10/main/postgresql.conf`
+
+Allow authenticated connections from any IP (so includes the host).
+
+`echo "host    all             all             all                     md5" | sudo tee --append /etc/postgresql/10/main/pg_hba.conf > /dev/null`
+
+Restart postgres to pick up config changes.
+
+`service postgresql restart`
+
+Create a superuser role for this user (`<username>`) if it does not already exist. The
+password `<pgpassword>` is arbitrary and probably should not be your Ubuntu login password.
+
+`sudo -u postgres psql -c "SELECT 1 FROM pg_user WHERE usename = '<username>';" | grep -q 1 || sudo -u postgres psql -c "CREATE ROLE <username> SUPERUSER LOGIN PASSWORD '<pgpassword>';"`
+
+Create a colouring london database if none exists. The name (`<colouringlondondb>`) is arbitrary.
+
+`sudo -u postgres psql -c "SELECT 1 FROM pg_database WHERE datname = '<colouringlondondb>';" | grep -q 1 || sudo -u postgres createdb -E UTF8 -T template0 --locale=en_US.utf8 -O <username> <colouringlondondb>`
+
+Create the necessary postgres extensions.
+
+`psql -d <colouringlondondb> -c "create extension postgis;"`
+
+`psql -d <colouringlondondb> -c "create extension pgcrypto;"`
+
+`psql -d <colouringlondondb> -c "create extension pg_trgm;"`
+
+Now run all 'up' migrations to create tables, data types, indexes etc. The `.sql` scripts to
+do this are located in the `migrations` folder of your local repository.
+
+`ls ./colouring-london/migrations/*.up.sql 2>/dev/null | while read -r migration; do psql -d <colouringlondondb>  < $migration; done;`
+
+#### Setting up Python
+
+Now set up a virtual environment for python. In the following example we have named the
+virtual environment *colouringlondon* but it can have any name.
+
+`pyvenv colouringlondon`
+
+Activate the virtual environment so we can install python packages into it.
+
+`source colouringlondon/bin/activate`
+
+Install python pip package manager and related tools.
+
+```
+pip install --upgrade pip
+pip install --upgrade setuptools wheel
+```
+
+Now install the required python packages. This relies on the `requirements.txt` file located
+in the `etl` folder of your local repository.
+
+`pip install -r ./colouring-london/etl/requirements.txt`
+
+#### Setting up Node
+
+Now upgrade the npm package manager to the most recent release with global privileges. This
+needs to be performed as root user, so it is necessary to export the node variables to the
+root user profile. Don't forget to exit from root at the end.
+
+```
+sudo su root
+export NODEJS_HOME=/usr/local/lib/node/node-v8.11.3/bin/`
+export PATH=$NODEJS_HOME:$PATH`
+npm install -g npm@next`
+exit
+```
+
+Now install the required Node packages. This needs to done from the `app` directory of your
+local repository, so that it can read from the `package.json` file.
+
+`cd ./colouring-london/app && npm install`
+
+
+#### Running the application
+
+Now we are ready to run the application. The `APP_COOKIE_SECRET` is arbitrary.
+
+`PGPASSWORD=<pgpassword> PGDATABASE=<colouringlondondb> PGUSER=<username> PGHOST=localhost PGPORT=5432 APP_COOKIE_SECRET=123456 npm start`
+
+If you a running Ubuntu in a virtual environment you will need to configure networking to
+forward ports from the guest to the host. For Virtual Box the following was configured under
+NAT port forwarding.
+
+Name     | Protocol  | Host Port  | Guest Port
+-------- | --------- | ---------- | -----------
+app      | TCP       | 8080       | 3000
+app_dev  | TCP       | 3001       | 3001
+ssh      | TCP       | 4022       | 22
+
+The site can then be viewed on http://localhost:8080. The `app_dev` mapping is used in
+development by Razzle which rebuilds and serves client side assets on the fly.
+
+Finally to quit the application type `Ctrl-C`.