How to Install Shynet on Debian Latest

Shynet is an open-source, self-hosted website analytics platform that allows website owners to track their website's traffic and user behavior. In this tutorial, we will be installing Shynet on Debian Latest.

Prerequisites

Before we begin, please ensure that you have the following prerequisites:

  • A Debian Latest instance
  • A user account with sudo privileges
  • A domain name pointed to the Debian server's IP address

Step 1: Install Dependencies

Shynet requires the following dependencies:

  • Node.js version 14 or later
  • Redis version 5 or later
  • PostgreSQL version 11 or later

We will install these dependencies using the apt package manager:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y nodejs redis postgresql wget curl

Step 2: Create a New PostgreSQL Database

We will create a new PostgreSQL database for Shynet:

sudo su - postgres
createdb shynet
exit

Step 3: Download and Install Shynet

We will download and install Shynet from the GitHub repository:

sudo mkdir -p /opt/shynet
cd /opt/shynet
sudo wget https://github.com/milesmcc/shynet/releases/latest/download/shynet.tar.gz
sudo tar xvf shynet.tar.gz
sudo npm install --production

Step 4: Configuration

Before we can run Shynet, we need to configure some settings.

Authentication

We will create an authentication token to secure our Shynet installation:

shynet token:add

You will be asked to enter a passphrase. Please choose a secure passphrase.

Database Connection

We need to configure Shynet to connect to the PostgreSQL database we created earlier:

sudo nano .env

Edit the following lines:

DATABASE_URL=postgresql://postgres:your_password_here@localhost/shynet
REDIS_URL=redis://localhost:6379/0
SHYNET_TOKEN=your_shynet_token_here
SHYNET_BASE_URL=https://yourdomain.com

SSL Certificates

We need SSL certificates to enable HTTPS on our Shynet installation. We will use Let's Encrypt to obtain free SSL certificates:

sudo apt install -y certbot
sudo certbot certonly --standalone --agree-tos --no-eff-email -d yourdomain.com

Firewall

To allow web traffic, we need to open port 443:

sudo ufw allow 443/tcp
sudo ufw reload

Step 5: Run Shynet

We are now ready to start Shynet:

sudo npm run start

You should see the following output:

Shynet is listening at https://yourdomain.com

Congratulations! You have successfully installed and configured Shynet on Debian Latest. You can now access it by navigating to https://yourdomain.com in a web browser.