This guide will walk you through the installation of Discourse Forum Software on Ubuntu Linux system. Discourse is a free and open source, feature-rich software designed for creating community discussion forums, long-form chat rooms and mailing list for your company’s team, customers e.t.c. It is built using Ruby on Rails and Ember.js, and can be hosted on your own server or as a service through a third-party provider
Discourse is built with:
- Ruby on Rails – Our back end API is a Rails app. It responds to requests RESTfully in JSON.
- Ember.js – Our front end is an Ember.js app that communicates with the Rails API.
- PostgreSQL – Our main data store is in Postgres.
- Redis – We use Redis as a cache and for transient data.
Some of the features of Discourse include:
- A responsive design that works well on both desktop and mobile devices
- A rich text editor that makes it easy to format posts and add media
- Advanced moderation and spam protection tools
- Support for multiple languages
- Customizable email notifications
- An API that allows developers to build integrations with other systems
Hardware Requirements
Discourse has the following hardware requirements. This may vary depending on the number of users you expect to use the system.
- Modern single core CPU, dual core recommended
- 1 GB RAM minimum (with swap)
- 64 bit Linux compatible with Docker
- 10 GB disk space minimum
Other Requirements (Compulsary)
- A valid domain name or subdomain e.g forum.example.com
- You need a working email server or choose Recommended Email Providers for Discourse.
- To ensure mail deliverability, you must add valid SPF and DKIM records in your DNS
Follow steps below to Install Discourse on Ubuntu Linux system.
Step 1: Update Ubuntu Server
We always start our installation by ensuring all system packages are up to date.
sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade -y
Step 2: Install Docker Engine
Run below commands to install the latest release of Docker which works fine for Discourse.
wget -qO- https://get.docker.com/ | sh
If you would like to use Docker as a non-root user, you should now consider adding your user to the “docker” group with:
sudo usermod -aG docker $USER newgrp docker
You can query for installed version using the command below.
$ docker version Client: Docker Engine - Community Version: 20.10.22 API version: 1.41 Go version: go1.18.9 Git commit: 3a2c30b Built: Thu Dec 15 22:28:08 2022 OS/Arch: linux/amd64 Context: default Experimental: true Server: Docker Engine - Community Engine: Version: 20.10.22 API version: 1.41 (minimum version 1.12) Go version: go1.18.9 Git commit: 42c8b31 Built: Thu Dec 15 22:25:58 2022 OS/Arch: linux/amd64 Experimental: false containerd: Version: 1.6.14 GitCommit: 9ba4b250366a5ddde94bb7c9d1def331423aa323 runc: Version: 1.1.4 GitCommit: v1.1.4-0-g5fd4c4d docker-init: Version: 0.19.0 GitCommit: de40ad0 ...
Docker should be in a running status.
$ systemctl status docker
● docker.service - Docker Application Container Engine
Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/docker.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: active (running) since Thu 2023-01-05 16:15:28 UTC; 38s ago
TriggeredBy: ● docker.socket
Docs: https://docs.docker.com
Main PID: 3729 (dockerd)
Tasks: 7
Memory: 21.6M
CGroup: /system.slice/docker.service
└─3729 /usr/bin/dockerd -H fd:// --containerd=/run/containerd/containerd.sock
Jan 05 16:15:28 server dockerd[3729]: time="2023-01-05T16:15:28.085391080Z" level=warning msg="Your kernel does not support CPU realtime scheduler"
Jan 05 16:15:28 server dockerd[3729]: time="2023-01-05T16:15:28.085602617Z" level=warning msg="Your kernel does not support cgroup blkio weight"
Jan 05 16:15:28 server dockerd[3729]: time="2023-01-05T16:15:28.085800033Z" level=warning msg="Your kernel does not support cgroup blkio weight_device"
Jan 05 16:15:28 server dockerd[3729]: time="2023-01-05T16:15:28.086343753Z" level=info msg="Loading containers: start."
Jan 05 16:15:28 server dockerd[3729]: time="2023-01-05T16:15:28.281407771Z" level=info msg="Default bridge (docker0) is assigned with an IP address 172.17.0.0/16. Daemon option --bip can be used to>
Jan 05 16:15:28 server dockerd[3729]: time="2023-01-05T16:15:28.371426726Z" level=info msg="Loading containers: done."
Jan 05 16:15:28 server dockerd[3729]: time="2023-01-05T16:15:28.400215239Z" level=info msg="Docker daemon" commit=42c8b31 graphdriver(s)=overlay2 version=20.10.22
Jan 05 16:15:28 server dockerd[3729]: time="2023-01-05T16:15:28.400833884Z" level=info msg="Daemon has completed initialization"
Jan 05 16:15:28 server systemd[1]: Started Docker Application Container Engine.
Jan 05 16:15:28 server dockerd[3729]: time="2023-01-05T16:15:28.455021718Z" level=info msg="API listen on /run/docker.sock"
Step 3: Configure Mail Server
You need a working email server or choose Recommended Email Providers for Discourse. Configure email server by:
- Creating an email user account for Discourse
- Configuring DKIM and SPF for your domain.
Postfix Server can also be used.
Step 4: Install Discourse on Ubuntu Server
Now that Docker engine is installed and running, proceed to deploy Discourse on Ubuntu Linux system.
1.Create a /var/discourse folder:
sudo mkdir /var/discourse
2.Clone the Official Discourse Docker Image into created directory.
sudo git clone https://github.com/discourse/discourse_docker.git /var/discourse
3. Bootstrap Discourse
Run the command below to launch Discourse setup tool.
sudo su - cd /var/discourse
Run:
./discourse-setup
Provide Discourse domain name, admin email address, smtp email server, smtp port, smtp user name and password and optional email address for Let’s Encrypt.
Hostname for your Discourse? [discourse.example.com]: forum.example.com Email address for admin account(s)?: [email protected], SMTP server address? [smtp.example.com]: SMTP port? [587]: 465 SMTP user name? [[email protected]]: SMTP password? [pa$$word]: SMTPpassword Optional email address for setting up Let's Encrypt? (ENTER to skip) [[email protected]]: [email protected]
This will setup Discourse and generate app.yml.
Step 5: Start Discourse
Once bootstrapping is complete, you should be able to access Discourse in your web browser using the domain name configured forum.example.com.
Click on the “Register” button to register a new account to get started.
Provide username and password for Admin account the click “Register“.
You should receive an email address with instructions on how to activate your account.
Rebuilding Discourse
Each time you make changes to containers/app.yml, you have to rebuild your Discourse application by running:
./launcher rebuild app
That’s all. Enjoy your forum powered by Discourse.
