# Management commands

The management commands are administration commands provided by Django, Pootle or any external Django app being used with Pootle. You will usually run these commands by issuing `pootle <command> [options]`.

For example, to get information about all available management commands, you will run:

    $ pootle help

Note

If you run Pootle from a repository checkout you can use the manage.py file found in the root of the repository.

## Running WSGI servers

There are multiple ways to run Pootle, and some of them rely on running WSGI servers that can be reverse proxied to a proper HTTP web server such as nginx or lighttpd.

The Translate Toolkit offers a bundled CherryPy server but there are many more options such as gunicorn, flup, paste, etc.

### run_cherrypy

New in version 2.5.

This command runs the CherryPy server bundled with the Translate Toolkit.

Available options:

`--host`

  The hostname to listen on.

  Default: `127.0.0.1`.

`--port`

  The TCP port on which the server should listen for new connections.

  Default: `8080`.

`--threads`

  The number of working threads to create.

  Default: `1`.

`--name`

  The name of the worker process.

  Default: `socket.gethostname()`.

`--queue`

  Specifies the maximum number of queued connections. This is the the `backlog` argument to `socket.listen()`.

  Default: `5`.

`--ssl_certificate`
  The filename of the server SSL certificate.
`--ssl_privatekey`
  The filename of the server’s private key file.

## Managing Pootle projects

These commands will go through all existing projects performing maintenance tasks. The tasks are all available through the web interface but on a project by project or file by file basis.

All commands in this category accept a `--directory` command line option that limits its action to a path relative to the po/ directory.

Changed in version 2.1.2.

The commands target can be limited in a more flexible way using the `--project` `--language` command line options. They can be repeated to indicate multiple languages or projects. If you use both options together it will only match the files that match both languages and projects selected.

If you need to limit the commands to certain files or subdirectories you can use the `--path-prefix` option, path should be relative to project/language pair.

For example, to refresh_stats for the tutorial project only, run:

    $ pootle refresh_stats --project=tutorial

To only refresh a the Zulu and Basque language files within the tutorial project, run:

    $ pootle refresh_stats --project=tutorial --language=zu --language=eu

### refresh_stats

This command will go through all existing projects making sure calculated data is up to date. Running `refresh_stats` immediately after an install, upgrade or after adding a large number of files will make Pootle feel faster as it will require less on-demand calculation of expensive statistics.

`refresh_stats` will do the following tasks:

- Update the statistics cache (this only useful if you are using memcached).
- Calculate quality checks so that they appear on the expanded overview page without a delay.
- Update full text search index (Lucene or Xapian).

### sync_stores

This command will save all translations currently in the database to the file system, thereby bringing the files under the `PODIRECTORY` directory in sync with the Pootle database.

Note

For better performance Pootle keeps translations in database and doesn’t save them to disk except on demand (before file downloads and major file level operations like version control updates).

You must run this command before taking backups or running scripts that modify the translation files directly on the file system, otherwise you might miss out on translations that are in database but not yet saved to disk.

When the `--overwrite` option is specified, the sync operation will not be conservative and it will overwrite the existing files on disk, making strings obsolete and updating the file’s structure.

With the `--skip-missing` option, files that are missing on disk will be ignored, and no new files will be created.

New in version 2.5.

With the `--modified-since` option it is possible to give a change identifier (from the output of latest_change_id) to specifically indicate which changes need to be synced to disk. This will override Pootle on what has/hasn’t been synced to disk, and specifically those changes will be synced. Note that bulk changes (from uploads and version control actions) don’t yet record fine-grained changes, and these will therefore not be synced to disk. However, these should already be on disk, since those actions always sync to disk anyway.

### update_stores

This command is the opposite of sync_stores. It will update the strings in database to reflect what is on disk, as Pootle will not detect changes in the file system on its own.

It will also discover and import any new files added to existing languages within the projects.

You must run this command after running scripts that modify translation files directly on the file system.

`update_stores` has an extra command line option `--keep` that will prevent it from overwriting any existing translation in the database, thus only updating new translations, removing obsolete strings and discovering new files and strings.

Changed in version 2.5.1.

Note that `--keep` doesn’t keep obsolete units around anymore, they are either deleted in case the string is untranslated or marked as obsolete in case the string was translated.

Changed in version 2.5.

Along with `--keep`, the `--modified-since` option can be used to control the set of translations that will be updated: translations with a change ID greater than the given value will be kept.

