Serve static assets with whitenoise instead of nginx

This drastically simplifies volume management, as it is no longer
necessary to manually copy static assets from the docker image to the
bind-mounted volume.

This deprecates the "k8s-deployments-nginx-init-containers" patch, as we
no longer need to init the nginx container. Plugins are encouraged to
start using whitenoise as well for serving static assets.

TODO:
- test media serving: DOES NOT WORK. Whitenoise was designed to serve a
fixed list of static files. Godammit.
- compare performances

CHANGELOG.md

@@ -4,6 +4,7 @@ Note: Breaking changes between versions are indicated by "💥".
 
 ## Unreleased
 
+- 💥[Improvement] Serve openedx static assets with [whitenoise](http://whitenoise.evans.io/en/stable/) instead of nginx. This removes the `k8s-deployments-nginx-init-containers` patch. Plugins are encouraged to implement static asset serving with Whitenoise as well.
 - [Bugfix] Fix dependency on mysql service when mysql is not activated
 - [Improvement] Improve openedx Docker image build time and size with multi-stage build
 - [Feature] Get rid of outdated sysadmin dashboard in LMS at /sysadmin

tutor/templates/apps/nginx/cms.conf

@@ -47,29 +47,5 @@ server {
     try_files /$file =404;
     expires 31536000s;
   }
-
-  location ~ ^/static/(?P<file>.*) {
-    root /var/www/openedx;
-    try_files /staticfiles/$file /course_static/$file =404;
-
-    # return a 403 for static files that shouldn't be
-    # in the staticfiles directory
-    location ~ ^/static/(?:.*)(?:\.xml|\.json|README.TXT) {
-      return 403;
-    }
-
-    # Set django-pipelined files to maximum cache time
-    location ~ "/static/(?P<collected>.*\.[0-9a-f]{12}\..*)" {
-      expires max;
-      try_files /staticfiles/$collected /course_static/$collected =404;
-    }
-    location ~ "/static/(?P<collected>[0-9a-f]{7}/.*)" {
-      expires max;
-      try_files /staticfiles/$collected /course_static/$collected =404;
-    }
-
-    # Expire other static files immediately (there should be very few / none of these)
-    expires epoch;
-  }
 }
 {% endif %}

tutor/templates/apps/nginx/lms.conf

@@ -64,29 +64,5 @@ server {
     try_files /$file =404;
     expires 31536000s;
   }
-
-  location ~ ^/static/(?P<file>.*) {
-    root /var/www/openedx;
-    try_files /staticfiles/$file /course_static/$file =404;
-
-    # return a 403 for static files that shouldn't be
-    # in the staticfiles directory
-    location ~ ^/static/(?:.*)(?:\.xml|\.json|README.TXT) {
-      return 403;
-    }
-
-    # Set django-pipelined files to maximum cache time
-    location ~ "/static/(?P<collected>.*\.[0-9a-f]{12}\..*)" {
-      expires max;
-      try_files /staticfiles/$collected /course_static/$collected =404;
-    }
-    location ~ "/static/(?P<collected>[0-9a-f]{7}/.*)" {
-      expires max;
-      try_files /staticfiles/$collected /course_static/$collected =404;
-    }
-
-    # Expire other static files immediately (there should be very few / none of these)
-    expires epoch;
-  }
 }
 {% endif %}

tutor/templates/apps/openedx/settings/cms/production.py

@@ -9,4 +9,6 @@ ALLOWED_HOSTS = [
     "cms",
 ]
 
+MIDDLEWARE.insert(0, "whitenoise.middleware.WhiteNoiseMiddleware")
+
 {{ patch("openedx-cms-production-settings") }}

tutor/templates/apps/openedx/settings/lms/production.py

@@ -10,6 +10,8 @@ ALLOWED_HOSTS = [
     "lms",
 ]
 
+MIDDLEWARE.insert(0, "whitenoise.middleware.WhiteNoiseMiddleware")
+
 # Required to display all courses on start page
 SEARCH_SKIP_ENROLLMENT_START_DATE_FILTERING = True
 

tutor/templates/build/openedx/Dockerfile

@@ -84,6 +84,9 @@ RUN pip install https://github.com/overhangio/edx-ora2/archive/overhangio/boto2t
 # Install scorm xblock
 RUN pip install "openedx-scorm-xblock<11.0.0,>=10.0.0"
 
+# Install whitenoise, for serving static assets
+RUN pip install "whitenoise==5.1.0"
+
 # Install private requirements: this is useful for installing custom xblocks.
 COPY ./requirements/ /openedx/requirements
 RUN cd /openedx/requirements/ \

tutor/templates/k8s/deployments.yml

@@ -370,35 +370,12 @@ spec:
       labels:
         app.kubernetes.io/name: nginx
     spec:
-      initContainers:
-        - name: clean-openedx-staticfiles
-          image: {{ DOCKER_IMAGE_OPENEDX }}
-          args: ['rm', '-rf', '/var/www/openedx/staticfiles']
-          volumeMounts:
-            - mountPath: /var/www/openedx/
-              name: openedx-staticfiles
-        - name: init-openedx-staticfiles
-          image: {{ DOCKER_IMAGE_OPENEDX }}
-          args: ['cp', '-r', '/openedx/staticfiles', '/var/www/openedx/']
-          volumeMounts:
-            - mountPath: /var/www/openedx/
-              name: openedx-staticfiles
-        {{ patch("k8s-deployments-nginx-init-containers")|indent(8) }}
       containers:
         - name: nginx
           image: {{ DOCKER_IMAGE_NGINX }}
           volumeMounts:
             - mountPath: /etc/nginx/conf.d/
               name: config
-            - mountPath: /var/www/openedx/
-              name: openedx-staticfiles
-              readOnly: true
-            - mountPath: /openedx/data/cms
-              name: data-cms
-              readOnly: true
-            - mountPath: /openedx/data/lms
-              name: data-lms
-              readOnly: true
             {{ patch("k8s-deployments-nginx-volume-mounts")|indent(12) }}
           ports:
             - containerPort: 80
@@ -407,12 +384,6 @@ spec:
         - name: config
           configMap:
             name: nginx-config
-        - name: openedx-staticfiles
-          emptyDir: {}
-        - name: data-cms
-          emptyDir: {}
-        - name: data-lms
-          emptyDir: {}
         {{ patch("k8s-deployments-nginx-volumes")|indent(8) }}
 {% if ACTIVATE_RABBITMQ %}
 ---

tutor/templates/local/docker-compose.prod.yml

@@ -1,11 +1,5 @@
 version: "3.7"
 services:
-  openedx-assets:
-    image: {{ DOCKER_IMAGE_OPENEDX }}
-    volumes:
-      - ../../data/openedx:/var/www/openedx
-    command: sh -c "rm -rf /var/www/openedx/staticfiles && cp -r /openedx/staticfiles/ /var/www/openedx/"
-
   nginx:
     image: {{ DOCKER_IMAGE_NGINX }}
     restart: unless-stopped
@@ -21,7 +15,6 @@ services:
     {% endif %}
     volumes:
       - ../apps/nginx:/etc/nginx/conf.d/:ro
-      - ../../data/openedx:/var/www/openedx:ro
       - ../../data/openedx-media:/var/www/openedx-media:ro
       {% if ACTIVATE_HTTPS %}- ../../data/letsencrypt:/etc/letsencrypt/:ro{% endif %}
       {{ patch("local-docker-compose-nginx-volumes")|indent(6) }}