Install Discourse in Under 30 Minutes
Jeff Atwood April 17, 2014A few key things came together recently:
- The official release of Discourse 1.0, with 1 GB RAM minimum support
- The release of Ubuntu 16.04 LTS server previously followed by 14.04
- Our Docker container one-click upgrade process is fully tested, and Docker has reached V1.0
Which means you can now install the latest version of Discourse on a cloud server in under 30 minutes with absolutely zero knowledge of Ruby, Rails, or Linux Shell.
Why, it’s almost … easy?
I'm about as good as my mum with Linux but last night with 1/2 of wine in me I installed @discourse on @digitalocean box,amazingly easy
— Steve Newstead (@mangopieface) April 5, 2014
The @discourse documentation for @docker installation is fantastic. A monkey with a keyboard could do it in 20 min.
— Stuart Kearney (@StuartKearney) May 3, 2014
Instance of @discourse running on @digitalocean. Silky smooth process. Many props.
— Aaron Dixon (@aaronbdixon) August 12, 2014
Props to @discourse for an unusually smooth setup with @digitalocean. Excellent instructions!
— Victor Sand (@vlgsand) November 16, 2014
Discourse is now officially well beyond version 1.0, so it’s a great time to join the ecosystem.
Give our 30 minute cloud install a try. We even have a promo code to get you started – enter ALLSSD10 at Digital Ocean for $10 credit to cover your first month.
Tell us what you think!
Just tried this. I hereby grant you the "Newb Friendly" sticker of approval. Thank you for all your hard work!
p.s. If the prospect of setting up a swap file bothers you, you can save yourself a lot of trouble by going with the 2GB version for $20, which is the recommended minimum amount of horsepower anyhow.
The 1GB instance runs fine provided modest reasonable number of users and load. If you know for sure your Discourse will be low volume for the foreseeable future, it is a better and less expensive choice.
The only time you typically need swap is during the /admin/docker upgrade process. And Sam's recent Sidekiq upgrades free up about 7% more memory on top of this.
1GB is a 100% officially supported install now, the swap file is just a bit of insurance!
What is recommended to keep Ubuntu up to date? I assume it doesn't do any sort of automatic updates, or does it? A way to schedule automatic updates at 3am or something would be good, or maybe weekly?
The way that you're "supposed" to have unattended critical updates in Ubuntu is
It brings up a ncurses window and you choose Yes or No.
I found an easy way too to have the server email you when there are updates available:
(and edit /etc/apticron/apticron.conf and just change the line: EMAIL = "root" to EMAIL = "youremail@address.com")
As a system administrator looking after this for a client, I'm not likely to be logging in to discourse much, unless it's to check for these notices. Is there a command line test for available updates which could be run? IDeally something suited to scripted notifications, or to just trigger the rebuild operation being run. Is the rebuild process stable enough for that to be advisable?