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How to install a Mastodon instance on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

Thu, 06 Apr 2017 10:06:00 +0000

Have you already the new open-source social network Mastodon ? I have launched few days ago my own instance to contribute to this project.

If you want to launch your own instance, here a quick tutorial to install mastodon on a Ubuntu 16.04 LTS server with Nginx as a reverse-proxy and Cloudflare CDN/SSL.

To follow the steps of this tutorial, a user with sudo rights is enough, you don’t need to login as root.

Install the dependencies

sudo apt-get update

Install nodejs

curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_6.x | sudo bash -
sudo apt-get install imagemagick ffmpeg libpq-dev libxml2-dev libxslt1-dev nodejs
sudo npm install -g yarn

Install redis-server

sudo apt-get install redis-server redis-tools

Install Postgresql

sudo apt-get install postgresql postgresql-contrib

sudo su - postgres
psql
CREATE USER mastodon CREATEDB;
\q

You will also have to enable ident authentication so users can login without password

sudo sed -i '/^local.*postgres.*peer$/a host all all 127.0.0.1/32 ident' \
/etc/postgresql/9.?/main/pg_hba.conf

And to install the ident daemon :

sudo apt-get install pidentd
sudo systemctl enable pidentd
sudo systemctl start pidentd
sudo systemctl restart postgresql

Install Ruby

Install the dependencies

sudo apt-get install autoconf bison build-essential libssl-dev libyaml-dev libreadline6-dev zlib1g-dev libncurses5-dev libffi-dev libgdbm3 libgdbm-dev

Create a user mastodon without password :

adduser --disabled-password --disabled-login mastodon

Then login as mastodon :

su - mastodon

Install rbenv and rbenv-build

git clone https://github.com/rbenv/rbenv.git ~/.rbenv
echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.rbenv/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bashrc
echo 'eval "$(rbenv init -)"' >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

We have to logout to apply the bash modification, and we install ruby-build.

exit
su - mastodon
git clone https://github.com/rbenv/ruby-build.git ~/.rbenv/plugins/ruby-build

Then install ruby 2.4.1 for mastodon :

rbenv install 2.4.1
rbenv global 2.4.1

You can check the ruby version installed with the command :

ruby -v

Mastodon installation

We have installed all the dependencies required to setup Mastodon, so we can now clone the github repository. We use git checkout to select the last release instead of the master branch.

cd ~
git clone https://github.com/tootsuite/mastodon.git live
cd live
git checkout $(git tag | tail -n 1)

Install bundler to manage the dependencies and disable the gem documentation

echo "gem: --no-document" > ~/.gemrc
gem install bundler --no-ri

Then launch the installation

bundle install --deployment --without development test
yarn install

You can now copy the configuration sample file and edit with your own informations

cp .env.production.sample .env.production
nano .env.production

You have to add the following informations :

# Service dependencies
REDIS_HOST=localhost
REDIS_PORT=6379
DB_HOST=/var/run/postgresql
DB_USER=mastodon
DB_NAME=mastodon_production
DB_PASS=
DB_PORT=5432

# Federation
LOCAL_DOMAIN=yourdomain.com
LOCAL_HTTPS=true

Ainsi que la partie SMTP qui permettra aux utilisateurs de confirmer leur inscription :

# E-mail configuration
SMTP_SERVER=mail.yourdomain.com
SMTP_PORT=587
SMTP_LOGIN=noreply@yourdomain.com
SMTP_PASSWORD=YourPassword
SMTP_FROM_ADDRESS=noreply@yourdomain.com

For the application secret part, you can use the command bundle exec rake secret to generate the 3 secret keys, then you have just to copy them into the configuration file.

To setup the database and the assets :

RAILS_ENV=production bundle exec rails db:setup
RAILS_ENV=production bundle exec rails assets:precompile

Adding systemd services

Web service

nano /etc/systemd/system/mastodon-web.service

[Unit]
 Description=mastodon-web
 After=network.target

[Service]
 Type=simple
 User=mastodon
 WorkingDirectory=/home/mastodon/live
 Environment="RAILS_ENV=production"
 Environment="PORT=3000"
 ExecStart=/home/mastodon/.rbenv/shims/bundle exec puma -C config/puma.rb
 TimeoutSec=15
 Restart=always