To illustrate the results of these two options, the following table emulates the behavior of a `pootle update_stores --modified-since=5 --keep` run:

File on disk | DB before (change ID) | DB after (result)
--- | --- | ---
New string appeared in existing file | <none> | String added
Existing string changed in existing file | <none> | String updated
Existing string changed in existing file | 2 | String updated
Existing string changed in existing file | 5 | String updated
Existing string changed in existing file | 8 | String kept
New string in a new file | <none> | String added
String removed from the file | 3 | String removed
String removed from the file | 10 | String removed
File removed | 4 | Strings removed
File removed | 12 | Strings removed

By default, `update_stores` will only update files that appear to have changed on disk since the last synchronization with Pootle. To force all files to update, specify `--force`.

Warning

If files on the file system are corrupt, translations might be deleted from the database. Handle with care!

### update_against_templates

Changed in version 2.5: The name of the command has been renamed from `update_from_templates`.

Updates languages to match what is present in the translation templates.

This command is essentially an interface to the Translate Toolkit command pot2po with special Pootle specific routines to update the database and file system to reflect the latest version of translation templates for each language in a project.

During the process, translations existing in the database will first be synced to disk (only in bilingual formats), then they will be updated against the latest templates and after that the database will also be updated to reflect the latest changes.

When updating existing translated files under a given language, the command will retain any existing translations, fuzzy matching is performed on strings with minor changes, and unused translations will be marked as obsolete. New template files will initialize new untranslated files.

It is unlikely you will ever need to run this command for all projects at once. Use the `--directory`, `--project` or `--language` command line options to be specific about the project, language or project/language pair you want to target.

Warning

If the template files are corrupt translations might be lost. If you generate templates based on a script make sure they are in good shape.

### update_translation_projects

This command scans project directories looking for files matching languages not added to the project then adds them. It basically repeats the discovery process done by Pootle when you create a new project.

Using the `--cleanup` command line option, languages added to projects that no longer have matching files on the filesystem will be deleted.

### update_from_vcs

New in version 2.5.

This command updates the specified files from their Version Control System(s). It supports the `--directory`, `--project`, and `--language` parameters.

Pootle will take care to avoid version control conflicts, and will handle any conflicts on a string level, just like it would if the update was done through the web front-end.

The command first syncs database contents to disk.

### commit_to_vcs

New in version 2.5.

This command commits the specified files to their Version Control System(s). It supports the `--directory`, `--project`, and `--language` parameters.

A file needs to be up to date, otherwise the commit will fail. Files can be updated inside Pootle, or using the update_from_vcs command. This is not done automatically, otherwise the merged version of the file will be committed without review without anybody knowing.

### list_languages

New in version 2.5.

This command prints all the language codes on the server. This might be useful for automation.

Accepts the `--modified-since` parameter to list only those languages modified since the change id given by latest_change_id.

The option `--project` limits the output to one or more projects. Specify the option multiple times for more than one project.

### list_projects

New in version 2.5.

This command prints all the project codes on the server. This might be useful for automation.

Accepts the `--modified-since` parameter to list only those projects modified since the change id given by latest_change_id.

### latest_change_id

New in version 2.5.

This command prints the ID of the latest change (submission) made on the server. This is mostly useful in combination with other commands that operate with these IDs.

## Goals

These commands allow you to perform tasks with goals from the command line.

### add_project_goals

This command allows you to create project goals for a given project reading them from a phaselist file.

Such file has several lines where each line consists on two fields separated by a tab. The first field specifies a goal name and the second one is the path of a file:

    user1       ./browser/branding/official/brand.dtd.pot
    other       ./browser/chrome/browser/aboutCertError.dtd.pot
    user1       browser/chrome/browser/aboutDialog.dtd.pot
    user2       browser/chrome/browser/aboutSessionRestore.dtd.pot
    developer   ./browser/chrome/browser/devtools/appcacheutils.properties.pot
    developer   browser/chrome/browser/devtools/debugger.dtd.pot
    user2       browser/chrome/browser/downloads/downloads.dtd.pot
    user3       browser/chrome/browser/engineManager.dtd.pot
    install     browser/chrome/browser/migration/migration.dtd.pot
    install     ./browser/chrome/browser/migration/migration.properties.pot

The goals are created if necessary. If the goal exists and has any relationship to any store, that relationships are deleted to make sure that the goals specified on the phaselist file are only applied to the specified stores.

After all goals are created then they are tied to the files on template translation project for the project as they are specified on the phaselist file. If any specified file does not exist for the template translation project on the given project then it is skipped.

