Discourse

• RAM requirements: ~1.5 GB.
• CPU requirements: 1 core
• SSD requirements: ~20 GB. May be more over time

Accessible as forum.vcmi.eu

Admin access:

• Ivan Savenko
• AVS
• SXX
• Warmonger

Additional accounts can be given admin rights via admin panel. Or, if none are available - directly via server console (requires root access to server).

Configuration

• Located at /var/discourse.
• Configuration file is at /var/discourse/containers/app.yml. The template lives in scripts/discourse/app.yml and is rendered from environment variables by setup.sh.
• For administration typical approach is cd /var/discourse; ./launcher enter app. However most commands are also available in web UI.

References:

• Official install docs
• nginx multi-server configuration

Setup

All operational scripts live in scripts/discourse/. Copy the directory to /root/discourse/ on the target server.

1. Place certificates in /root/certs/ on the server (forum.vcmi.eu.pem, forum.vcmi.eu.key, cloudflare-client.crt).
2. scp -r scripts/discourse root@new-server:/root/
3. On the server:

   cd /root/discourse
   ./prepare.sh
   DISCOURSE_DEVELOPER_EMAILS='[email protected]'  \
   DISCOURSE_SMTP_USER_NAME='...'                     \
   DISCOURSE_SMTP_PASSWORD='...'                      \
       ./setup.sh
   

prepare.sh installs nginx + certs and runs the official Discourse install script (downloads Docker, sets up /var/discourse). setup.sh renders the templated app.yml, writes it to /var/discourse/containers/app.yml, and runs ./launcher rebuild app.

The bundled app.yml runs Discourse via the web.socketed.template.yml Unix socket and disables Discourse's own SSL templates — HTTPS is terminated by host nginx using the Cloudflare Origin cert.

Upgrade

./upgrade.sh runs ./launcher rebuild app. Causes ~5 minutes of downtime.

Alternatively can be done in the admin UI, but untested.

Migration

DNS cutover goes last to minimise visible downtime — the new instance is fully restored and serving before users are pointed at it. (Discourse itself knows its hostname from DISCOURSE_HOSTNAME in app.yml, not from DNS, so a restore against the new container works before the A record moves.)

1. On the old server: ./export.sh — produces /root/discourse-backup.tar.gz.
2. Set up Discourse on the new server (Setup steps above).
3. Transfer the backup directly between servers using your workstation's SSH agent for auth:

   ssh -A root@old-server "scp /root/discourse-backup.tar.gz root@new-server:/root/"
   

   Or, if agent forwarding is not available, route through the workstation: scp -3 root@old:/root/discourse-backup.tar.gz root@new:/root/.
4. On the new server: ./import.sh /root/discourse-backup.tar.gz.
5. Switch the DNS A record for forum.vcmi.eu to the new server IP.