Background The self-hosting documentation for Discourse is excellent, and the installation process went smoothly. However, I encountered issues when deploying my server in mainland China, behind the Great Firewall. Issue Whenever I run ./launcher rebuild app, the process fails due to network restrictions. Below are the key error messages: I, [2025-01-14T10:21:45.402169 #1] INFO -- : Scope: all 17 workspace projects Lockfile is up to date, resolution step is skipped Progress: resolved 1, reused 0, downloaded 0, added 0 Packages: +87 -15 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++------------ Progress: resolved 87, reused 46, downloaded 0, added 33 Progress: resolved 87, reused 46, downloaded 18, added 53 Progress: resolved 87, reused 46, downloaded 25, added 61 Progress: resolved 87, reused 46, downloaded 29, added 66 Progress: resolved 87, reused 46, downloaded 30, added 67 Progress: resolved 87, reused 46, downloaded 30, added 68 WARN GET https://registry.npmjs.org/@floating-ui/utils/-/utils-0.2.9.tgz error (ECONNRESET). Will retry in 10 seconds. 2 retries left. WARN GET https://registry.npmjs.org/typescript/-/typescript-5.7.3.tgz error (ECONNRESET). Will retry in 10 seconds. 2 retries left. WARN GET https://registry.npmjs.org/lefthook-linux-x64/-/lefthook-linux-x64-1.10.4.tgz error (ECONNRESET). Will retry in 10 seconds. 2 retries left. WARN GET https://registry.npmjs.org/@embroider/compat/-/compat-3.8.0.tgz error (ECONNRESET). Will retry in 10 seconds. 2 retries left. WARN GET https://registry.npmjs.org/@fortawesome/fontawesome-free/-/fontawesome-free-6.7.2.tgz error (ECONNRESET). Will retry in 10 seconds. 2 retries left. WARN GET https://registry.npmjs.org/ace-builds/-/ace-builds-1.37.4.tgz error (ECONNRESET). Will retry in 10 seconds. 2 retries left. WARN GET https://registry.npmjs.org/@floating-ui/utils/-/utils-0.2.9.tgz error (ERR_SOCKET_TIMEOUT). Will retry in 1 minute. 1 retries left. WARN GET https://registry.npmjs.org/typescript/-/typescript-5.7.3.tgz error (ERR_SOCKET_TIMEOUT). Will retry in 1 minute. 1 retries left. WARN GET https://registry.npmjs.org/lefthook-linux-x64/-/lefthook-linux-x64-1.10.4.tgz error (ERR_SOCKET_TIMEOUT). Will retry in 1 minute. 1 retries left. WARN GET https://registry.npmjs.org/@embroider/compat/-/compat-3.8.0.tgz error (ERR_SOCKET_TIMEOUT). Will retry in 1 minute. 1 retries left. WARN GET https://registry.npmjs.org/@fortawesome/fontawesome-free/-/fontawesome-free-6.7.2.tgz error (ERR_SOCKET_TIMEOUT). Will retry in 1 minute. 1 retries left. WARN GET https://registry.npmjs.org/ace-builds/-/ace-builds-1.37.4.tgz error (ERR_SOCKET_TIMEOUT). Will retry in 1 minute. 1 retries left. ERR_SOCKET_TIMEOUT request to https://registry.npmjs.org/@embroider/compat/-/compat-3.8.0.tgz failed, reason: Socket timeout FetchError: request to https://registry.npmjs.org/@embroider/compat/-/compat-3.8.0.tgz failed, reason: Socket timeout at ClientRequest. (/usr/lib/node_modules/pnpm/dist/pnpm.cjs:66979:18) at ClientRequest.emit (node:events:517:28) at TLSSocket.socketErrorListener (node:_http_client:501:9) at TLSSocket.emit (node:events:529:35) at emitErrorNT (node:internal/streams/destroy:151:8) at emitErrorCloseNT (node:internal/streams/destroy:116:3) at process.processTicksAndRejections (node:internal/process/task_queues:82:21) I, [2025-01-14T10:21:45.402602 #1] INFO -- : Terminating async processes I, [2025-01-14T10:21:45.402652 #1] INFO -- : Sending INT to HOME=/var/lib/postgresql USER=postgres exec chpst -u postgres:postgres:ssl-cert -U postgres:postgres:ssl-cert /usr/lib/postgresql/13/bin/postmaster -D /etc/postgresql/13/main pid: 39 107:signal-handler (1736850105) Received SIGTERM scheduling shutdown... I, [2025-01-14T10:21:45.402684 #1] INFO -- : Sending TERM to exec chpst -u redis -U redis /usr/bin/redis-server /etc/redis/redis.conf pid: 107 2025-01-14 10:21:45.402 UTC [39] LOG: received fast shutdown request 2025-01-14 10:21:45.404 UTC [39] LOG: aborting any active transactions 2025-01-14 10:21:45.406 UTC [39] LOG: background worker "logical replication launcher" (PID 54) exited with exit code 1 2025-01-14 10:21:45.407 UTC [49] LOG: shutting down 2025-01-14 10:21:45.431 UTC [39] LOG: database system is shut down 107:M 14 Jan 2025 10:21:45.436 # User requested shutdown... 107:M 14 Jan 2025 10:21:45.436 * Saving the final RDB snapshot before exiting. 107:M 14 Jan 2025 10:21:45.441 * DB saved on disk 107:M 14 Jan 2025 10:21:45.441 # Redis is now ready to exit, bye bye... FAILED -------------------- Pups::ExecError: cd /var/www/discourse && if [ -f yarn.lock ]; then if [ -d node_modules/.pnpm ]; then echo "This version of Discourse uses yarn, but pnpm node_modules are preset. Cleaning up..." find ./node_modules ./app/assets/javascripts/*/node_modules -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 -exec rm -rf {} + fi su discourse -c 'yarn install --frozen-lockfile && yarn cache clean' else su discourse -c 'CI=1 pnpm install --frozen-lockfile && pnpm prune' fi failed with return # Location of failure: /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/3.3.0/gems/pups-1.2.1/lib/pups/exec_command.rb:132:in `spawn' exec failed with the params {"cd"=>"$home", "hook"=>"yarn", "cmd"=>["if [ -f yarn.lock ]; then\n if [ -d node_modules/.pnpm ]; then\n echo \"This version of Discourse uses yarn, but pnpm node_modules are preset. Cleaning up...\"\n find ./node_modules ./app/assets/javascripts/*/node_modules -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 -exec rm -rf {} +\n fi\n su discourse -c 'yarn install --frozen-lockfile && yarn cache clean'\nelse\n su discourse -c 'CI=1 pnpm install --frozen-lockfile && pnpm prune'\nfi"]} bootstrap failed with exit code 1 ** FAILED TO BOOTSTRAP ** please scroll up and look for earlier error messages, there may be more than one. ./discourse-doctor may help diagnose the problem. 58bc76b977b8eb7c806f0308caacabe389605c6242852e8f17c30076b728de67 It seems the failure is caused by the inability to fetch packages or dependencies (e.g., from GitHub or npm) due to network restrictions in mainland China. What I’ve Tried Using a Proxy: I attempted to set up a proxy server using Shell Clash and successfully accessed Google (which is typically inaccessible from mainland China). Here’s the test output: root@lavm-hypge0pc5w:/var/discourse# sudo wget google.com --2025-01-14 18:35:22-- http://google.com/ Resolving google.com (google.com)... 198.18.0.5 Connecting to google.com (google.com)|198.18.0.5|:80... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 301 Moved Permanently Location: http://www.google.com/ [following] --2025-01-14 18:35:22-- http://www.google.com/ Resolving www.google.com (www.google.com)... 198.18.0.6 Connecting to www.google.com (www.google.com)|198.18.0.6|:80... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK Length: unspecified [text/html] Saving to: ‘index.html.2’ index.html.2 [ ] 19.38K --.-KB/s in 0.05s 2025-01-14 18:35:22 (372 KB/s) - ‘index.html.2’ saved [19841] root@lavm-hypge0pc5w:/var/discourse# However, after running ./launcher rebuild app, I still get the same error as before. Questions Is there any way to successfully deploy Discourse on a server located in mainland China?

