Install Plugins in Discourse

#151

@molly_cushing, Your post was exactly what I needed! Thanks for putting this together.

I personally learn the best by watching someone do something so I created a video tutorial following the steps you outlined, for anyone who’d like to see the process in action:

12 Likes
#152

I’m beginer in Discourse, and after cloned Disourse repository, can’t find container/app.yml fie.
Do I have to create new one?
And also the command “./launcher rebuild app” isn’t working cause there isn’t such file or directory named “launcher” in the project

#153

Sounds like you didn’t fully installed Discourse, you need to follow all these commands : discourse/INSTALL-cloud.md at master · discourse/discourse · GitHub

After that, and only after, you can run these commands to install a plugin. You need to be in the discourse folder :
cd /var/discourse

After that, you can open the app file using nano
nano containers/app.yml

And still in the /var/discourse folder, you can run the command to complete the install (this command will take a few minutes)
./launcher rebuild app

3 Likes
#155

There’s actually no need to sudo -s when updating your app.yml, a simple sudo nano containers/app.yml from within /var/discourse will suffice.

The ‘git pull’ is redundant here too.

@sivert If you ran discourse-setup as outlined in the official install guide an app.yml would be created for you at /var/discourse/containers/ with all the necessary settings to get Discourse running. Have you already done this? If so you need to move to /var/discourse before issuing the commands you mentioned above, a simple cd /var/discourse will suffice.

as … means ‘up a level’ it’s very rarely going to be the right way to get there.

1 Like
#159

@Stephen Thanks for your answer. It seems I was confused between dev and pub versions.
Just now I was working on developing version in my MacOS system.
Can I continue follow this guid to test my plugins on developing version or is this thread for only production version and I have to find another way?

#160

I just have followed this tutorial and can’t find any “container” directory or “./launcher” for rebuild command.
Please help me what am I wrong and how can I add plugin this development version.

1 Like
#161

Did you do this? discourse/INSTALL-cloud.md at master · discourse/discourse · GitHub

#162

Why cloud? Is it impossible to work with plugin on local development server?

#163

For local you just need to clone the plugin you want under the /plugins directory and restart the web server.

5 Likes
#164

Just circling back on the best way to handle the deployment of multiple private plugins (particularly if you do work for multiple clients), the way I handle this now is:

  1. Create a github “Machine User” for the client.

  1. Add the machine user as a collaborator to the private repo hosted in my Github account. This is a free (unpaid) Github account. Free accounts can be collaborators on private repos.

  2. Create a personal access token for the machine user.

  3. Use the machine user’s personal access token to install the plugin on the client’s server.

This approach:

  • Allows the plugin to be updated via /admin/upgrade
  • Does not cost anything extra
  • Does not expose all private repositories in your account to each client.

Note that Github seems supportive of this kind of use of their account system, see here:

Tip: Our terms of service state:

Accounts registered by “bots” or other automated methods are not permitted.

This means that you cannot automate the creation of accounts. But if you want to create a single machine user for automating tasks such as deploy scripts in your project or organization, that is totally cool.

12 Likes
#167

You can create deploy keys on repositories - that would be much less work.

#168

Indeed, however using deploy keys does not allow the private plugin to be updated via /admin/upgrade, as you have to use custom commands in the app.yml.

3 Likes
#171

hahaha. I also using tab and you know it’s not working :joy:Using space for better, maybe I have been affected by Microsoft Word

#172

Using mac and cannot find the directory. Returns -bash: cd: /var/discourse: No such file or directory

#173

This guide is only about installing plugin in production systems.

In development you clone them into your /plugins directory.

6 Likes
#174

6 posts were split to a new topic: Install plugin from private Git repository?

#175

Is there a way to pin the version of the plugin (i.e. use a specified Git Tag or Branch or somewhat) ? This is essential in production.

#176

Yep, e.g.:

  • git clone <full-plugin-url> -b "your-branch" : branch
  • git clone <full-plugin-url>/tree/<commit_sha> : commit

should work in app.yml. I use the former all the time for testing pull requests.

6 Likes
#177

Have a plugin that installs and runs on a local Mac Docker fine, but seems to fail DO production install:

189:M 23 Aug 2019 23:26:33.015 # Redis is now ready to exit, bye bye...

FAILED
--------------------
Pups::ExecError: cd /var/www/discourse/plugins && get clone https://github.com/procourse/procourse-memberships.git failed with return #<Process::Status: pid 362 exit 127>
Location of failure: /pups/lib/pups/exec_command.rb:112:in `spawn'
exec failed with the params {"cd"=>"$home/plugins", "cmd"=>["git clone https://github.com/discourse/docker_manager.git", "git clone https://github.com/cpradio/discourse-plugin-checklist.git", "git clone https://github.com/discourse/discourse-spoiler-alert.git", "git clone https://github.com/discourse/discourse-solved.git", "git clone https://github.com/angusmcleod/discourse-custom-wizard.git", "git clone https://github.com/discourse/discourse-data-explorer.git", "git clone https://github.com/procourse/procourse-static-pages.git", "git clone https://github.com/discourse/discourse-canned-replies.git", "git clone https://github.com/curiousdannii/discourse-merge-users.git", "get clone https://github.com/procourse/procourse-memberships.git"]}

And when entering the app on the DO server it seems to install fine manually:

root@discourse-staging-app:/var/www/discourse/plugins# git clone https://github.com/procourse/procourse-memberships.git
Cloning into 'procourse-memberships'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 5, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (5/5), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (5/5), done.
remote: Total 2797 (delta 0), reused 2 (delta 0), pack-reused 2792
Receiving objects: 100% (2797/2797), 432.10 KiB | 0 bytes/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (1409/1409), done.
Checking connectivity... done.

All plugins but the last one install fine:

hooks:
  after_code:
    - exec:
        cd: $home/plugins
        cmd:
          - git clone https://github.com/discourse/docker_manager.git
          - git clone https://github.com/cpradio/discourse-plugin-checklist.git
          - git clone https://github.com/discourse/discourse-spoiler-alert.git
          - git clone https://github.com/discourse/discourse-solved.git
          - git clone https://github.com/angusmcleod/discourse-custom-wizard.git
          - git clone https://github.com/discourse/discourse-data-explorer.git
          - git clone https://github.com/procourse/procourse-static-pages.git
          - git clone https://github.com/discourse/discourse-canned-replies.git
          - git clone https://github.com/curiousdannii/discourse-merge-users.git
          - get clone https://github.com/procourse/procourse-memberships.git

Suggestions, ideas?

#178

Some lines of log above

189:M 23 Aug 2019 23:26:33.015 # Redis is now ready to exit, bye bye...

should contain the reason.