Notes On Installing and Running Diaspora: Difference between revisions

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{{Note
#REDIRECT [[Installation]]
|'''If you just want to use (or try out) Diaspora*, you don't necessarily have to set up your own pod.'''<br>You can join a pod that has registrations enabled, running the Diaspora* software. Just pick one from [http://podupti.me the list of community-operated servers] that seems best to you.<br>If you still want to run your own pod... we salute you. Read on.}}
 
== Introduction ==
 
Diaspora* is run on a network of connected servers, or "pods". This document contains technical information for installing the necessary software to run a pod yourself, either for development, or as a new pod on the Diaspora network.
 
A little knowledge on administrating Unix-like systems (Linux, MacOS) or experience setting up other Rails applications can't hurt in this endeavour... ;)
 
'''For OS-Specific and service-specific guides, [[:Category:Installation|check out this page]].'''
 
=== Things to Know ===
 
# '''The install is a bit complex, but we're here to help'''<br>If you run into problems, please visit us in [[How_We_Communicate#IRC|our IRC channels]] on Freenode.
# '''Running a common setup will get you the most help, if you need it.'''<br>Most people in the community will have some experience running Diaspora* with [http://unicorn.bogomips.org/ Unicorn] as the app server using [http://nginx.org/ Nginx] as outward-facing web server. Of course, you're free to run any other app server (Thin, Passenger...) or web server (Apache), but you might find it harder to get help if you run into unexpected troubles.
# '''Diaspora* is developed utilizing latest web standards'''<br>Therefore UX is best with recent browsers, so please update your Firefox, Opera, Chrome or Safari to the newest version. We do not currently support any version of Internet Explorer, though we won't reject any [[Getting Started With Contributing|contributions attempting to change that]] circumstance.
# '''Diaspora* strongly recommends HTTPS'''<br>as we encrypt communication amongst servers and to the client browsers. You can get a free SSL certificate from [http://www.startssl.com/ StartSSL]. You’ll need to reference the certificate in your webserver configuration file.
 
{{Note
|'''The use of self-signed certificates is discouraged'''<br>While you can certainly get up and running with your own pod by using a self-signed SSL certificate, your pod may not be able to communicate with all other pods. It is therefore recommended that you use a certificate issued from a trusted Certificate Authority. Unfortunately, this also means that CACert certificates won’t work. They are not (yet) part of most certificate bundles.}}
 
=== Pointing out the obvious ===
 
{{Serious
|'''Do not run anything as root if it's not explicitly requested by this guide.''' <br>Just ''use your normal user'' - or even better - ''create a separate user'' for Diaspora*.}}
 
We frequently see people doing everything as ''root''. If you think that's a good idea: '''It's not.''' It's the worst thing you can do! Not only is it a security risk, it also violates all sorts of best-practices. See [http://unix.stackexchange.com/a/29165 this comment] for a short rationale on that topic.
 
=== Preparing your system ===
In order to run Diaspora*, you will need to install the following dependencies:
 
* Build tools - Packages needed to compile the components that follow.
* [http://www.ruby-lang.org Ruby] - The Ruby programming language. <br>(We’re developing mostly on '''1.9.3''' and support for '''1.8.7''' was dropped a while ago.)
* [http://rubygems.org/ RubyGems] - A package manager for Ruby code that we use to download libraries (“gems”) that Diaspora uses.
* [http://gembundler.com/ Bundler] - A gem management tool for Ruby projects.
* [http://www.mysql.com MySQL] - Backend storage engine.
* Or: [http://www.postgresql.org/ PostgreSQL] - Backend storage engine.
* [http://www.openssl.org/ OpenSSL] - An encryption library.
* [http://curl.haxx.se/ libcurl] - A library to make HTTP requests (and much more).
* [http://www.imagemagick.org/ ImageMagick] - An image processing library we use to resize uploaded photos.
* [http://git-scm.com/ Git] - A version control system, which you will need to download the Diaspora source code from GitHub.
* [http://redis.io/ Redis 2.0 or later] - A persistent key-value store that we use via [https://github.com/mperham/sidekiq Sidekiq] for background job processing.
* one of the JavaScript runtimes on [https://github.com/sstephenson/execjs execjs' supported list].
 
{{Note
|'''For operating-system and hosting-service specific guides, check out [[Installation guides|this list of instructions]].'''<br>After all the requirements are installed on your system, return to this page and proceed with [[#Installing Diaspora|the installation]].}}
 
== Installing Diaspora* ==
 
=== Getting Diaspora* Source ===
 
Our source code is hosted at GitHub. We produce tagged stable releases, and on the master branch you will always find the code for the most recent release. If you have never used GitHub before, their [http://help.github.com/ help desk] has a pretty awesome guide for getting set up.
 