This command has two mandatory options: `--project` and `--filename`.

    $ pootle add_project_goals --project=tutorial --filename=phaselist.txt

## Manually Installing Pootle

These commands expose the database installation and upgrade process from the command line.

### setup

New in version 2.5.1.

This command either initializes a new DB or upgrades an existing DB, as required.

### syncdb

Originally, `syncdb` was a generic Django management command that creates empty database tables. It has been customized for Pootle to create everything required for a bare bones install for releases up to 2.5.0. This includes database tables, default permissions, some default objects used internally by Pootle (like the “default” and “nobody” user profiles) and the special Terminology project and Templates language.

For releases up to 2.5.0, if you just run `syncdb` you will have a usable Pootle install but you will need to create all languages manually, and you will not have a tutorial project to play with. For releases after 2.5.0, `syncdb` is not sufficient to create the database schema; it will remain incomplete and unusable until you apply all migrations to the database schema by running the migrate command.

### migrate

New in version 2.5.1.

Note

Since the addition of the setup management command it is not necessary to directly run this command. Please refer to the Upgrading or Installation instructions to see how to run the `setup` management command in those scenarios.

This is South’s migrate command, which applies migrations to bring the database up to the latest schema revision. It is required for releases after 2.5.0, even for a fresh install where you are not upgrading from a previous release.

### initdb

This is Pootle’s install process, it creates the default admin user, populates the language table with several languages with their correct fields, initializes several terminology projects, and creates the tutorial project.

`initdb` can only be run after syncdb and migrate.

Note

`initdb` will not import translations into the database, so the first visit to Pootle after `initdb` will be very slow. It is best to run refresh_stats immediately after initdb.

### updatedb

Changed in version 2.5.1.

This is a command line interface to Pootle’s database schema upgrade process.

This will only perform schema upgrades to version 2.5 from Pootle versions older than 2.5. To upgrade to version 2.5.1 and later South’s migrate command must be used, after upgrading to version 2.5.

For detailed instructions on upgrading, read the Upgrading section of the documentation.

### upgrade

New in version 2.5.1.

Performs post schema upgrade actions that are necessary to leave all the bits in place. It also serves as a trigger for any changes needed by Translate Toolkit version upgrades.

Optionally, the command accepts the `--calculate-stats` flag, which will calculate full translation statistics after doing the upgrade.

Also, the `--flush-checks` flag forces flushing the existing quality checks. This is useful when new quality checks have been added or existing ones have been updated, but take into account that this operation is very expensive.

For detailed instructions on upgrading, read the Upgrading section of the documentation.

### collectstatic

Running the Django admin `collectstatic` command finds and extracts static content such as images, CSS and JavaScript files used by the Pootle server, so that they can be served separately from a static webserver. Typically, this is run with the `--clear` `--noinput` options, to flush any existing static data and use default answers for the content finders.

### assets

Pootle uses the Django app django-assets interface of webassets to minify and bundle CSS and JavaScript; this app has a management command that is used to make these preparations using the command `assets build`. This command is usually executed after the collectstatic one.

## Useful Django commands

### changepassword

    $ pootle changepassword <username>

This can be used to change the password of any user from the command line.

### createsuperuser

This creates a new admin user. It will prompt for username, password and email address.

### dbshell

This opens a database command prompt with the Pootle database already loaded. It is useful if you know SQL.

Warning

Try not to break anything.

### shell

This opens a Python shell with the Django and Pootle environment already loaded. Useful if you know a bit of Python or the Django models syntax.

## Running Commands in cron

If you want to schedule certain actions on your Pootle server, using management commands with cron might be a solution.

The management commands can perform certain batch commands which you might want to have executed periodically without user intervention.

For the full details on how to configure cron, read your platform documentation (for example `man crontab`). Here is an example that runs the refresh_stats command daily at 02:00 AM:

    00 02 * * * www-data /var/www/sites/pootle/manage.py refresh_stats

Test your command with the parameters you want from the command line. Insert it in the cron table, and ensure that it is executed as the correct user (the same as your web server) like www-data, for example. The user executing the command is specified in the sixth column. Cron might report errors through local mail, but it might also be useful to look at the logs in /var/log/cron/, for example.

If you are running Pootle from a virtualenv, or if you set any custom `PYTHONPATH` or similar, you might need to run your management command from a bash script that creates the correct environment for your command to run from. Call this script then from cron. It shouldn’t be necessary to specify the settings file for Pootle — it should automatically be detected.