This document describes the steps needed to setup a working NimForum instance.
- Ubuntu 16.04+
- Some Linux knowledge
Begin by downloading the latest NimForum release from here. The macOS releases are mainly provided for testing.
Extract the downloaded tarball on your server. These steps can be done using the following commands:
wget https://github.com/nim-lang/nimforum/releases/download/v2.0.0/nimforum_2.0.0_linux.tar.xz
tar -xf nimforum_2.0.0_linux.tar.xz
Then cd
into the forum's directory:
cd nimforum_2.0.0_linux
The following may need to be installed on your server:
sudo apt install libsass-dev sqlite3
The NimForum release comes with a handy setup_nimforum
program. Run
it to begin the setup process:
./setup_nimforum --setup
The program will ask you multiple questions which will require some additional setup, including mail server info and recaptcha keys. You can just specify dummy values if you want to play around with the forum as quickly as possible and set these up later.
This program will create a nimforum.db
file, this contains your forum's
database. It will also create a forum.json
file, you can modify this
file after running the setup_nimforum
script if you've made any mistakes
or just want to change things.
Executing the forum is simple, just run the forum
binary:
./forum
The forum will start listening to HTTP requests on port 5000 (by default, this
can be changed in forum.json
).
On your server you should set up a separate HTTP server. The recommended choice is nginx. You can then use it as a reverse proxy for NimForum.
Once you have nginx installed on your server, you will need to configure it.
Create a forum.hostname.com
file (replace the hostname with your forum's
hostname) inside /etc/nginx/sites-available/
.
Place the following inside it:
server {
server_name forum.hostname.com;
autoindex off;
location / {
proxy_pass http://localhost:5000;
proxy_set_header Host $host;
proxy_set_header X-Real_IP $remote_addr;
}
}
Again, be sure to replace forum.hostname.com
with your forum's
hostname.
You should then create a symlink to this file inside /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
:
ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/<forum.hostname.com> /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/<forum.hostname.com>
Then reload nginx configuration by running sudo nginx -s reload
.
In order to ensure the forum is always running, even after a crash or a server reboot, you should create a systemd service file.
Create a new file called nimforum.service
inside /lib/systemd/system/nimforum.service
.
Place the following inside it:
[Unit]
Description=nimforum
After=network.target httpd.service
Wants=network-online.target
[Service]
Type=simple
WorkingDirectory=/home/<user>/nimforum-2.0.0/ # MODIFY THIS
ExecStart=/usr/bin/stdbuf -oL /home/<user>/nimforum-2.0.0/forum # MODIFY THIS
# Restart when crashes.
Restart=always
RestartSec=1
User=dom
StandardOutput=syslog+console
StandardError=syslog+console
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
Be sure to specify the correct WorkingDirectory
and ExecStart
!
You can then enable and start the service by running the following:
sudo systemctl enable nimforum
sudo systemctl start nimforum
To check that everything is in order, run this:
systemctl status nimforum
You should see something like this:
● nimforum.service - nimforum
Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/nimforum.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: active (running) since Fri 2018-05-25 22:09:59 UTC; 1 day 22h ago
Main PID: 21474 (forum)
Tasks: 1
Memory: 55.2M
CPU: 1h 15min 31.905s
CGroup: /system.slice/nimforum.service
└─21474 /home/dom/nimforum/src/forum
That should be all you need to get started. Your forum should now be accessible via your hostname, assuming that it points to your VPS' IP address.