The Discourse Docker Image makes it easy to set up Discourse on a cloud server. We will use Digital Ocean, although these steps may work on other cloud providers.
This guide assumes that you have no knowledge of Ruby/Rails or Linux shell.
Create New Digital Ocean Droplet
Sign up for Digital Ocean, update billing info, then begin creating your new cloud server (Droplet).
Discourse requires a minimum of 1 GB RAM for small communities; we recommend 2 GB RAM for medium communities. We'll use "discourse" as the Hostname.
Install Discourse on Ubuntu 12.04.3 LTS x64. We always recommend using the current LTS distribution.
You will receive a mail from Digital Ocean with the root password to your Droplet. (However, if you know how to use SSH keys, you may not need a password to log in.)
Access Your Droplet
Connect to your Droplet via SSH:
ssh root@192.168.1.1
(Alternately, use Putty on Windows)
Replace 192.168.1.1 with the IP address of your Droplet.
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You will be asked for permission to connect, type yes, then the root password, which is in the email Digital Ocean sent you when the Droplet was set up. Enter it.
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Update the kernel
apt-get update
apt-get install linux-image-generic-lts-raring linux-headers-generic-lts-raring
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Reboot the server:
reboot
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This will log you out from your SSH session, so reconnect:
ssh root@192.168.1.1
Set up Swap (if needed)
If you're using the minimum 1 GB install, you must set up a swap file of 1 GB minimum.
If you're using 2 GB+ memory, you can probably get by without a swap file.
Install Git
apt-get install git
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Install Docker
wget -qO- https://get.docker.io/ | sh
Install Discourse
Create a /var/docker folder where all the Docker related stuff will reside:
mkdir /var/docker
Clone the Official Discourse Docker Image into this /var/docker folder:
git clone https://github.com/discourse/discourse_docker.git /var/docker
Switch to your Docker folder:
cd /var/docker
Copy the samples/standalone.yml file into the containers folder as app.yml, so the path becomes containers/app.yml:
cp samples/standalone.yml containers/app.yml
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Edit app.yml:
nano containers/app.yml
(We recommend Nano because it works like a typical GUI text editor, just use your arrow keys. Hit CtrlO then Enter to save and CtrlX to exit. However, feel free to choose whatever text editor you like.)
Edit as desired, but at minimum you must set DISCOURSE_DEVELOPER_EMAILS and DISCOURSE_HOSTNAME.
If you are using a 1 GB instance, set UNICORN_WORKERS to 2 so you have more memory room.
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If you set DISCOURSE_HOSTNAME to discourse.example.com, this means you want to host our instance of Discourse on http://discourse.example.com/. You'll need to update the DNS A record for this domain with the IP address of your server.
Mail Setup
Email is critical to notifications in Discourse. If you do not configure email before bootstrapping you will have a broken site.
If you already have a mail server, put your existing mail server credentials in the app.yml file.
Otherwise, create a free account on Mandrill (or Mailgun, or Mailjet), and put your mail credentials (available via the Mandrill dashboard) in the app.yml file. The settings you want to change are DISCOURSE_SMTP_ADDRESS, DISCOURSE_SMTP_PORT, DISCOURSE_SMTP_USER_NAME, DISCOURSE_SMTP_PASSWORD.
Be sure you remove the comment character and space # from the beginning of these mail configuration lines!
Don't forget to set the SPF and DKIM records up for your domain name. In Mandrill, that's under Sending Domains, View DKIM/SPF setup instructions.
The name of your droplet is your reverse PTR record; rename your droplet to discourse.example.com so the PTR record correctly reflects your domain name.
Bootstrap Discourse
Be sure to save the app.yml file, and begin bootstrapping Discourse:
./launcher bootstrap app
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This command can take up to 8 minutes. It is automagically configuring your Discourse environment.
After that completes, start Discourse:
./launcher start app
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Congratulations! You now have your own instance of Discourse, accessible via the domain name you entered in app.yml earlier.
You can also access it by visiting the server IP address directly, e.g. http://192.168.1.1.
Log In and Become Admin
Sign into your Discourse instance. There should be a reminder visible on the site about which email was used for the DISCOURSE_DEVELOPER_EMAILS address. Be sure you log in with that email, and your account will be made Admin by default.
Post-Install Maintenance
To upgrade Discourse to the latest version, visit /admin/docker, refresh the page a few times (yes, seriously) and then press the Upgrade button at the top. View the live output at the bottom of your browser to see when things are complete. You should see:
Killed sidekiq
Restarting unicorn pid: 37
Then you know it's complete. (Yes, we will be improving this process soon!)
The launcher command in the /var/docker folder can be used for various kinds of maintenance:
Usage: launcher COMMAND CONFIG
Commands:
start: Start/initialize a container
stop: Stop a running container
restart: Restart a container
destroy: Stop and remove a container
ssh: Start a bash shell in a running container
logs: Docker logs for container
bootstrap: Bootstrap a container for the config based on a template
rebuild: Rebuild a container (destroy old, bootstrap, start new)
Other Optional Stuff
Do you want...
If anything needs to be improved in this guide, feel free to ask on meta.discourse.org, or even better, submit a pull request.
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