discourse/docs/INSTALL-ubuntu.md

Discourse Install Guide on Ubuntu

Install Ubuntu 12.04 with the package groups:

• Basic ubuntu server
• OpenSSH server
• Mail server
• PostgreSQL database (9.1+)

Configure the mail server:

In our example setup, we're going to configure as a 'Satellite system', forwarding all mail to our egress servers for delivery. You'll probably want to do that unless you're handling mail on the same machine as the Discourse software.

Install necessary packages:

# Run these commands as your normal login (e.g. "michael")
sudo apt-get -y install build-essential libssl-dev libyaml-dev git libtool libxslt-dev libxml2-dev redis-server libpq-dev gawk curl pngcrush

Web Server Option: nginx

At Discourse, we recommend the latest version of nginx (we like the new and
shiny). To install on Ubuntu:

# Run these commands as your normal login (e.g. "michael")
# Remove any existing versions of nginx
sudo apt-get remove '^nginx.*$'

# Add nginx repo to sources.list
cat <<'EOF' | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list

deb http://nginx.org/packages/ubuntu/ precise nginx
deb-src http://nginx.org/packages/ubuntu/ precise nginx
EOF

# Add nginx key
curl http://nginx.org/keys/nginx_signing.key | sudo apt-key add -

# install nginx
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get -y install nginx

Web Server Option: apache2

If you instead want to use apache2 to serve the static pages:

# Run these commands as your normal login (e.g. "michael")
# If you don't have apache2 yet
sudo apt-get install apache2

# Edit your site details in a new apache2 config file
sudo vim /etc/apache2/sites-available/your-domain.com

# Put these info inside and change accordingly

<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName your-domain.com
  ServerAlias www.your-domain.com

  DocumentRoot /srv/www/apps/discourse/public

  <Directory /srv/www/apps/discourse/public>
    AllowOverride all
    Options -MultiViews
  </Directory>

  # Custom log file locations
  ErrorLog  /srv/www/apps/discourse/log/error.log
  CustomLog /srv/www/apps/discourse/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

# Install the Passenger Phusion gem and run the install
gem install passenger
passenger-install-apache2-module

# Next, we "create" a new apache2 module, passenger
sudo vim /etc/apache2/mods-available/passenger.load

# Inside paste (change the user accodingly)
LoadModule passenger_module /home/YOUR-USER/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.0.0-p0/gems/passenger-4.0.2/libout/apache2/mod_passenger.so

# Now the passenger module configuration
sudo vim /etc/apache2/mods-available/passenger.conf

# Inside, paste (change the user accodingly)
PassengerRoot /home/YOUR-USER/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.0.0-p0/gems/passenger-4.0.2
PassengerDefaultRuby /home/YOUR-USER/.rvm/wrappers/ruby-2.0.0-p0/ruby

# Now activate them all

sudo a2nsite your-domain.com
sudo a2enmod passenger
sudo service apache2 reload
sudo service apache2 restart

If you get any errors starting or reloading apache, please check the paths above - Ruby 2.0 should be there if you are using RVM, but it could get tricky.

Install rvm and ruby environment

RVM Option: Systemwide installation

Taken from http://rvm.io/, the commands below installs RVM and users in the 'rvm' group have access to modify state:

# Run these commands as your normal login (e.g. "michael")
\curl -s -S -L https://get.rvm.io | sudo bash -s stable
sudo adduser $USER rvm
newgrp rvm
. /etc/profile.d/rvm.sh
rvm requirements

# Build and install ruby
rvm install 2.0.0
gem install bundler

RVM Option: Single-user installation

Another sensible option (especially if only one Ruby app is on the machine) is
to install RVM isolated to a user's environment. Further instructions are
below.

