How To Install Discourse In AWS Lightsail

Table of Contents

Overview

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.

Assumption is that you already have a domain and will be creating a sub domain for discourse. This blog uses AWS Route 53 and Mailjet, but the process is same for other domain registrars as well.

You can get the SPF and DKIM in Mailjet from here

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

Siva Nadesan is a Principal Data Engineer. His passion includes data and blogging about technologies. He is also the creator and maintainer of www.entechlog.com

How To Install Discourse In AWS Lightsail