# Discourse Install Guide on Ubuntu

## What kind of hardware do you have?

- We *strongly* recommend 2GB of memory minimum if you don't want to deal with swap partitions during the install.
- We recommend at least a dual core CPU.

You can get away with less than this if you are careful -- 1 GB of memory and a single core CPU are the minimums -- but it's simpler to just throw a bit more hardware at the problem.

## Install Ubuntu Server 12.04 LTS with the package groups:

![screenshot of package group selection screen](https://raw.github.com/discourse/discourse-docimages/master/install/ubuntu%20-%20install%20-%20software%20selection.png)

* Basic Ubuntu server
* OpenSSH server
* Mail server
* PostgreSQL database (9.1+)

You may be working on an already-installed or automatically deployed system, in which case you can install them afterwards:

    # Run these commands as your normal login (e.g. "michael")
    sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get -y upgrade
    sudo tasksel install openssh-server
    sudo tasksel install mail-server
    sudo tasksel install postgresql-server

### Configure the mail server:

![screenshot of mail server type configuration screen](https://raw.github.com/discourse/discourse-docimages/master/install/ubuntu%20-%20install%20-%20mail_1%20system%20type.png)

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.

![screenshot of mail name configuration screen](https://raw.github.com/discourse/discourse-docimages/master/install/ubuntu%20-%20install%20-%20mail_2%20mailname.png)

You probably want to configure your 'mail name' to be the base name of your domain. Note that this does not affect any email sent out by Discourse itself, just unqualified mail generated by systems programs.

![screenshot of relay host configuration screen](https://raw.github.com/discourse/discourse-docimages/master/install/ubuntu%20-%20install%20-%20mail_3%20relayconfig.png)

If you have a mail server responsible for handling the egress of email from your network, enter it here. Otherwise, leave it blank.

## Additional system packages

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 a2ensite 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 Ruby with RVM

### 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 database 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:

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

    # rvm added shell initialization code to ~/.bash_profile,
    # move it to ~/.profile instead
    cat ~/.bash_profile >> ~/.profile
    rm ~/.bash_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 --without test

_If you have errors building the native extensions, ensure you have sufficient free system memory. 1GB with no swap isn't enough, we recommend having 2GB as a minimum._

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 if appropriate
- 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 'discourse' if necessary
- Ensure appropriate Bluepill.application line is uncommented
- 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 'RAILS_ENV=production 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
    cd ~/discourse
    createdb discourse_prod
    RUBY_GC_MALLOC_LIMIT=90000000 RAILS_ENV=production rake db:migrate
    RUBY_GC_MALLOC_LIMIT=90000000 RAILS_ENV=production rake assets:precompile

Not english? Set the default language as appropriate:

    # Run these commands as the discourse user
    cd ~/discourse
    RAILS_ENV=production bundle exec rails c
    SiteSetting.default_locale = 'fr'

    # Not sure if your locale is supported? Check at the rails console:
    LocaleSiteSetting.values
     => ["cs", "da", "de", "en", "es", "fr", "id", "it", "nb_NO", "nl", "pseudo", "pt", "ru", "sv", "zh_CN", "zh_TW"] 

## 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/nginx.conf:

- add: `server_names_hash_bucket_size 64;` to the `http` section

If discourse will be the only site served by nginx, disable the nginx default
site:

- `sudo mv /etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf /etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf.disabled`
- Otherwise, only `server_name`s configured below in `discourse.conf` will be passed to Discourse.

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

- edit `server_name`. Example: `server_name cain.discourse.org test.cain.discourse.org;`
- change socket paths if discourse is installed to a different location
- modify root location if discourse is installed to a different location

Reload nginx by running

    # Run as your normal login (e.g. "michael")
    sudo /etc/init.d/nginx reload

## Bluepill setup

Configure Bluepill:

    # Run these commands as the discourse user
    gem install bluepill
    echo 'alias bluepill="NOEXEC_DISABLE=1 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=90000000 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 lines:

    @reboot RUBY_GC_MALLOC_LIMIT=90000000 RAILS_ROOT=~/discourse RAILS_ENV=production NUM_WEBS=4 /home/discourse/.rvm/bin/bootup_bluepill --no-privileged -c ~/.bluepill load ~/discourse/config/discourse.pill


Note: in case of RVM system-wide installation RVM will be located in `/usr/local/rvm` directory instead of `/home/discourse/.rvm`, so update the line above respectively.

## Log rotation setup

    # Disabled for now - log rotation isn't *quite* complete
    #0 0 * * * /usr/sbin/logrotate ~/discourse/config/logrotate.conf

Congratulations! You've got Discourse installed and running!

Now make yourself an administrator account. Browse to your discourse instance
and create an account by logging in normally, then run the commands:

    # Run these commands as the discourse user
    cd ~/discourse
    RAILS_ENV=production bundle exec rails c

    # (in rails console)
    > me = User.find_by_username_or_email('myemailaddress@me.com')
    > me.activate #use this in case you haven't configured your mail server and therefore can't receive the activation mail.
    > me.admin = true
    > me.save

At this point we recommend you start going through the various items in the
[Discourse Admin Quick Start Guide](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/wiki/The-Discourse-Admin-Quick-Start-Guide)
to further prepare your site for users.

## Site localization

Custom assets such as images should be placed somewhere under:

    DISCOURSE_HOME/public/

For example, create a `local` directory and place it into:

    DISCOURSE_HOME/public/uploads/local/michael.png

The corresponding site setting is:

    logo_small_url: /uploads/local/michael.png

## Updating Discourse

    # Run these commands as the discourse user
    bluepill stop
    # Pull down the latest release
    cd ~/discourse
    git checkout master
    git pull
    git fetch --tags
    # To run on the latest version instead of bleeding-edge:
    #git checkout latest-release
    bundle install --without test --deployment
    RUBY_GC_MALLOC_LIMIT=90000000 RAILS_ENV=production rake db:migrate
    RUBY_GC_MALLOC_LIMIT=90000000 RAILS_ENV=production rake assets:precompile
    bluepill start

Note that if bluepill *itself* needs to be restarted, it must be killed with `bluepill quit` and restarted with the same command that's in crontab
