How to Install The Foreman on FreeBSD Latest

The Foreman is an open-source tool for managing server life cycles. It provides a web-based interface to manage provisioning, configuration, and reporting of servers. This tutorial will guide you on how to install The Foreman on FreeBSD Latest.

Prerequisites

Before we proceed, ensure that you have the following:

• A FreeBSD 13 server
• Root access or a user with sudo privileges
• An updated system

Step 1: Install Dependencies

The Foreman requires some dependencies to function correctly. Therefore, before we install The Foreman, we need to install the following dependencies:

• Ruby version 2.7 or later
• PostgreSQL
• Apache
• Passenger
• Git

To install them, run the following command:

sudo pkg install ruby postgresql13-server apache24 mod_passenger git

Step 2: Install The Foreman

To install The Foreman, we need to clone the Foreman repository from Git using the following command:

sudo git clone https://github.com/theforeman/foreman.git /usr/local/foreman

Once the cloning process is complete, switch to the Foreman directory and checkout the latest release using the command:

cd /usr/local/foreman
sudo git checkout 2.4-stable

Next, install the required gems using bundler. Run the following command:

sudo gem install bundler --no-document
sudo bundle install --without mysql postgresql sqlite test

Now that we have installed The Foreman, let's proceed to configuration.

Step 3: Configuration

For The Foreman to work correctly, we need to configure the database, web server, and application settings.

Configure PostgreSQL

We need to create a PostgreSQL database for The Foreman. Run the following command to initialize the PostgreSQL database cluster:

sudo service postgresql initdb

Start the PostgreSQL service using the command:

sudo service postgresql start

To configure the PostgreSQL database, create a new database, user, and grant the user all privileges to the database using the following commands:

sudo su - postgres
psql -c "create database foreman;"
psql -c "create user foreman with password 'password';"
psql -c "grant all privileges on database foreman to foreman;"
exit

Configure Apache and Passenger

To configure Apache and Passenger, create a new file at /usr/local/etc/apache24/Includes/foreman.conf and add the following configuration:

LoadModule passenger_module /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/2.7/gems/passenger-6.0.10/buildout/apache2/mod_passenger.so
<IfModule mod_passenger.c>
  PassengerUser foreman
  PassengerGroup www
  PassengerRuby /usr/local/bin/ruby27
</IfModule>

<VirtualHost *:80>
        ServerName foreman.example.com
        DocumentRoot /usr/local/foreman/public
        <Directory /usr/local/foreman/public>
                AllowOverride all
                Options Indexes FollowSymLinks Includes ExecCGI
                Order allow,deny
                Allow from all
                Require all granted
        </Directory>
        ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/foreman_error.log
        CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/foreman_access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

Replace "foreman.example.com" with your server's hostname or IP address.

Configure The Foreman

Copy the Foreman settings file from /usr/local/foreman/config/settings.yaml.example to /usr/local/foreman/config/settings.yaml using the command below:

cp /usr/local/foreman/config/settings.yaml.example /usr/local/foreman/config/settings.yaml

Open the file in your favorite editor and configure the following parameters:

:foreman_url: "http://foreman.example.com"

:database:
  :adapter: postgresql
  :database: foreman
  :username: foreman
  :password: password
  :host: localhost

:puppetdb:
  :url: "http://puppetdb.example.com:8080"

Replace "foreman.example.com" with your server's hostname or IP address and set the correct values for the database and PuppetDB.

Step 4: Start The Foreman

Now that we have completed the configuration, let's start The Foreman using the command:

cd /usr/local/foreman
sudo foreman-rake db:migrate
sudo foreman-rake db:seed
sudo service apache24 start

You should be able to access The Foreman on your web browser using the URL http://foreman.example.com.

Congratulations! You have successfully installed The Foreman on FreeBSD Latest.