How to Install Plausible Analytics on OpenSUSE Latest

Plausible Analytics is a simple, lightweight, and privacy-focused open-source web analytics platform that helps you to track the performance of your website. In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Plausible Analytics on your OpenSUSE Latest system.

Prerequisites

A server or a virtual machine with OpenSUSE Latest installed
A user with sudo privileges
A domain name associated with your machine or server

Step 1: Update Your System

Before installing Plausible Analytics, it is essential to update your system. Open the terminal and run the following command:

sudo zypper update

This command will update all the packages on your system to their latest version.

Step 2: Install Dependencies

Plausible Analytics is built with Elixir, a dynamic, functional programming language. Therefore, to run the application on your machine, you need to install the following dependencies first:

Erlang
Elixir

You can install Erlang and Elixir by running the following command in the terminal:

sudo zypper install erlang elixir

Step 3: Download and Install Plausible Analytics

In this step, we will download the Plausible Analytics source code from the official GitHub repository and compile it using the mix command.

Run the following commands to download the source code:

sudo zypper install git
git clone https://github.com/plausible/plausible.git
cd plausible

Now, run the following command to build the application:

mix do deps.get, compile, phx.digest

Step 4: Configure Plausible Analytics

After installing Plausible Analytics, you need to configure it to run on your system. In the config directory, there is a file named dev.exs that you should rename to prod.exs:

cp config/dev.exs config/prod.exs

This file contains the application's configuration that you can modify based on your requirements. Open the prod.exs file in your text editor and configure the database connection and domain name that you want to use:

config :plausible, Plausible.Repo,
  username: "<DB_USER>",
  password: "<DB_PASSWORD>",
  database: "plausible_prod",
  hostname: "<DB_HOST>",
  pool_size: 10

config :plausible, PlausibleWeb.Endpoint,
  url: [scheme: "https", host: "<YOUR_DOMAIN>", port: 443],
  secret_key_base: "<YOUR_SECRET_KEY>",
  force_ssl: [rewrite_on: [:x_forwarded_proto]],
  server: true

Replace the <DB_USER>, <DB_PASSWORD>, <DB_HOST>, <YOUR_DOMAIN>, and <YOUR_SECRET_KEY> with your own values.

Step 5: Start Plausible Analytics

Once you have configured Plausible Analytics, you can start the application by running the following command in the terminal:

MIX_ENV=prod mix phx.server

This command will start the application and run it in the production environment. You should see the following output in your terminal:

[info] Running PlausibleWeb.Endpoint with cowboy 2.9.0 at https://localhost:443
[info] Access PlausibleWeb.Endpoint at https://localhost:443

Visit the URL https://<YOUR_DOMAIN> in your web browser, and you should see the Plausible Analytics login page.

Conclusion

You have successfully installed Plausible Analytics on your OpenSUSE Latest system. You can now create an account, add your website, and start tracking its performance. Plausible Analytics is user-friendly and has no tracking cookies or personal data collection, making it an excellent choice for privacy-conscious website owners.