To get a copy of the Diaspora* source from the master branch, use the following command:
 
<syntaxhighlight lang="bash">
git clone -b master git://github.com/diaspora/diaspora.git && cd diaspora
</syntaxhighlight>
 
This will copy all files from the repository into a <tt>diaspora</tt> folder under the current directory.
 
If you already cloned the repository get sure to checkout the master branch with (in the <tt>diaspora</tt> dir):
 
<syntaxhighlight lang="bash">
git checkout master
</syntaxhighlight>
 
=== Preparations ===
Depending on the database you want to use, add either <tt>DB="mysql"</tt> for MySQL or <tt>DB="postgres"</tt> for PostgreSQL before each command starting with `bundle…`, or export the environment variable: `export DB="mysql"` for MySQL or `export DB="postgres"`. (If you want to have both database types available for easy switching use <tt>DB="all"</tt>.)
 
=== Install Required Gems ===
To start the app server for the first time, you need to use Bundler to install
Diaspora's gem dependencies.  Run (from Diaspora's root directory):
 
<syntaxhighlight lang="bash">
bundle install --without development test heroku
</syntaxhighlight>
 
Bundler will also warn you if there is a new dependency and you
need to bundle install again.
 
NOTE: If you don't get a '''green success line''' at the end, double check if you've installed all dependencies. If you can't figure it out feel free to ask for help at the mailing list or the [[How We Communicate#IRC|IRC]].
 
NOTE: If you want to do any development run just <tt>bundle install</tt>.
 
NOTE: If you are on Ruby 1.9.2 and get an error such as "invalid byte sequence in US-ASCII (ArgumentError)" then you need to set your system locale to UTF-8. [https://github.com/siefca/i18n-inflector/issues/3 This GitHub bug report] on the gem that causes the problem has steps for doing so on Ubuntu.
 
NOTE: If you get "Could not get Gemfile" make sure you are in the diaspora directory (<tt>cd diaspora</tt>) you just cloned.
 
NOTE: If you do any other rails development on your machine, you will probably
want to either run <tt>bundle install --path vendor</tt> instead to install the gems in your local diaspora
directory to avoid conflicts with your existing environment, or use an [https://rvm.beginrescueend.com RVM] gemset.
 
=== Configure Diaspora ===
Diaspora needs to know what host it's running on. Copy <tt>config/diaspora.yml.example</tt> to <tt>config/diaspora.yml</tt>
 
<syntaxhighlight lang="bash">
cp config/diaspora.yml.example config/diaspora.yml
</syntaxhighlight>
 
Now put your external URL into the url field in the environment section and make any other needed configuration changes.
 
=== Background ===
Diaspora is a Rails-app and as such it has different running modes.
The default is "development mode" in which some performance features such as
source code caching are disabled. The other mode is "production mode" which is best for
actually running a pod. If you want just a test installation to develop for Diaspora,
keep the defaults.  However, if you plan to actually host a pod choose production mode.
 
If you want to run production mode:
 
* Edit rails_environment in the server section in config/diaspora.yml
* You may change the <tt>environment.assets.serve</tt> setting to <tt>true</tt> in the <tt>config/diaspora.yml</tt> file. With this setting enabled Diaspora can take advantage of Rails' ability to serve static content like images and CSS files from the applications <tt>public/</tt> directory. However, Rails is not a webserver, so a better option would be to leave <tt>environment.assets.serve</tt> set to <tt>false</tt> and instead install a true webserver such as Apache or Nginx alongside Diaspora and modify that webserver’s configuration to serve the static content itself.
 
==== Example webserver configurations ===
 
* [https://gist.github.com/MrZYX/719014 Apache]
* [https://gist.github.com/MrZYX/1355430 Nginx]
* [[Lighttpd reverse proxy|Lighttpd]]
 
'''OSX Server Note:''' If you wish to use Apache built into OSX Server, use Server Admin to create a site on port 443.  A file should be created in the directory <tt>/etc/apache2/sites/</tt> with a name like "000X_any_443_domain.com.conf".  The above proxy settings will allow you to continue to use your existing web services alongside the Diaspora installation.
 
'''NOTE:''' If you are serving through a reverse proxy, you will need to set the <tt>X_FORWARDED_PROTO</tt> header to <tt>https</tt> on your reverse proxy server.  The Nginx and Apache example configurations show how to do this.  Failure to set this header will lead to a redirect loop.
 
'''Different certificates''' Make sure that your top level domain (e.g. example.com if your pod is pod.example.com) hands out the _same_ certificate as your actual pod URL. The communication with other pods running on old systems might not work otherwise.
 
