Install Plume on Ubuntu 18.04

A meditative guide

What this guide will cover

1. Must have a server setup already with apache2 as your web server
2. Will be using PostgreSQL as your database

Givens

1. apachectl -V “Apache2” needs to be version 2.4.17 or higher
2. A working knowledge of bash, command line typing, and lack of fat fingers 😀
3. You are using systemd to start and stop all of your services
4. My Ubuntu 18.04 server is running in a VM on a Windows 10 Pro laptop… brief specs:
   a. i7-4810MQ, 24GB RAM, 1TB SSD Windows OS, 2TB SSD Data drive with VM files on it
   b. 4 of 8 threads and 8GB dedicated to VM (runs great!)

Steps

1. Install default dependencies: sudo apt install gettext git curl gcc make openssl libssl-dev pkg-config
   
2. Install PostgreSQL 11
   a. Guide I used
   b. sudo apt install wget ca-certificates
   c. wget --quiet -O - https://www.postgresql.org/media/keys/ACCC4CF8.asc | sudo apt-key add -
   d. sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://apt.postgresql.org/pub/repos/apt/ `lsb_release -cs` -pgdg main" >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pgdg.list'
   e. sudo apt update
   f. sudo apt install postgresql postgresql-contrib libpq-dev
   g. Helpful PostgreSQL tips:
   i. Connect to interface (similar to mysql -u root -p): sudo -u postgres psql
   ii. List databases (from psql window): \l
   iii. Quit/Exit: \q
   iv. Export DB: sudo -u postgres pg_dump db > db.sql
3. Create a new user for Plume
   a. sudo adduser plume
   b. Set a password for it that you can remember
   c. Log in as plume: su - plume
   d. Go to plume’s home directory: cd ~
4. Install Rust
   a. curl https://sh.rustup.rs -sSf | sh
   b. When prompted for Option 1, 2, or 3, press 1 [Proceed with installation (default)], then enter
   c. This will take a bit depending on your system network’s connection ~10 minutes
   d. At the time of this writing, you should get something like stable installed - rustc 1.37.0 (eae3437df 2019-08-13) and Rust is installed now. Great!
5. Tell your system how to use Rust export PATH="$PATH:/home/plume/.cargo/bin:/home/plume/.local/bin:/usr/local/sbin"
   a. You need to put this in you .bashrc file source:
   i. nano ~/.bashrc
   ii. export PATH="$HOME/.cargo/bin:$PATH"
   b. Maybe this too?????: source $HOME/.cargo/env
   c. Go ahead and exit (log out of plume)
   d. Log back in as plume
   e. cd ~
6. Check to see if Rust and Cargo are actually installed
   a. rustc --version

– Response: rustc 1.37.0 (eae3437df 2019-08-13)
b. cargo --version
– Response: cargo 1.37.0 (9edd08916 2019-08-02)
07. Download Plume and enter the directory
a. git clone https://github.com/Plume-org/Plume.git&&cd Plume

*** Note ***: the next command can and will take a long time

1. Install Plume and CLI tools (~36 minutes to build and compile)
   a. cargo clean && cargo build --features postgres && cargo install --debug --force --features postgres
2. Build plm and CLI helper (~12 minutes to build and compile)
   a. cargo install --no-default-features --debug --force --features postgres --path plume-cli
3. To start PostgreSQL, and create a user and database, you will need to use a root account
4. Ensure the PostgreSQL service is running, use b to start it if not
   a. sudo service postgresql status
   b. sudo service postgresql start
5. Create user and database for Plume to use
   a. sudo -u postgres createuser -P plume
   i. Make a secure password for your plume PostgreSQL user!
   b. sudo -u postgres createdb -O plume plume
6. Now you can go back to your plume user account and be in the Plume directory
   a. `cd ~/Plume
7. Create an .env file that the plume server will read
   a. nano .env and populate with this changing the postgres user name, password, database name and ROCKET_SECRET_KEY as needed

# Postgres SQL setup
DATABASE_URL=postgres://plume:password@127.0.0.1:5432/plume

# For PostgreSQL: migrations/postgres
MIGRATION_DIRECTORY=migrations/postgres

# The domain on which your instance will be available
BASE_URL=my.plume.url

# Secret key used for private cookies and CSRF protection `openssl rand -base64 32`
ROCKET_SECRET_KEY=
ROCKET_ADDRESS=127.0.0.1
ROCKET_PORT=7878

# Mail settings
MAIL_SERVER=my.plume.url
MAIL_USER=admin@my.plume.url
MAIL_PASSWORD=emailpassword
MAIL_HELO_NAME=my.plume.url
MAIL_ADDRESS=no-reply@my.plume.url

# Custom icons
#PLUME_LOGO=icons/custom/myicons/plume.png
#PLUME_LOGO_FAVICON=icons/custom/myicons/plume32.png
#PLUME_LOGO_48=icons/custom/myicons/plume48.png
#PLUME_LOGO_72=icons/custom/myicons/plume72.png
#PLUME_LOGO_96=icons/custom/myicons/plume96.png
#PLUME_LOGO_144=icons/custom/myicons/plume144.png
#PLUME_LOGO_160=icons/custom/myicons/plume160.png
#PLUME_LOGO_192=icons/custom/myicons/plume192.png
#PLUME_LOGO_256=icons/custom/myicons/plume256.png
#PLUME_LOGO_512=icons/custom/myicons/plume512.png

1. Populate the database
   a. diesel migration run
2. Setup your instance
   a. plm instance new
   b. plm users new --admin
3. Create search index
   a. plm search init
4. You should be ready to test everything before you configure systemd using
   a. plume
   b. If there is anything I forgot, it will tell you here
   c. If not, you should get a bunch of text to the extent of

plume@computer:~/Plume$ plume
Configuration read from /home/plume/Plume/.env
🔧 Configured for development.
=> address: 127.0.0.1
=> port: 9092
=> log: normal
=> workers: 8
=> secret key: provided
=> limits: forms = 128KiB, json* = 1MiB
=> keep-alive: 5s
=> tls: disabled
🛰 Mounting /:
...
🚀 Rocket has launched from http://127.0.0.1:7878

1. If you have gotten this far, congrats! Plume is ready to go!
2. Configure plume to start as a service on boot
   a. sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/plume.service and in that file

[Unit]
Description=plume - federated blogging application
After=network.target postgresql.service

[Service]
Type=simple
User=plume
WorkingDirectory=/home/plume/Plume
ExecStart=/home/plume/.cargo/bin/plume
TimeoutSec=30
SyslogIdentifier=plume
Restart=always

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

1. Enable the service with sudo systemctl enable plume
2. Start the service with sudo service plume start
3. Reverse Proxy for Apache2
   a. Please use this config