How to Install Discourse on Elementary OS Latest

Discourse is a modern and efficient platform for building online communities. This tutorial provides step-by-step instructions to install Discourse on your Elementary OS Latest system.

Prerequisites

  • A VPS or dedicated server running the latest version of Elementary OS.
  • Root or sudo user access to your server.
  • A DNS or static IP address.

Step 1: Update Your System

The first step is to update your system packages to the latest version. You can use the following command:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade -y

This command will update and upgrade all the installed packages on your system.

Step 2: Install Dependencies

Discourse requires some dependencies to be installed on your system. Use the following command to install them:

sudo apt-get install -y curl git libssl-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev libffi-dev libicu-dev libreadline-dev libjemalloc-dev postgresql postgresql-contrib redis-server imagemagick

Step 3: Download and Install Docker

Docker is a platform for building, testing and deploying applications in containers. Discourse can be deployed in a Docker container, that's why we need to install Docker. Use the following command to install Docker:

curl -sSL https://get.docker.com/ | sh

After the installation, add your user to the docker group with the following command:

sudo usermod -aG docker $USER

Step 4: Download and Install Discourse

First, create a directory to store your installation files:

mkdir ~/discourse
cd ~/discourse

Next, clone the Discourse repository from GitHub:

sudo git clone https://github.com/discourse/discourse_docker.git /var/discourse

Step 5: Configure Discourse

Create a configuration file in the /var/discourse directory:

sudo cp /var/discourse/samples/standalone.yml /var/discourse/containers/app.yml
sudo nano /var/discourse/containers/app.yml

Now, configure the file with the appropriate settings for your server, including:

  • DISCOURSE_HOSTNAME (the domain name where Discourse will be available)
  • LETSENCRYPT_ACCOUNT_EMAIL (your email, used for Let's Encrypt SSL certificates)
  • DISCOURSE_SMTP_ADDRESS, DISCOURSE_SMTP_PORT, DISCOURSE_SMTP_USER_NAME, DISCOURSE_SMTP_PASSWORD (your email SMTP configuration)

You can also adjust the RAM allocation for your container:

env:
  UNICORN_WORKERS: 2
  UNICORN_SIDEKIQS: 1
  DISCOURSE_MAXMINDDB_DOWNLOAD_URL: "https://download.maxmind.com/app/geoip_download?edition_id=GeoLite2-City&license_key=YOUR_LICENSE_KEY&suffix=tar.gz"
  UNICORN_MEMORY_MIN: "512m"
  UNICORN_MEMORY_MAX: "1024m"

Step 6: Start Discourse

Use the following command to start Discourse:

cd /var/discourse
sudo ./launcher bootstrap app
sudo ./launcher start app

It may take several minutes to complete the installation and configuration process. Once it's done, you can access your Discourse installation by visiting your domain name or IP address in your web browser.

Conclusion

This tutorial provided step-by-step instructions for installing Discourse on your Elementary OS Latest system. With this powerful online community building platform now available, you can start creating and managing your own online community with ease.