A user, sidonaldson, installed Bitnami on AWS EC2 and encountered issues with email functionality after setting up an elastic IP and changing the machine hostname. Despite backtracking and resetting the hostname, the issue persisted. The user shared Sidekiq error logs but eventually found a solution by updating Discourse to the latest version following the update procedure in the Bitnami wiki.
Another user, fefrei, recommended following a tutorial on installing Discourse on EC2 in a supported way. sidonaldson found this tutorial’s instructions to be minimal and difficult to follow without prior knowledge of AWS.
fefrei cautioned that unofficial Bitnami installs may not receive support and encouraged sidonaldson to provide feedback on the tutorial to help improve it. sidonaldson acknowledged the support limitations and noted that the tutorial is more of a top-level guide, not suitable for novices.
I know this install technique isn’t supported but if anyone can help me debug the issue I would be very grateful!
I launch the image, runs correctly, I add my mailgun settings and all test emails send fine. I can change username, password, test email and post notifications etc. Perfect.
Then I set up an elastic IP and run bnconfig --machine-hostname DESTINATION then restart… boom. No more emails.
I then backtrack and reset the hostname to the EC2 instance and remove the IP etc, restart, doesn’t fix it.
I’m not ready to give up just yet though but sadly the bitnami forums aren’t helping.
I found a solution for anyone who finds this thread - follow the update procedure in this wiki to get the latest version of discourse and then everything works as expected! Wish I tried that first before wasting four days trying to debug it!
I did look at this too but I have to say the instructions are very minimal in places and assume you are experienced with AWS and all the services, almost impossible to follow without prior knowledge.
I’m happy that you got it running. But please keep in mind that you will not get any support here if your unofficial Bitnami install breaks later – and that is pretty likely as the dependencies change over time.
Can you point out where the instructions were not sufficient for you? I’m sure @Frez would be happy to clarify them where needed.
Absolutely understand the support issue - I just wish I had updated the Discourse version before trying lots of other things. I only realised it wasn’t the latest version when I had given up and opened a digitalocean account. Happy to say it works as expected now.
Regarding the comment about Frez’s instructions; it’s not a criticism, they are not step by step instructions but are more akin to a top level guide, not suitable to a novice as you cannot follow them explicitly. It would be a considerable amount of work (and then support) to change them into full step by step instructions.
