In this tutorial, we will guide you step by step on how to install Discourse on Alpine Linux Latest. Discourse is an open-source discussion platform designed for building online communities. It is built on Ruby on Rails and PostgreSQL, and utilizes JavaScript extensively to provide a sleek, modern interface.
Before proceeding with the installation, make sure you have the following prerequisites installed:
Before installing any new packages, it is a good practice to update your system to ensure that you have the latest version of packages and security updates. To achieve this, run the following commands in your terminal:
sudo apk update
sudo apk upgrade
Discourse requires several packages to be installed on your system. Some of these packages are not included in the base Alpine Linux image. To install them, run the following command:
sudo apk add git bash curl imagemagick ghostscript postgresql nodejs yarn gcc g++ make libc-dev openssl-dev readline-dev zlib-dev ncurses-dev libxslt-dev libxml2-dev
RVM is a tool that allows you to easily install and manage multiple Ruby environments on your system. It is recommended to install RVM to manage your Ruby installation for Discourse. To install RVM, run the following command:
\curl -sSL https://get.rvm.io | bash -s stable
Once the installation is complete, you will need to run the following command to reload the shell:
source /etc/profile.d/rvm.sh
Discourse requires Ruby version 2.6 or higher. To install Ruby using RVM, run the following commands:
rvm install 2.6.5
rvm use 2.6.5 --default
Bundler is a Ruby gem that manages dependencies for your Ruby projects. It is used by Discourse to manage its dependencies. Run the following command to install Bundler:
gem install bundler
Now that we have all the necessary packages and dependencies, let's clone the Discourse repository. To clone the repository, run the following command:
git clone https://github.com/discourse/discourse.git /var/www/discourse
After cloning the repository, the next step is to prepare Discourse. To do this, navigate to the Discourse directory and run the following command:
cd /var/www/discourse
bundle install --deployment --without test --without development
Discourse requires a PostgreSQL database to store its data. To create a new database, login to PostgreSQL with the following command:
sudo -u postgres psql
Then, run the following command to create a new database:
CREATE DATABASE discourse;
Type '\q' to exit the PostgreSQL shell.
After creating the database, we need to configure Discourse to use that database. Copy the sample configuration file and edit it with the following command:
cp config/discourse_defaults.conf config/discourse.conf
nano config/discourse.conf
Update the following lines with your PostgreSQL configuration:
db_name = "discourse"
db_username = "postgres"
db_password = "YOUR-POSTGRESQL-PASSWORD-HERE"
Save and exit the file.
To enable Discourse, we need to precompile the Rails assets. To precompile the assets, run the following command:
RAILS_ENV=production bundle exec rake assets:precompile
Now that everything is set up, we can finally start Discourse with the following command:
RAILS_ENV=production bundle exec rails server
By default, Discourse is now running on port 3000. If you want to run it on a different port, use the following command:
RAILS_ENV=production bundle exec rails server --port PORT_NUMBER
Congratulations! You have successfully installed Discourse on Alpine Linux Latest. You can now access it by entering your server's IP address or FQDN in a web browser. We hope this tutorial was helpful.
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