IT/Community/WG/Discourse/Setup

Infrastructure set-up

Create Cloudformation Stack

• Go to the AWS Console and click the Cloudformation service
• Create a new stack using the full name of the discourse instance (csa-discourse-<app>-<env>) and this template. Click Next.
• Enter the name and env of this discourse instance. The name should be below 4 characters, otherwise it may fail (Elasticache has a 20 character limit). Click Next.
• Do not add any tags, these are done automatically. Click create stack.
• Wait a bit. The Elasticache server takes a while to set up.
• If Cloudformation shows the status as CREATE_COMPLETE, most of the infrastructure has been set up.
• Go to the Outputs tab to see the Load balancer's DNS name and the Postgres DB instance you should be using.

Add DNS record for the Elasticache node

• Go the Elasticache service in the AWS Console.
• Find the Elasticache node that Cloudformation spun up and click on '1 Node'. Copy the endpoint for this node.
• Go to the Route 53 and go to the correct hosting zone. For production instances, use mofoprod.net and for staging instances, use mofostaging.net. Create a new CNAME record pointing to the Elasticache endpoint, and the TTL as 60.
• The domain that users will access Discourse from should be an A alias record pointing to the Load Balancer that Cloudformation created.

Create Database

 psql -h pgshared-db.mofostaging.net --user=root template1
 CREATE USER csa<app> WITH PASSWORD 'aStrongPasswordHere';
 CREATE DATABASE csa<app>db;
 GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON DATABASE csa<app>db to csa<app>;
 CREATE EXTENSION IF NOT EXISTS hstore;
 CREATE EXTENSION IF NOT EXISTS pg_trgm;

Discourse set-up

Install Discourse

 # Update Ubuntu
 sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade    
 
 # Install Docker and git
 wget -qO- https://get.docker.io/ | sh
 
 # Create the directory for Discourse and clone the repo into it
 mkdir /var/discourse
 git clone https://github.com/discourse/discourse_docker.git /var/discourse
 cd /var/discourse
 
 # Copy the web example config
 cp samples/web_only.yml containers/app.yml

Edit app.yml

Open containers/app.yml in your favourite text editor and add/edit the following lines. Note that this is not the full file and YML is sensitive to indentation.

 params:
   version: tests-passed
 env:
   DISCOURSE_DEVELOPER_EMAILS:  # For new instances, add an email address that you will use to sign up to discourse
   DISCOURSE_DB_PASSWORD: PASSWORD # Change this to the password for the database
   DISCOURSE_DB_POOL: 15
   DISCOURSE_DB_HOST: 'pgshared-db.mofoprod.net' # You will most likely be using this server
   DISCOURSE_DB_USERNAME: 'USERNAME' # Change this to the username that can access your database
   DISCOURSE_DB_NAME: 'DBNAME' # Change this to the name of the database for this instance
   DISCOURSE_HOSTNAME: 'HOSTNAME' # Change this to the domain that Discourse will run under
   DISCOURSE_REDIS_HOST: REDIS_HOST # Change this to the URL of the redis server
   # don't forget to set mail
   DISCOURSE_SMTP_ADDRESS: ADDRESS # Change this to the SES 
   DISCOURSE_SMTP_PORT: 587
   DISCOURSE_SMTP_USER_NAME: USERNAME # Change this to the Amazon SES username
   DISCOURSE_SMTP_PASSWORD: PASSWORD # Change this to the Amazon SES password
   # New Relic
   NEW_RELIC_LICENSE_KEY: 123456789abcdef # Add a NR key
   NEW_RELIC_APP_NAME: communityit-NAME # Change NAME to something that can identify this Discourse instance
   # disable the annoying mini profiler
   DISCOURSE_ENABLE_MINI_PROFILER: false

In the same file, find the line

           - git clone https://github.com/discourse/docker_manager.git

Add the following two lines right after the line

           - git clone https://github.com/vikhyat/discourse-persona.git
           - git clone https://github.com/davidcelis/new_relic-discourse.git

Edit web.template.yml

Open templates/web.template.yml in your favourite text editor and add/edit the following lines. Note that this is not the full file and YML is sensitive to indentation.

Find the exec block with the command

echo "done configuring web"

Before this block, add the following block. Remember to change HOSTNAME to the hostname of the Discourse instance.

   - replace:
       filename: "/etc/nginx/conf.d/discourse.conf"
       from: "server {"
       to: |+
         server {
         #Messy hack to force SSL on only the hostname, not IPs so ELB and Icinga work.
         set $use_https NO;
         if ($host ~* 'HOSTNAME') {
             set $use_https A;
         }
         if ($http_x_forwarded_proto != 'https') {
             set $use_https "${use_https}B";
         }
         if ($use_https = AB) {
             rewrite ^ https://$host$request_uri? permanent;
         }

After the edit it should look similar to this:

   - replace:
       filename: "/etc/nginx/conf.d/discourse.conf"
       from: "server {"
       to: |+
         server {
         #Messy hack to force SSL on only the hostname, not IPs so ELB and Icinga work.
         set $use_https NO;
         if ($host ~* 'discourse.mozilla-community.org') {
             set $use_https A;
         }
         if ($http_x_forwarded_proto != 'https') {
             set $use_https "${use_https}B";
         }
         if ($use_https = AB) {
             rewrite ^ https://$host$request_uri? permanent;
         }
 
 
   - exec:
       cmd: echo "done configuring web"
       hook: web_config

Bootstrap Discourse

To bootstrap Discourse, enter the /var/discourse directory, and then run

 ./launcher bootstrap app

This will take a few minutes. If all goes well, you can start Discourse.

 ./launcher start app