How to Install Drift on POP! OS Latest?

Drift is a minimalistic chat application built with Go and React. Here, we will provide you with a step-by-step guide to installing Drift on POP! OS Latest.

Prerequisites

Before we start, you will need the following:

• An Internet connection
• A terminal window or a command prompt
• A working installation of POP! OS Latest
• Access to an administrator account

Step 1: Install Go

Go is a popular programming language used to build Drift. So, we need to install it first. We can install Go via apt-get, typing the following command in a terminal window:

sudo apt-get install golang-go

Step 2: Download Drift

We will download Drift from its GitHub repository. You can download Drift using Git, a version control system. Type the following command in a terminal window:

git clone https://github.com/MaxLeiter/drift.git

This command will create a folder called "drift" in your home directory.

Step 3: Modify Configuration Files

Drift requires two configuration files config.json and users.json. We will modify these files to suit our requirements. Navigate to the drift folder:

cd ~/drift

Create a new JSON file named config.json:

nano config.json

And paste the following configuration in the file:

{
    "addr": "localhost:8080",
    "database_uri": "mongodb://localhost:27017",
    "database_name": "drift",
    "jwt_secret": "some-random-secret-here",
    "jwt_expiration": "24h",
    "cors_allowed_origins": ["http://localhost:3000"],
    "cors_allowed_headers": ["Authorization", "Content-Type"],
    "cors_allowed_methods": ["GET", "POST", "PUT", "DELETE"]
}

Similarly, you will create another JSON file named users.json. Paste the following configuration in the file:

[
    {
        "username": "admin",
        "password_hash": "$2a$10$oS1GUUXNISyGv1nrWgeRRONpUIDq3tfsO9oTA8JWzCYmR0x2mKI4e",
        "roles": ["admin"]
    }
]

Note: Change the "password_hash" in the users.json file. You can use any Hash generator like bcrypt to hash your password.

Step 4: Install the frontend Dependencies

Front-end dependencies are required to build React components. We can install these dependencies using the package manager npm. Type the following command in a terminal window:

npm install

Step 5: Build Drift

We will now build the application using the following command:

go run cmd/main.go

This command will start the Drift server on localhost at port 8080.

Step 6: Access Drift

Congratulations! You have successfully installed Drift on POP! OS Latest. To access the application, open your web browser and navigate to http://localhost:8080. You can log in using the username and password defined in users.json.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we have shown you how to install Drift on POP! OS Latest. Drift is a minimalistic chat application built with Go and React. It can be used to build communication-based applications such as chatbots, customer support forums, and more.