This guide covers installation instructions in a development environment. For a production guide see: Install Discourse in production with the official, supported instructions
So you want to set up Discourse on Ubuntu or Debian to hack on and develop with?
We’ll assume that you work locally and don’t have Ruby/Rails/Postgres/Redis installed on your Ubuntu or Debian system. Let’s begin!
Requirements
We suggest having at least 4 GB RAM and 2 CPU cores.
Current compatibility:
| OS | Compatibility |
|---|---|
| Debian 11 |  |
| Crostini (Linux on ChromeOS) | |
| Ubuntu 22.04 or later | |
Install Discourse Dependencies
As regular user run this script in terminal, to setup Rails development environment:-
bash <(wget -qO- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/discourse/install-rails/main/linux)
This will install the following new packages on your system:
- Git
- rbenv
- ruby-build
- Ruby (stable)
- Rails
- PostgreSQL
- SQLite
- Redis
- Bundler
- MailHog
- ImageMagick
In case you have any of this package pre-installed and don’t want to run the entire script, see the script and pick the packages you don’t have currently installed. The script is fine-tuned for Discourse, and includes all the packages required for Discourse installation.
Now that we have installed Discourse dependencies, let’s move on to install Discourse itself.
Clone Discourse
Clone the Discourse repository in ~/discourse folder:
git clone https://github.com/discourse/discourse.git ~/discourse
~ indicates home folder, so Discourse source code will be available in your home folder.
Setup Database
Already completed by the install script
Create role with the same name as your Linux system username:
cd /tmp && sudo -u postgres createuser -s "$USER"
Bootstrap Discourse
Switch to your Discourse folder:
cd ~/discourse
Install the needed gems
source ~/.bashrc
bundle install
Install the JS dependencies
pnpm install
Now that you have successfully installed gems, run these commands:
bin/rails db:create
bin/rails db:migrate
RAILS_ENV=test bin/rails db:create db:migrate
Start rails and ember server:
bin/ember-cli -u
If the images are not appearing, use this command instead:
(you can also specify an IP if you are working on a remote server)
DISCOURSE_HOSTNAME=localhost UNICORN_LISTENER=localhost:3000 bin/ember-cli -u
You should now be able to navigate to http://localhost:4200 to see your local Discourse installation.
Create New Admin
To create a new admin, run the following command:
bin/rails admin:create
Follow the prompts, and a new admin account will be created.
Configure Mail
Run MailHog:
mailhog
Congratulations! You are now the admin of your own Discourse installation!
Happy hacking! And to get started with that, see Beginner’s Guide to Creating Discourse Plugins.
Last Reviewed by @blake on 2023-04-03T06:00:00Z
This document is version controlled - suggest changes on github.