Managing the Server

How to use Ghostwriter CLI to monitor and manage your Ghostwriter installation

Using Ghostwriter CLI to Manage the Server

Ghostwriter CLI can handle just about anything you might need or want to do with your Ghostwriter installation. Running the tool with the help command–or no command–will print the latest usage information.

The following sections explain some of the core functionality.

Managing Docker Containers

Ghostwriter CLI's containers command contains the following subcommands:

  • build : Rebuild the containers (not the data volumes)

  • up : Bring up Ghostwriter containers

  • down : Bring down Ghostwriter containers

  • start: Start all stopped services and restart any running services

  • stop: Stop all running serviced

  • restart : Stop and restart all services

If you ever need to check which containers are running, issue the running command. This command lists all running containers related to Ghostwriter. The output will look something like this (edited for easier display):

$ ./ghostwriter-cli running
[+] Collecting list of running Ghostwriter containers...
[+] Found 4 running Ghostwriter containers

 Name                   Container ID    Image                           Status                  Ports
 ––––––––––––           ––––––––––––    ––––––––––––                    ––––––––––––            ––––––––––––
 ghostwriter_graphql    d90e....        ghostwriter_local_graphql       Up 43 hours (healthy)   0.0.0.0:9691:9691 » 9691/tcp, 0.0.0.0:8080:8080 » 8080/tcp
 ghostwriter_queue      0559....        ghostwriter_local_queue         Up 43 hours (healthy)
 ghostwriter_django     bf9b....        ghostwriter_local_django        Up 43 hours (healthy)   0.0.0.0:8000:8000 » 8000/tcp
 ghostwriter_postgres   9992....        ghostwriter_production_postgres Up 43 hours (healthy)   0.0.0.0:5432:5432 » 5432/tcp

The Status column shows the uptime and health of the service. If you see an unhealthy status, that means that service failed a health check and it may not be working properly. Learn more about health checks here: Health Monitoring

You can use the logs command to view a particular container's recent log events. The command requires the name of a running container. Valid container names are:

  • all

  • django

  • graphql

  • nginx

  • postgres

  • redis

Using all for the container name will return logs from all running containers. By default, logs will return up to 500 lines. You can use the --lines flag to adjust how many lines you want to retrieve.

$ ./ghostwriter-cli logs ghostwriter_django

PostgreSQL is available
No changes detected
Operations to perform:
  Apply all migrations: account, admin, api, auth, commandcenter, contenttypes, django_q, home, oplog, reporting, rest_framework_api_key, rolodex, sessions, shepherd, sites, socialaccount, users
Running migrations:
  No migrations to apply.
INFO:     Will watch for changes in these directories: ['/app']
INFO:     Uvicorn running on http://0.0.0.0:8000 (Press CTRL+C to quit)
INFO:     Started reloader process [18] using watchgod
INFO:     Started server process [20]
INFO 2022-06-06 21:47:37,673 server 20 140231754545992 Started server process [20]
INFO:     Waiting for application startup.
INFO 2022-06-06 21:47:37,673 on 20 140231754545992 Waiting for application startup.
INFO:     ASGI 'lifespan' protocol appears unsupported.
INFO 2022-06-06 21:47:37,674 on 20 140231754545992 ASGI 'lifespan' protocol appears unsupported.
INFO:     Application startup complete.
INFO 2022-06-06 21:47:37,674 on 20 140231754545992 Application startup complete.

Creating and Managing Backups

Ghostwriter CLI (>=v0.2.12) includes backup and restore commands to help you create and manage backups of your PostgreSQL database.

The backup command uses PostgreSQL's pg_dump to dump the contents of the database. The resulting SQL file is gunzipped and stored in the production_postgres_data_backups Docker volume. Each file is named with the current timestamp (e.g., backup_2023_05_23T15_54_19.sql.gz).

Use the --list flag to list all available backup files stored in the volume.

The restore command recreates the database using the specified backup file.

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