Installing Remark42 on Debian Latest

Introduction

Remark42 is an open-source, privacy-focused commenting system that you can install on your website. In this tutorial, we will explain how to install Remark42 on Debian Latest.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, you will need:

• A Debian Latest VPS or Dedicated server with root access.
• A domain name pointing to your server or an IP address assigned to your server.
• Basic knowledge of the terminal and command-line tools.

Step 1: Update the System

To begin, connect to your server via SSH and run the following command to update its package database:

apt-get update && apt-get upgrade

Step 2: Install Docker and Docker Compose

Remark42 requires Docker and Docker Compose to be installed on your system. Install Docker by running the following command:

curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com -o get-docker.sh
sudo sh get-docker.sh

Once Docker is installed, you can verify its version by running the following command:

docker version

Next, install Docker Compose by running this command:

sudo apt-get install docker-compose

Verify the version of Docker Compose by running the following command:

docker-compose version

Step 3: Download and Set Up Remark42

To download Remark42, create a new directory on your server and navigate into it:

mkdir remark42 && cd remark42

Then, use the following command to download the latest release:

wget https://github.com/umputun/remark42/releases/latest/download/remark42.zip

Extract the downloaded archive using the following command:

unzip remark42.zip

Next, navigate into the extracted directory:

cd remark42

Copy the conf-sample.yml configuration file to conf.yml:

cp conf-sample.yml conf.yml

Edit the conf.yml file and make the following changes to reflect your server configuration:

    email:
        username: "[email protected]"
        password: "your-email-password"
        from: "[email protected]"
        host: "smtp.example.com"
        port: 465
        tls_enabled: true
        auth: true 

Replace [email protected] with your email address that will be used for notifying errors and other important messages to you. Then, replace your-email-password with the password of the email address you entered.

Finally, change smtp.example.com to your SMTP server hostname or IP address.

Save and close the file.

Step 4: Starting Remark42

To start the Remark42 service, navigate back to the main directory:

cd ..

Now, start the container using Docker Compose:

docker-compose up -d

This command will start the Remark42 Docker container in the background.

Step 5: Accessing the Remark42 Web Interface

Now, you can access the Remark42 web interface at http://your-server-domain-or-ip:8080.

You can log in to the Remark42 administrative console by navigating to /admin on your site and entering the following default credentials:

Username: admin
Password: admin

After logging in, you can customize the configuration of Remark42 from the administrative console.

Conclusion

You have successfully installed Remark42 on your Debian Latest server. You can now integrate the commenting system into your website and start receiving comments from your visitors.