[Install]
 WantedBy=multi-user.target

Background service

nano /etc/systemd/system/mastodon-sidekiq.service

[Unit]
 Description=mastodon-sidekiq
 After=network.target

[Service]
 Type=simple
 User=mastodon
 WorkingDirectory=/home/mastodon/live
 Environment="RAILS_ENV=production"
 Environment="DB_POOL=5"
 ExecStart=/home/mastodon/.rbenv/shims/bundle exec sidekiq -c 5 -q default -q mailers -q pull -q push
 TimeoutSec=15
 Restart=always

[Install]
 WantedBy=multi-user.target

API service

nano /etc/systemd/system/mastodon-streaming.service

[Unit]
 Description=mastodon-streaming
 After=network.target

[Service]
 Type=simple
 User=mastodon
 WorkingDirectory=/home/mastodon/live
 Environment="NODE_ENV=production"
 Environment="PORT=4000"
 ExecStart=/usr/bin/npm run start
 TimeoutSec=15
 Restart=always

[Install]
 WantedBy=multi-user.target

Then we can enable our systemd services :

systemctl enable /etc/systemd/system/mastodon-*.service

And we can start our mastodon instance :

sudo systemctl start mastodon-web.service mastodon-sidekiq.service mastodon-streaming.service

Add the required crons for mastodon :

crontab -u mastodon -e

RAILS_ENV=production
@daily cd /home/mastodon/live && RAILS_ENV=production /home/mastodon/.rbenv/shims/bundle exec rails mastodon:media:remove_remote

Nginx reverse-proxy setup :

So we have setup mastodon, but to access to our instance directly under https and with our domain, we need to setup a reverse-proxy using Nginx.

At first, install Nginx :

wget -O - https://nginx.org/keys/nginx_signing.key | sudo apt-key add -
sudo echo "deb http://nginx.org/packages/ubuntu/ $(lsb_release -sc) nginx" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/nginx.list
sudo apt update
sudo apt install nginx

We have now to create our nginx configuration file for ou domain, we will use the configuration based on the Angristan’s model :

nano /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/yourdomain.com

map $http_upgrade $connection_upgrade {
 default upgrade;
 '' close;
}
server {
 listen 80;
 listen [::]:80;
 server_name www.yourdomain.com yourdomain.com;
 return 301 https://votredomaine.com$request_uri;

 access_log /dev/null;
 error_log /dev/null;
}

server {
 listen 443 ssl http2;
 listen [::]:443 ssl http2;
 server_name www.yourdomain.com yourdomain.com;

 access_log /var/log/nginx/yourdomain.com-access.log;
 error_log /var/log/nginx/yourdomain.com-error.log;

 ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/fullchain.pem;
 ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/privkey.pem;
 ssl_protocols TLSv1.2;
 ssl_ciphers EECDH+AESGCM:EECDH+AES;
 ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;
 add_header Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=15552000; preload";

 keepalive_timeout 70;
 sendfile on;
 client_max_body_size 0;
 gzip off;

 root /home/mastodon/live/public;

 location / {
 try_files $uri @proxy;
 }

 location @proxy {
 proxy_set_header Host $host;
 proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
 proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
 proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto https;
 proxy_pass_header Server;
 proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:3000;
 proxy_buffering off;
 proxy_redirect off;
 proxy_http_version 1.1;
 proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
 proxy_set_header Connection $connection_upgrade;
 tcp_nodelay on;
 }

 location /api/v1/streaming {
 proxy_set_header Host $host;
 proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
 proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
 proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto https;
 proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:4000;
 proxy_buffering off;
 proxy_redirect off;
 proxy_http_version 1.1;
 proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
 proxy_set_header Connection $connection_upgrade;
 tcp_nodelay on;
 }

 error_page 500 501 502 503 504 /500.html;
}

You can start nginx with the command :

service nginx start

Then we will use Let’s Encrypt to generate a SSL certificate.

cd /opt
git clone https://github.com/letsencrypt/letsencrypt
cd letsencrypt
./letsencrypt-auto certonly --webroot -w /home/mastodon/live -d www.yourdomain.com -d yourdomain.com --email vous@yourdomain.com --text --rsa-key-size 4096

Updating Mastodon

Mastodon is updated very often, so if you want to keep your instance up-to-date you will have to follow the following steps :

su - mastodon
cd live
gem install bundler --no-ri
git fetch
git checkout v1.X.X
bundle install --deployment --without development test
NODE_ENV=production npm upgrade --global yarn
yarn install
RAILS_ENV=production bundle exec rails assets:clean
RAILS_ENV=production bundle exec rails assets:precompile
RAILS_ENV=production bundle exec rails db:migrate
exit

Then you just have to restart the instance :

sudo systemctl restart mastodon-web.service mastodon-sidekiq.service mastodon-streaming.service