My issue was resolved by adding the following line to my app.yaml file: - "templates/web.china.template.yml" If you’re facing a similar issue, you might find this article helpful: Discourse Installation Guide.

Hi :slight_smile: Have you looked at 🇨🇳 Discourse Official Install Guide | Discourse 云平台安装? It covers typical issues when installing Discourse in Mainland China.

[image] J J: Yes, I’ve seen this post. It’s essentially a Chinese translation of INSTALL-cloud.md It covers parts specific to China, such as the issue you faced: [image]cn Discourse Official Install Guide | Discourse 云平台安装国网络环境的优化如果你的云服务器在中国大陆，那你在执行 ./discourse-setup 或者 ./launcher rebuild app 的过程中很可能遇到一些网络问题。Discourse已经帮你写好了除了docker以外的镜像服务，只需要在你的 containers/app.yml 中的这里添加一行： templates: - "templates/postgres.template.yml" - "templates/redis.template.yml" - "templates/web.template.yml" - "templates/web.china.template.yml" # 添加这一行，配置npm, rubygems等包管理器的镜像即可解决。

I totally missed that line. thanks a ton!

Selfhost Discourse in Mainland China Under the GFW

Product Support Self-hosting

J_J1 (J J) January 15, 2025, 3:22am 3

Yes, I’ve seen this post. It’s essentially a Chinese translation of INSTALL-cloud.md

Topic		Replies	Views
Self-hosting in China any Discouse built-in service blocked Self-hosting hosting	5	853	January 21, 2021
Our Discourse is blocked by The Great Firewall of China, any tips? Self-hosting hosting	5	2290	January 8, 2018
It's slow to visit hosted Discourse in China Self-hosting hosting	7	1682	November 2, 2020
Problem with rebuilding Discourse on self hosted Self-hosting	2	152	July 3, 2026
How to set up a Discourse forum for production use(yunohost?) Self-hosting	15	1679	April 17, 2020

Selfhost Discourse in Mainland China Under the GFW

Related topics