How to Install Countly Community Edition on Linux Mint

In this tutorial, we will be installing Countly Community Edition on Linux Mint. Countly is a free, open-source, and real-time analytics platform that helps businesses track user behavior and gain insights into their applications' performance.

Prerequisites

  • A Linux Mint system with a user account having sudo privileges.
  • A web server (such as Apache or Nginx) installed and running on the system.
  • A MongoDB database installed and running on the system.

Step 1: Install Node.js

Countly requires Node.js to be installed on the system. If you don't have it installed yet, you can install it by following these steps:

Using apt Package Manager

Open the terminal and run the following commands:

$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install nodejs

Using nvm (Node Version Manager)

If you prefer to use nvm to manage Node.js versions, you can install it by running the following command:

$ curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.38.0/install.sh | bash

Then, close and re-open the terminal, and install the latest LTS version of Node.js by running:

$ nvm install --lts

Step 2: Install Countly

To install Countly, follow these steps:

Step 2.1: Download Countly

Download the latest Countly version from the official website using the wget command:

$ wget https://codeload.github.com/Countly/countly-server/tar.gz/master -O countly.tar.gz

Extract the downloaded archive to the /opt directory:

$ sudo tar -xzvf countly.tar.gz -C /opt/

Rename the extracted directory:

$ sudo mv /opt/countly-server-master /opt/countly

Set the correct permissions for the Countly directory:

$ sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /opt/countly

Step 2.2: Install Countly dependencies

Navigate to the Countly directory:

$ cd /opt/countly

Install the Countly dependencies by running the following command:

$ npm install

Step 2.3: Configure Countly

Copy the example production configuration file to the main configuration file:

$ sudo cp config.sample.js config.js

Edit the configuration file to reflect your environment:

$ sudo nano config.js

Change the following settings:

  • Set dbs.mongodb.host to localhost if you're running MongoDB on the same server. Otherwise, set it to the MongoDB server's IP address or domain.
  • Set appName to any name you want to give your application.
  • Set ssl.enable to false if you want to access Countly over HTTP. Set it to true if you want to access Countly over HTTPS.

Save the configuration file and exit the text editor.

Step 2.4: Start Countly

Start Countly by running the following command:

$ npm run start

Countly will start on port 6001 by default. If you want to change the port, edit the frontend > port setting in the config.js file.

Step 3: Access Countly

To access Countly, open your web browser and navigate to:

http://localhost:6001

If you set ssl.enable to true in the config.js file, access Countly over HTTPS:

https://localhost:6001

Conclusion

In this tutorial, you learned how to install Countly Community Edition on Linux Mint. With Countly, you can track user behavior and get insights into your application's performance.