How to Install Thredded on OpenBSD

Thredded is an open-source forum software designed for building modern and robust online communities. It is built with Ruby and the Ruby on Rails web development framework. In this tutorial, we will guide you through the process of installing Thredded on OpenBSD.

Prerequisites

Before we begin, ensure that you have the following requirements installed on your OpenBSD system:

  • Ruby version 2.5.x or higher
  • RubyGems package manager
  • Ruby on Rails version 5.2.x or higher
  • PostgreSQL database server

Step 1: Installing Required Dependencies

We will start by installing some necessary dependencies for Thredded using your OpenBSD system's package manager. Run the following command in your terminal:

$ doas pkg_add postgresql-client libpqxx node

Step 2: Installing Thredded

Now, we can download and install Thredded's source code from the official GitHub repository using the following command:

$ git clone https://github.com/thredded/thredded.git

Change your working directory to the Thredded's source code directory using the following command:

$ cd thredded

Next, install Thredded dependencies by running the following command:

$ bundle install

Step 3: Configuring PostgreSQL

Thredded uses PostgreSQL as the default database server. We need to create a new PostgreSQL user and database for Thredded.

Log in as the postgres user by running the following command:

$ doas -u _postgresql psql template1

Create a new PostgreSQL user and assign a password to it using the following command:

template1=# CREATE USER your_username WITH PASSWORD 'your_password';

Create a new PostgreSQL database for Thredded using the following command:

template1=# CREATE DATABASE thredded_production ENCODING 'utf8' OWNER your_username;

Step 4: Configuring Thredded

Thredded requires some configuration before we run it. Open the config/database.yml file and update it with your PostgreSQL username and password as shown below:

production:
  <<: *default
  database: thredded_production
  username: your_username
  password: your_password

Save and close the file.

Now, we need to initialize Thredded database schema by running the following command:

$ bundle exec rake db:migrate RAILS_ENV=production

Step 5: Starting Thredded Application

Finally, we can start the Thredded application by running the following command:

$ bundle exec rails server -e production

Thredded is now up and running on http://localhost:3000.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we have demonstrated how to install Thredded forum software on OpenBSD. Now, you can start exploring its features and creating new topics to build a vibrant and active community.