If you need to update ruby with a new release use :

rbenv install 2.4.1
gem install bundler --no-ri

Create your administrator account

You instance is now running properly but you have to register to create your account and then you will be able to set this account as administrator with the following command :

RAILS_ENV=production bundle exec rails mastodon:make_admin USERNAME=votre-utilisateur

My instance mastodon.top

![mastodon.top/images/2017/08/Screenshot_44.png) With VirtuBox, I have launched a Mastodon instance and if you are not registered on Mastodon yet, you can register at mastodon.top. We are already more than 200 users on my instance and enough resources for more users. You can find more informations about the instance on the page about and the real-time monitoring of the server at instance.mastodon.top.

Don’t hesitate to give your opinion on Mastodon, to tell me if there are errors in the tutorial or to ask for help if you want to deploy your own instance.

You can also follow me on Mastodon : thomas_virtubox@mastodon.top

How to upgrade Ghost

Thu, 16 Feb 2017 14:21:00 +0000

If you are using a self-hosted Ghost, you may have sometimes to upgrade it to the new release. To do that, you have at first to download the latest Ghost release. For that create a new folder next your current Ghost folder and download Ghost :

mkdir newghostfolder && cd newghostfolder
wget https://ghost.org/zip/ghost-latest.zip
unzip ghost-latest.zip

You can make a copy of your current ghost folder and you will have to remove the index.js, all the .md and .json and the core folder. But do not delete the config.js file. Then you will have to stop the current Ghost instance by using :

forever stop index.js

Copy the new files over your current folder, and install the new dependencies with :

npm install --production

After than you can restart your instance

NODE_ENV=production forever start index.js

Good bye WordPress - Welcome Ghost !

Wed, 26 Oct 2016 13:54:29 +0000

I’m using WordPress for few years now, but that’s always the same problem, WordPress require plugins to have some functionalities and plugins make WordPress running slower.

Even with an advanced caching system like redis, that’s always a lot of work to make wordpress running fast and safe.

So I have done some tests with Ghost using Docker, and it’s really the perfect blog solution for me, because it already include all the features needed to write an article. No need to look for a plugin to improve SEO or to install a caching system. You can write you articles in markdown, work with slack and use it as a team, and the theme system is really clean and lightweight.

But I can’t post this article without making a tutorial about Ghost.

1) Install NodeJs v4 LTS

wget https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_4.x
chmod +x setup_4.x
./setup_4.x
apt-get install nodejs -y

2) Install Ghost

mkdir /var/www/ghost
cd /var/www/ghost
curl -L https://ghost.org/zip/ghost-latest.zip -o ghost.zip
unzip ghost.zip
npm install --production

3) Starting Ghost

npm start --production

Then you can access to your blog using http://localhost:2368/ghost/signup All the configuration can be found in the file config.js.

But as you can see, we have to use the port 2368 to access to Ghost. To fix that, the easiest is to use Nginx as reverse proxy. Let’s use easyengine !

## install easyengine
wget -qO ee rt.cx/ee && bash ee

## create a proxy with your domain
ee site create anystack.xyz --proxy=127.0.0.1:2368

Then you will be able to use your domain to access to ghost. Don’t forget to change your blog url in config.js. And if you want to run Ghost forever, so use forever …

npm install forever -g
## start ghost
NODE_ENV=production forever start index.js

## stop ghost
forever stop index.js

Last tips ? How to use Ghost with Nginx as reverse proxy with Cloudflare SSL. Go into you Cloudflare account and in the Crypto tabs, create your origin certificate.

Then create a first file yourdomain-pvkey.pem with the private key generated by Cloudflare. And another file yourdomain-crt.pem with the origin certificate from cloudflare but also the Cloudflare root certificate you can find here

Then your nginx conf for you domain should look like

server {

 server_name anystack.xyz;
 listen 443 ssl http2;
 ssl on;
 ssl_certificate /etc/nginx/ssl/anystack-crt.pem;
 ssl_certificate_key /etc/nginx/ssl/anystack-key.pem;
 access_log /var/log/nginx/dev.anystack.xyz.access.log rt_cache;
 error_log /var/log/nginx/dev.anystack.xyz.error.log;

 location / {
 proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
 proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
 proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
 proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:2368/;
 }

}

And if you want to add a redirect from http to a https, create a file yourdomain.com-ssl.conf in /etc/nginx/conf.d with

	server {
	listen 80;
	server_name anystack.xyz;
	return 301 https://anystack.xyz$request_uri;
}