How to Install Rocket.Chat on POP! OS

Rocket.Chat is an open source web application for team chat, collaboration and messaging. It is available for free and can be installed on various operating systems, including POP! OS, an Ubuntu-based Linux distribution developed by System76.

In this tutorial, we will guide you through the steps to install Rocket.Chat on POP! OS.

Prerequisites

Before we proceed, make sure you have the following:

• A computer running POP! OS 21.04 or later.
• Access to a Terminal.

Step 1: Update your system

First, let's update our system to make sure we have the latest software packages. Open a Terminal and run the following command:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade

Enter your password when prompted and wait for the process to finish.

Step 2: Install Docker

Rocket.Chat requires Docker to run. Docker is a containerization platform that enables developers to bundle their applications with all the necessary dependencies and configuration files into a single package called a container.

To install Docker on POP! OS, run the following command:

sudo apt install docker.io

Once the installation is complete, start the Docker service and enable it to start automatically at boot time:

sudo systemctl start docker
sudo systemctl enable docker

You can verify that Docker is running by running the following command:

sudo systemctl status docker

Step 3: Install Docker Compose

Docker Compose is a tool that allows you to define and run multi-container Docker applications. We will use it to manage the Rocket.Chat containers.

To install Docker Compose on POP! OS, run the following command:

sudo apt install docker-compose

Verify the installation by running this command:

docker-compose --version

Step 4: Configure Rocket.Chat

Now that we have Docker and Docker Compose installed, we can configure Rocket.Chat.

First, create a new directory where you want to store the Rocket.Chat data. We will use /opt/rocketchat in this tutorial:

sudo mkdir /opt/rocketchat

Next, create a new file named docker-compose.yml in the same directory:

sudo nano /opt/rocketchat/docker-compose.yml

Paste the following configuration into the file:

version: '3'

services:
  rocketchat:
    image: rocket.chat:latest
    container_name: rocketchat
    restart: unless-stopped
    volumes:
      - ./db:/var/lib/mongodb
      - ./uploads:/app/uploads
    environment:
      - ROOT_URL=http://localhost:3000
      - MONGO_URL=mongodb://mongo:27017/rocketchat?replicaSet=rs01
      - MONGO_OPLOG_URL=mongodb://mongo:27017/local?replicaSet=rs01
      - MAIL_URL=smtp://smtp.email.server:587
      - Accounts_AvatarStorePath=/app/uploads
      - Accounts_AvatarMigrate=true
    depends_on:
      - mongo

  mongo:
    image: mongo:4.0
    container_name: mongo
    restart: unless-stopped
    volumes:
      - ./db:/data/db
    command: ['mongod', '--smallfiles', '--oplogSize', '128']

volumes:
  mongodb:

Save and close the file by pressing Ctrl+X, then Y, then Enter.

This configuration sets up two containers: one for Rocket.Chat and one for MongoDB. It also maps the /opt/rocketchat/uploads directory to the /app/uploads directory inside the Rocket.Chat container to store uploaded files.

You can modify the environment variables if needed. For example, you can change the ROOT_URL to your own domain name or IP address.

Step 5: Start Rocket.Chat

Now that we have our configuration file set up, we can start Rocket.Chat by running the following command:

sudo docker-compose up -d

This command will download the required Docker images, create the containers, and start them in detached mode. The -d option tells Docker Compose to run the containers in the background.

You can check the logs of the Rocket.Chat container by running:

sudo docker-compose logs -f rocketchat

This will display the real-time logs of the container.

Step 6: Access Rocket.Chat

Once the containers are running, you can access Rocket.Chat by opening your web browser and visiting http://localhost:3000.

If you followed the tutorial and want to access the Rocket.Chat instance on other devices on your network, you can find the IP address of your POP! OS machine by running:

ip addr show

Then, in the browser, navigate to http://<IP address>:3000.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we showed you how to install Rocket.Chat on POP! OS using Docker Compose. With Rocket.Chat, you can communicate and collaborate with your team in a secure and private way.

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