ISO or Image with discourse ready to go for a server boot

Product Support Self-hosting

AI-generated summary

The discussion revolves around the possibility of creating a Discourse ISO or image for easy server boot, similar to Digital Ocean’s pre-configured droplet. cclambie seeks a ready-to-use ISO for Vultr, inspired by a now-expired offer from sulliops. Firepup650 notes the offer expired in 2017. Ed_S warns against using pre-packaged installations, as they’re not officially supported. cclambie proposes a bootable ISO with automated configuration. merefield suggests the standard install takes about 30 minutes. pfaffman explains that a fully functional Discourse instance requires specific setup, like a valid hostname and email, and recommends using Literate Computing’s dashboard for a simplified setup, especially with Digital Ocean and Mailgun.

1

@sulliops kindly has suggested he will install discourse for anyone, for free :slight_smile: here

I found that post, as I was hunting around for an ISO for Vultr to just boot a new instance from - and came across it.

I wonder if this is something that could be developed Owen?
Others?
Save me trying to figure it out?

I understand Digital Ocean have a droplet preset with discourse, so I am going there for this experiment - but I prefer Vultr for hosting, so one place would be better for that reason.

Thoughts?

2

Though that’s long since expired :upside_down_face:

3

Be careful. We often see advice here telling us that a pre-packaged Discourse is not a supported installation.

4

Interesting. Thanks for the tips.
I didn’t think to search for Vultr and DO to be honest - I searched for ISO and image… different names.

I wonder if a Discourse created ISO that you could boot on any server would then give a better result.

The steps to install would be something along the lines or

  1. Download the ISO
  2. Spin up a server with x minumum spec
  3. Load the ISO as the boot image
  4. Login to the server CLI and run xxx.install config that will reconfig the Discourse to the IP of the server, the domain you are using etc.

This is what I am / was hoping to find somewhere.

5

The standard install takes ~30 minutes if you are used to web installations. And I’m sure you could speed run that :sweat_smile:

6

No. There are too many things that are required for a functioning site (host name, functing email for starters).

You can get a “free” install using https://dashboard.literatecomputing.com/ if you’ll join the Free Trial Group and don’t need my support to make it work. It’s pretty trivial for Digital Ocean and Mailgun (since the script spins up the droplet and configures mailgun), and harder if you elect not to use either of those services.