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Installing Forem in Linux

akhilnaidu

Akhil Naidu

Posted on November 30, 2020

Installing Forem in Linux

This post is on the request of @benki

In this article, I focus less on my commentary and prefer more clarity in command execution. So if you find any words others than shell commands, take a good look at them.

One more tip while following this guide, single command lies in a single line.

This guide will be useful for anyone who wants to install forem in Linux. In a way, this is an alternative method to install Forem without Docker or Podman

Updating our system and Downloading Forem 

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
git clone https://github.com/forem/forem.git
cp ~/forem/.env_sample ~/forem/.env
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Ruby Installation 

sudo apt install git curl autoconf bison build-essential \
    libssl-dev libyaml-dev libreadline6-dev zlib1g-dev \
    libncurses5-dev libffi-dev libgdbm6 libgdbm-dev libdb-dev
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git clone https://github.com/rbenv/rbenv.git ~/.rbenv
echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.rbenv/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bashrc
echo 'eval "$(rbenv init -)"' >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc
exec $SHELL
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git clone https://github.com/rbenv/ruby-build.git ~/.rbenv/plugins/ruby-build
echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.rbenv/plugins/ruby-build/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc
exec $SHELL
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rbenv install $(cat ~/forem/.ruby-version)
rbenv global $(cat ~/forem/.ruby-version)
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Install NVM and yarn 

curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/creationix/nvm/v0.35.3/install.sh -o install_nvm.sh
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bash install_nvm.sh
source ~/.profile
nvm install $(cat ~/forem/.nvmrc)
nvm use $(cat ~/forem/.nvmrc)
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npm install -g yarn
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Installing Postgre SQL 

sudo apt-get install postgresql postgresql-contrib libpq-dev -y
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In the coming command, Replace the term "ubuntu" with your own username.

sudo -u postgres createuser -s ubuntu
createdb
sudo -u ubuntu psql
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Now within the psql Use \password command to create a password for the user ubuntu, in which we will create a database (later on).

You can exit psql by using the command \quit; this will help you get into the original bash/terminal of your VPS.

Let's update the DATABASE_URL and the DATABASE_URL_TEST accordingly in the .env file.

nano ~/forem/.env
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DATABASE_URL="postgresql://ubuntu:mypassword@localhost:5432/$DATABASE_NAME"
DATABASE_URL_TEST="postgresql://ubuntu:mypasswordk@localhost:5432/$DATABASE_NAME_TEST"
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Installing Imagemagick 

sudo apt update && sudo apt install imagemagick
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Installing and ConfiguringRedis 

sudo apt install redis-server -y
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sudo nano /etc/redis/redis.conf
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Navigate to find the variable supervised and change it's value systemd

sudo systemctl restart redis.service
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Installing Elastic search 

wget https://artifacts.elastic.co/downloads/elasticsearch/elasticsearch-oss-7.5.2-amd64.deb
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sudo dpkg -i elasticsearch-oss-7.5.2-amd64.deb
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If you are someone who is trying to experiment with this Forem in a low-end server, maybe around 1GB or 2GB ram; It is mandatory for you to do edit the memory heap. And follow these if you are one among them, or else leave.

If you are not sure about this, skip and continue with the next step, but if you are facing any error in starting Elasticsearch try referring to this.

sudo nano /etc/elasticsearch/jvm.options
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  • First, un-comment the value of Xmx and Xms.
  • Next, modify the value of -Xms and -Xmx to no more than 50% of your physical RAM 
# Xms represents the initial size of total heap space
# Xmx represents the maximum size of total heap space
# Use 128m if 1GB ram and 256m if 2GB ram

-Xms128m
-Xmx128m
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Now let's start Elasticsearch

sudo /bin/systemctl daemon-reload
sudo /bin/systemctl enable elasticsearch.service
sudo systemctl start elasticsearch.service
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Installing ImgProxy 

git clone https://github.com/imgproxy/imgproxy.git
cd imgproxy
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sudo add-apt-repository ppa:dhor/myway
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install libvips-dev
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sudo add-apt-repository ppa:longsleep/golang-backports
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install golang-go
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sudo CGO_LDFLAGS_ALLOW="-s|-w" \
  go build -o /usr/local/bin/imgproxy
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Now let's configure the .env for Imgproxy

  • Generate a key/salt pair by running the following in your terminal twice. Copy those values to your .env in the next step 
echo $(xxd -g 2 -l 64 -p /dev/random | tr -d '\n')
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We have one random string; but we need two of them, so let's run this command again.

echo $(xxd -g 2 -l 64 -p /dev/random | tr -d '\n')
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Now we have 2 random strings; we will one of them as key and the other as salt. This can be done by adding few lines in .env file.

nano ~/forem/.env
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Now add these three lines to it and save the file.

IMGPROXY_ENDPOINT='http://localhost:8080'
IMGPROXY_KEY='1b1c9aae804e070b0864f2547fba7ce8ff31bf7..........'
IMGPROXY_SALT='8c6d449d4fc2cada5bab538826cae709d2ade9f.........'
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Replace, the key and salt with the values you generated in few steps back. (You can interchange those values, but as a convention, I use the first one as key and the later as salt)

Also store these values in this fashion, so that we can use this command to start our Imgproxy.

IMGPROXY_KEY='your key' IMGPROXY_SALT='your salt' imgproxy
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Now we have all the required side packs for our installation

Installing and Starting Forem

If you are using a VPS, it is mandatory for you to update your APP_DOMAIN value with your VPS IP address in the .env file.

  • you can find your VPS IP address by using the command ifconfig
  • Use this command to edit your .env file: nano ~/forem/.env 
sudo apt-get install libcurl4 libcurl4-openssl-dev -y
cd ~/forem
gem install bundler
yarn install
bin/setup
rails db:reset
rails data_updates:run
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Now open 3 Terminal, the three boxes below indicate 3 different terminals

  • Terminal 01 
IMGPROXY_KEY='your key' IMGPROXY_SALT='your salt' imgproxy
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  • Terminal 02 
./bin/webpack
bundle exec sidekiq -t 25
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  • Terminal 03 
bin/rails s -p 3000 -b 0.0.0.0
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akhilnaidu
Akhil Naidu

Posted on November 30, 2020

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