=== Set up the database ===
 
'''Note for PostgreSQL users:''' If you are running Diaspora with PostgreSQL, beware that having [http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.1/interactive/runtime-config-connection.html#GUC-SSL the ssl setting] turned on in the PostgreSQL config has been causing problems for several people.  We recommend turning it off unless you know what you're doing.
 
You need to configure the database settings. Copy <tt>config/database.yml.example</tt> to <tt>config/database.yml</tt> and edit it:
 
<syntaxhighlight lang="bash">
cp config/database.yml.example config/database.yml
</syntaxhighlight>
 
 
After that, run <syntaxhighlight lang="bash">bundle exec rake db:create</syntaxhighlight> for development mode or
<syntaxhighlight lang="bash">RAILS_ENV=production bundle exec rake db:create</syntaxhighlight> for production mode
to create the needed database (or you could instead create the database manually.)
If you want to create it manually make sure you choose utf8 as charset and utf8_bin as collation.
 
Now you need to create the necessary tables. To do so run
<syntaxhighlight lang="bash">bundle exec rake db:schema:load</syntaxhighlight> for development mode or
<syntaxhighlight lang="bash">RAILS_ENV=production bundle exec rake db:schema:load</syntaxhighlight> for production mode.
'''Warning:''' This will empty your database, on update use <tt>db:migrate</tt> instead of <tt>db:schema:load</tt>!
 
=== Set up services ===
 
If you want to connect your pod to other services like Twitter, Tumblr or Facebook read instructions [[Integrating_Other_Social_Networks|integrating other Social Networks]].
 
== Running Diaspora ==
 
To turn on the server use the command <tt>./script/server</tt> from the working directory.
 
This will start Unicorn and the Sidekiq workers. The application is then available at http://your_pod:3000. You can change the port by either editing <tt>server.port</tt> in <tt>config/diaspora.yml</tt> or by setting up a reverse proxy (see above) if you want to run Diaspora at a subdomain or use HTTPS more easily.
 
Note: Ensure your database servers (Redis and MySQL or PostgreSQL) are running before trying to start the server.
 
Once Diaspora is running, just open it up in a web browser and sign up for an account. 
 
'''Note:''' If you are running a 'production' installation and requests to the /assets directory return a HTTP 404 error to your client, run <tt>bundle exec rake assets:precompile</tt> after each git pull. If you get a 500 page installation try restarting Diaspora after that.
 
'''Note:''' If you are running a 'production' installation and you do not see any images hosted, but the content loads fine, ensure that your reverse proxy is serving them. If you sure you don't want to setup a reverse proxy ensure that you have set your <tt>environment.assets.serve</tt> setting turned to <tt>true</tt> everywhere in your <tt>diaspora.yml</tt>.
 
== Updating Diaspora ==
 
Read the Changelog!
 
Change into the Diaspora root folder and run
 
<syntaxhighlight lang="bash">
git pull origin master
</syntaxhighlight>
 
If the update changes the Gemfile or Gemfile.lock files, for MySQL run
 
<syntaxhighlight lang="bash">
DB="mysql" bundle install --without development test heroku
</syntaxhighlight>
 
or for PostgreSQL:
 
<syntaxhighlight lang="bash">
DB="postgres" bundle install --without development test heroku
</syntaxhighlight>
 
Now kill your running Diaspora instance.
 
In order to apply any new schema always run
 
<syntaxhighlight lang="bash">
DB="mysql" bundle exec rake db:migrate
</syntaxhighlight>
 
for MySQL, or
 
<syntaxhighlight lang="bash">
DB="postgres" bundle exec rake db:migrate
</syntaxhighlight>
 
for PostgreSQL.
 
Or if you you run in production mode
 
<syntaxhighlight lang="bash">
RAILS_ENV="production" DB="mysql" bundle exec rake db:migrate
</syntaxhighlight>
 
for MySQL, or
 
<syntaxhighlight lang="bash">
RAILS_ENV="production" DB="postgres" bundle exec rake db:migrate
</syntaxhighlight>
 
for PostgreSQL.
 
Now start Diaspora again.
 
After each update run:
 
<syntaxhighlight lang="bash">
bundle exec rake assets:precompile
</syntaxhighlight>
 
== Appendix ==
=== Testing ===
Normally you don't need this if you aren't developing for Diaspora, just skip it :)
 
Diaspora’s test suite uses [http://rspec.info/ Rspec], a behavior driven testing framework. To run all tests execute: `rake`. Note that some of our tests require a display to be attached; if you just want to run the command-line tests, do `rake spec`.
 
[[Category:Podmin]]
[[Category:Installation]]

Latest revision as of 23:21, 19 July 2013

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