Installing Forem in Linux

This post is on the request of @benki

In this article, I focus less on my commentary and prefer more clarity in command execution. So if you find any words others than shell commands, take a good look at them.

One more tip while following this guide, single command lies in a single line.

This guide will be useful for anyone who wants to install forem in Linux. In a way, this is an alternative method to install Forem without Docker or Podman

Updating our system and Downloading Forem

sudo apt update sudo apt upgrade git clone https://github.com/forem/forem.git cp ~/forem/.env_sample ~/forem/.env 

Ruby Installation

sudo apt install git curl autoconf bison build-essential \ libssl-dev libyaml-dev libreadline6-dev zlib1g-dev \ libncurses5-dev libffi-dev libgdbm6 libgdbm-dev libdb-dev 

git clone https://github.com/rbenv/rbenv.git ~/.rbenv echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.rbenv/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bashrc echo 'eval "$(rbenv init -)"' >> ~/.bashrc source ~/.bashrc exec $SHELL 

git clone https://github.com/rbenv/ruby-build.git ~/.rbenv/plugins/ruby-build echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.rbenv/plugins/ruby-build/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bashrc source ~/.bashrc exec $SHELL 

rbenv install $(cat ~/forem/.ruby-version) rbenv global $(cat ~/forem/.ruby-version) 

Install NVM and yarn

curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/creationix/nvm/v0.35.3/install.sh -o install_nvm.sh 

bash install_nvm.sh source ~/.profile nvm install $(cat ~/forem/.nvmrc) nvm use $(cat ~/forem/.nvmrc) 

npm install -g yarn 

Installing Postgre SQL

sudo apt-get install postgresql postgresql-contrib libpq-dev -y 

In the coming command, Replace the term "ubuntu" with your own username.

sudo -u postgres createuser -s ubuntu createdb sudo -u ubuntu psql 

Now within the psql Use \password command to create a password for the user ubuntu, in which we will create a database (later on).

You can exit psql by using the command \quit; this will help you get into the original bash/terminal of your VPS.

Let's update the DATABASE_URL and the DATABASE_URL_TEST accordingly in the .env file.

nano ~/forem/.env 

DATABASE_URL="postgresql://ubuntu:mypassword@localhost:5432/$DATABASE_NAME" DATABASE_URL_TEST="postgresql://ubuntu:mypasswordk@localhost:5432/$DATABASE_NAME_TEST" 

Installing Imagemagick

sudo apt update && sudo apt install imagemagick 

Installing and ConfiguringRedis

sudo apt install redis-server -y 

sudo nano /etc/redis/redis.conf 

Navigate to find the variable supervised and change it's value systemd

sudo systemctl restart redis.service 

Installing Elastic search

wget https://artifacts.elastic.co/downloads/elasticsearch/elasticsearch-oss-7.5.2-amd64.deb 

sudo dpkg -i elasticsearch-oss-7.5.2-amd64.deb 

If you are someone who is trying to experiment with this Forem in a low-end server, maybe around 1GB or 2GB ram; It is mandatory for you to do edit the memory heap. And follow these if you are one among them, or else leave.

If you are not sure about this, skip and continue with the next step, but if you are facing any error in starting Elasticsearch try referring to this.

sudo nano /etc/elasticsearch/jvm.options 

• First, un-comment the value of Xmx and Xms.
• Next, modify the value of -Xms and -Xmx to no more than 50% of your physical RAM

# Xms represents the initial size of total heap space # Xmx represents the maximum size of total heap space # Use 128m if 1GB ram and 256m if 2GB ram -Xms128m -Xmx128m 

Now let's start Elasticsearch

sudo /bin/systemctl daemon-reload sudo /bin/systemctl enable elasticsearch.service sudo systemctl start elasticsearch.service 

Installing ImgProxy

git clone https://github.com/imgproxy/imgproxy.git cd imgproxy 

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:dhor/myway sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install libvips-dev 

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:longsleep/golang-backports sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install golang-go 

sudo CGO_LDFLAGS_ALLOW="-s|-w" \ go build -o /usr/local/bin/imgproxy 

Now let's configure the .env for Imgproxy

• Generate a key/salt pair by running the following in your terminal twice. Copy those values to your .env in the next step

echo $(xxd -g 2 -l 64 -p /dev/random | tr -d '\n') 

We have one random string; but we need two of them, so let's run this command again.

echo $(xxd -g 2 -l 64 -p /dev/random | tr -d '\n') 

Now we have 2 random strings; we will one of them as key and the other as salt. This can be done by adding few lines in .env file.

nano ~/forem/.env 

Now add these three lines to it and save the file.

IMGPROXY_ENDPOINT='http://localhost:8080' IMGPROXY_KEY='1b1c9aae804e070b0864f2547fba7ce8ff31bf7..........' IMGPROXY_SALT='8c6d449d4fc2cada5bab538826cae709d2ade9f.........' 

Replace, the key and salt with the values you generated in few steps back. (You can interchange those values, but as a convention, I use the first one as key and the later as salt)

Also store these values in this fashion, so that we can use this command to start our Imgproxy.

IMGPROXY_KEY='your key' IMGPROXY_SALT='your salt' imgproxy 

Now we have all the required side packs for our installation

Installing and Starting Forem

If you are using a VPS, it is mandatory for you to update your APP_DOMAIN value with your VPS IP address in the .env file.

• you can find your VPS IP address by using the command ifconfig
• Use this command to edit your .env file: nano ~/forem/.env

sudo apt-get install libcurl4 libcurl4-openssl-dev -y cd ~/forem gem install bundler yarn install bin/setup rails db:reset rails data_updates:run 

Now open 3 Terminal, the three boxes below indicate 3 different terminals

• Terminal 01

IMGPROXY_KEY='your key' IMGPROXY_SALT='your salt' imgproxy 

• Terminal 02

./bin/webpack bundle exec sidekiq -t 25 

• Terminal 03

bin/rails s -p 3000 -b 0.0.0.0