Discourse setup

Create discourse user:

# Run these commands as your normal login (e.g. "michael")
sudo adduser --shell /bin/bash discourse
# If this fails, it's because you're doing the RVM single-user install.
# In that case, you could just not run it if errors make you squirrely
sudo adduser discourse rvm

Give postgres DB rights to the discourse user:

# Run these commands as your normal login (e.g. "michael")
sudo -u postgres createuser -s discourse
sudo -u postgres psql -c "alter user discourse password 'todayisagooddaytovi';"

Change to the 'discourse' user:

# Run this command as your normal login (e.g. "michael"), further commands should be run as 'discourse'
sudo su - discourse

Install RVM if doing a single-user RVM installation:

# Install RVM
\curl -s -S -L https://get.rvm.io | bash -s stable
. ~/.profile

# Install necessary packages for building ruby
rvm requirements

# If discourse does not have sudo permissions (likely the case), run:
rvm --autolibs=read-fail requirements
# and rvm will tell you which packages you (or your sysadmin) need
# to install before it can proceed. Do that and then resume next:

Continue with discourse installation

# Build and install ruby
rvm install 2.0.0
gem install bundler

# Pull down the latest release
git clone git://github.com/discourse/discourse.git
cd discourse
git checkout latest-release

# Install necessary gems
bundle install --deployment

If you have errors building the native extensions, ensure you have sufficient free system memory. 1GB with no swap won't cut it.

Configure discourse:

# Run these commands as the discourse user
cd ~/discourse/config
cp database.yml.production-sample database.yml
cp redis.yml.sample redis.yml
cp discourse.pill.sample discourse.pill
cp environments/production.rb.sample environments/production.rb

Edit discourse/config/database.yml

• change production db name to: discourse_prod
• change username/password if appropriate
• set db_id if using multisite
• change host_names to the name you'll use to access the discourse site

Edit discourse/config/redis.yml

• no changes if this is the only application using redis, but have a look

Edit discourse/config/discourse.pill

• change application name from 'your_app' to however you want to distinguish this ('discourse')
• Add option to Bluepill.application: ":base_dir => ENV["HOME"] + '/.bluepill'"
• Should end up looking something like: Bluepill.application("discourse", :base_dir => ENV["HOME"] + '/.bluepill') do |app|
• comment out debug instance (from app.process("thin-debug") through to nearest end)
• search for "host to run on" and change to current hostname
• note: clockwork should run on only one host

Edit discourse/config/initializers/secret_token.rb

• uncomment secret_token line
• replace SET_SECRET_HERE with secret output from 'rake secret' command in discourse directory
• delete the lines below as per instructions in the file

Edit discourse/config/environments/production.rb

• check settings, modify smtp settings if necessary
• See http://meta.discourse.org/t/all-of-my-internal-users-show-as-coming-from-127-0-0-1/6607 if this will serve "internal" users

Initialize the database:

# Run these commands as the discourse user
# The database name here should match the production one in database.yml
createdb discourse_prod
RUBY_GC_MALLOC_LIMIT=900000000 RAILS_ENV=production bundle exec rake db:migrate
RUBY_GC_MALLOC_LIMIT=900000000 RAILS_ENV=production bundle exec rake assets:precompile

nginx setup

# Run these commands as your normal login (e.g. "michael")
sudo cp ~discourse/discourse/config/nginx.sample.conf /etc/nginx/conf.d/discourse.conf

Edit /etc/nginx/conf.d/discourse.conf

• change socket paths to: "unix:/home/discourse/discourse/tmp/sockets/thin.0.sock;"
• edit server_name. Example: "server_name cain.discourse.org test.cain.discourse.org;"
• modify root location to match installed location: "root /home/discourse/discourse/public;"

Bluepill setup

Configure bluepill:

# Run these commands as the discourse user
gem install bluepill
echo 'alias bluepill="bluepill --no-privileged -c ~/.bluepill"' >> ~/.bash_aliases
rvm wrapper $(rvm current) bootup bluepill
rvm wrapper $(rvm current) bootup bundle

Start Discourse:

# Run these commands as the discourse user
RUBY_GC_MALLOC_LIMIT=900000000 RAILS_ROOT=~/discourse RAILS_ENV=production NUM_WEBS=4 bluepill --no-privileged -c ~/.bluepill load ~/discourse/config/discourse.pill

Add the bluepill startup to crontab.

# Run these commands as the discourse user
crontab -e

Add the following line:

@reboot RUBY_GC_MALLOC_LIMIT=900000000 RAILS_ROOT=~/discourse RAILS_ENV=production NUM_WEBS=4 bluepill --no-privileged -c ~/.bluepill load ~/discourse/config/discourse.pill

Congratulations! You've got Discourse installed and running!