I am planning to set up a new Discourse forum and would like to clarify a few points:
Server: I will purchase a VDS from Hetzner. Which operating system is recommended for Discourse?
Email/SMTP: I’m considering using Namecheap Private Email. Will this SMTP service work smoothly during the Discourse setup?
Installation Steps: After buying the Hetzner VDS, could you provide step-by-step guidance on how to install Discourse from scratch?
Domain & IP: After purchasing the VDS, do I need to connect a domain name first, or can I start the setup via the IP address and add the domain later?
I will have both the Hetzner VDS and Namecheap email service ready in advance.
Any step-by-step guidance suitable for someone with no prior experience would be greatly appreciated.
A CAX11 (ARM architecture) has the same specs and price, but I find that Discourse runs even better on ARM than x86, not sure why. The drawback is that there’s no official ARM-compatible #email-receiver image, if you intend to use it. There’s a fork that works instead.
Yes, you can’t install Discourse without a domain name.
A small forum will work with a 40 GB disk, no additional space needed.
It was the same for me when I started my Discourse journey. I never used Linux or SSH.
Providing a how-to about how to connect to your server hosted by a certain provider might be a bit out of the scope of this support forum, but anyone is free to help, of course.
When you create a server on Hetzner, you’ll have the choice between using an SSH key file or a regular login/password (it will be generated and sent by email if I remember well).
Plenty of guides on the internet will describe how to connect to a server via SSH. The goal you want to achieve is to access the server’s command line.
As for how to connect the domain to the server’s IP, it’s done through the DNS management from your domain name’s provider admin interface.
If you’re willing to pay for help, you can post in Marketplace
I don’t think Namecheap Private Email is a transactional mail service, and hence may not be the best way to run it with Discourse. You should look at options like Brevo, MailGun or Amazon SES.
Namecheap Private Email is not only for inbox (IMAP/POP) use; it fully supports secure outbound SMTP delivery as well. In my Discourse setup I configured:
mail.privateemail.com as the SMTP host
Port 465 / SSL
DISCOURSE_SMTP_ENABLE_START_TLS: false
DISCOURSE_SMTP_FORCE_TLS: true
and then ran ./launcher rebuild app to apply the configuration.
SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records are also fully set up through Cloudflare DNS.
As a result, Discourse connects to Namecheap’s SMTP server securely over 465/SSL and fully in line with email standards.
Given the current email volume, there is no need for an additional transactional email service such as Mailgun, Brevo, or Amazon SES at this stage.
I’m fairly certain NameCheap Private Email isn’t a transactional mail service (I can’t find anything to say it is?). Discourse recommends a transactional mail service be used. You may encounter problems like this if you use things like NameCheap Private Email. If it works for you, then .
The transactional mail providers I suggested above are mostly free (except Amazon SES, but it’s still quite cheap). Brevo is 300/day, IIRC Mailgun is 100/day.
It might be a good idea to look if their terms of service allow using it for transactional emails
If it’s not allowed, you risk being sanctioned in some way or having the emails falsely identified as spam and blocked. I speak from experience (not with NameCheap tho).
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