In this article we will see How To Install Discourse In AWS Lightsail. Discourse is modern open source discussion/forum software. AWS Lightsail is an easy-to-use virtual private server (VPS) that offers you everything needed to build an application or website, plus a cost-effective, monthly plan.

Prerequisite

• Domain which you own.
• Setup up email service, See here for preferred email service providers
• Setup SPF and DKIM to improve your sender reputation and deliverability.

Create AWS Lightsail

• Navigate to AWS Lightsail

  

• Create an instance
  ⏩ Select a Region (us-east-1)
  ⏩ Select a platform (Linux/Unix)
  ⏩ Select a blueprint (Ubuntu 20.04 LTS)
  ⏩ Create key pair
  ⏩ Choose your instance plan (1 GB / 1vCPU / 40 GB SSD)
  ⏩ Identify your instance

• Wait for couple of minutes for the instance to come online. After the instance is online, navigate to networking section and add a rule to open the inbound traffic on HTTPS port 443.

  

Create domain for discourse

• In Route 53, navigate to your hosted zone

  

• Add a record (say discourse.entechlog.com) of record type A using the public IP address of instance created in AWS Lightsail.

  

Install Discourse

• SSH into to the server from the AWS Lightsail web UI

  

• Clone discourse Docker Image into /var/discourse

  sudo -s
  git clone https://github.com/discourse/discourse_docker.git /var/discourse
  cd /var/discourse
  

• Launch the discourse setup

  ./discourse-setup
  

• Answer the following questions for your subdomain and email server information. Its good to create a application specific password and configure email using it.

  You can get the email host and credentials for Mailjet from here

  

• Update /var/discourse/containers/app.yml to change the SiteSetting.notification_email at the bottom of the app.yml to the email address of your domain.

  

• Discourse should be available in the subdomain after the installation finishes.

  

• Validate the configuration by running below command

  ./discourse-doctor
  

  If the validation fails, check the log in /var/discourse/shared/standalone/log/rails/production.log for any error. Update /var/discourse/containers/app.yml to fix the issue and rebuild the app by running ./launcher rebuild app

• Register and verify the admin account for discourse.

  

• After the verification, follow the on screen instructions to do the initial configuration

• After the intial configuration, you will be routed to discourse landing page

Hope this was helpful. Did I miss something ? Let me know in the comments and I’ll add it in !

References

• https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/master/docs/INSTALL-cloud.md
• https://www.axelfernandes.com/how-to-configure-discourse-on-amazon-web-services-aws
• https://meta.discourse.org/t/troubleshooting-email-on-a-new-discourse-install/16326