Pleroma

Installation

Dependencies

• Postgresql version 9.5 or newer
• Elixir version 1.4 or newer
• NodeJS LTS
• Build-essential tools

Installing dependencies on Debian system

PostgreSQL 9.6 should be available on debian stable (Jessie) from "main" area. Install it using apt: apt install postgresql-9.6. Make sure that older versions are not installed, debian allows multiple versions to coexist but still runs only one version.

You must install elixir 1.4+ from elixir-lang.org, because Debian repos only have 1.3.x version. You will need to add apt repo to sources.list(.d) and import GPG key. Follow instructions here: https://elixir-lang.org/install.html#unix-and-unix-like (See "Ubuntu or Debian 7"). This should be valid until Debian updates elixir in their repositories. Package you want is named elixir, so install it using apt install elixir

Elixir will also require make and probably other related software for building dependencies - in case you don't have them, get them via apt install build-essential

NodeJS is available as nodejs package on debian. apt install nodejs. Debian stable has 4.8.x version. If that does not work, use nodesource's repo https://github.com/nodesource/distributions#deb - version 5.x confirmed to work.

Preparation

• You probably want application to run as separte user - so create a new one: adduser pleroma, you can login as it via su pleroma
• Clone the git repository into new user's dir (clone as the pleroma user to avoid permissions errors)
• Again, as new user, install dependencies with mix deps.get if it asks you to install "hex" - agree to that.

Database preparation

• You'll need to allow password-based authorisation for postgres superuser

  • changing default password for superuser is probably a good idea:

    • Open psql shell as postgres user - while being root run su postgres -c psql
    • There, enter following: ALTER USER postgres with encrypted password '<PASSWORD>'; - where is just any string, no need to manually encrypt it, postgres will encrypt it automatically for you.
    • Replace password in file config/dev.exs with password you supplied in previous step (look for line like password: "postgres")

  • edit /etc/postgresql/9.6/main/pg_hba.conf (Assuming you have 9.6 version) and change the line:

  local   all             postgres                                peer
  

  to

  local   all             postgres                                md5
  

  don't forget to revert it in the later step so you won't have to enter password when accessing psql console.

• Create and update your database with mix ecto.create && mix ecto.migrate. If it gives errors, try running again, this is a known issue.

• Undo changes you made in /etc/postgresql/9.6/main/pg_hba.conf (replace md5 with peer)

• You most likely don't want having some application accessing database as superuser, so you need to create separate user for that. Right now it must be done manually (issue #27).

  • Open psql shell as postgres user: (as root) su postgres -c psql
  • Create a new PostgreSQL user:

  \c pleroma_dev
  CREATE user pleroma;
  ALTER user pleroma with encrypted password '<your password>';
  GRANT ALL ON ALL tables IN SCHEMA public TO pleroma;
  GRANT ALL ON ALL sequences IN SCHEMA public TO pleroma;
  

  • Again, change password in config/dev.exs, and change user to "pleroma" (line like username: "postgres")

Some additional configuration

• You will need to let pleroma instance to know what hostname/url it's running on.

  In file config/dev.exs, add these lines at the end of the file:

  config :pleroma, Pleroma.Web.Endpoint,
  url: [host: "example.tld", scheme: "https", port: 443] 
  

  replacing example.tld with your (sub)domain

• The common and convenient way for adding HTTPS is by using nginx as reverse proxy. You can look at example nginx configuration in installation/pleroma.nginx. If you need TLS/SSL certificates for HTTPS, you can look get some for free with letsencrypt: https://letsencrypt.org/ On debian you can use certbot package and command to manage letsencrypt certificates.

• (not tested with reboots yet!) You'll also want to set up Pleroma to be run as a systemd service. Example .service can be found in installation/pleroma.service you can put it in /etc/systemd/system/. Start pleroma by running service pleroma start Logs can be watched by using journalctl -fu pleroma.service

• Without systemd you can start Pleroma by starting Phoenix endpoint with mix phx.server

In any case, it should be available on 4000 port on localhost and proxied to 443 port by nginx.

Phoenix info

Ready to run in production? Please check our deployment guides.

Learn more

• Official website: http://www.phoenixframework.org/
• Guides: http://phoenixframework.org/docs/overview
• Docs: https://hexdocs.pm/phoenix
• Mailing list: http://groups.google.com/group/phoenix-talk
• Source: https://github.com/phoenixframework/phoenix