The discussion revolves around whether the Discourse installation guide should include a step to run apt update and apt upgrade before installation, to prevent common setup issues. IAmGav argues that this would help avoid problems, citing personal experience where a failed install succeeded after updating. Falco questions the necessity, asking for reproducible evidence. JammyDodger suggests moving security-related steps like automatic updates and fail2ban to a new “Prepare Your Cloud Server” section to make them more visible. pfaffman agrees that such a section could be useful but notes people often skip instructions. The thread also briefly touches on whether git pull is needed during rebuilds, with consensus that it’s unnecessary as the launcher handles updates automatically merefield. IAmGav shares logs showing a successful install after updating, reinforcing the need for the change. A PR has been submitted to update the guide IAmGav.
I feel like I have seen this too many times where people follow the install guide and come back and say that their install did not work.
IMHO, I think by adding a section into the guide before the install, to run apt update & apt upgrade, would sort out this issue before it is a problem.
It won’t harm anything by running it, but it will help having the updated software before creating the docker and etc
Slightly adjacent, but I found the excitement of actually getting the ‘Congratulations, you installed discourse! ’ screen made me forget about the rest of the guide. I did remember the Post-Install Maintenance eventually, but perhaps there’s space for a ‘Prepare your Cloud Server (optional)’ section inbetween “Access Your Cloud Server” and “Install Discourse”? That could include the dpkg-reconfigure -plow unattended-upgrades, apt install libpam-cracklib, and fail2ban info, and maybe the apt-get update/upgrade?
I have to bow down to your greater experience on this, but my original thought was to just move these from the existing Post-Install Maintenence to a new section above Install Discourse to make them more obvious/harder to miss. (for me at least, as soon as I saw the on my screen I instantly forgot about the server, and wanted to explore my new toy )
Preparing Your Cloud Server (optional)
We strongly suggest you turn on automatic security updates for your OS. In Ubuntu use the dpkg-reconfigure -plow unattended-upgrades command. In CentOS/RHEL, use the yum-cron package.
If you are using a password and not a SSH key, be sure to enforce a strong root password. In Ubuntu use the apt install libpam-cracklib package. We also recommend fail2ban which blocks any IP addresses for 10 minutes that attempt more than 3 password retries.
Ubuntu: apt install fail2ban
CentOS/RHEL: sudo dnf install fail2ban
If you need or want a default firewall, turn on ufw for Ubuntu or use firewalld for CentOS/RHEL.
root@discourse-testing:~# cd /var/discourse/
root@discourse-testing:/var/discourse# git pull
Already up to date.
root@discourse-testing:/var/discourse#
Are you sure it isn’t done automatically as part of the rebuild? I’ve added it to my to-do list to be on the safe side, but it would be a shame to do even a little extra work unnecessarily.
’ screen made me forget about the rest of the guide. 
I did remember the Post-Install Maintenance eventually, but perhaps there’s space for a ‘Prepare your Cloud Server (optional)’ section inbetween “Access Your Cloud Server” and “Install Discourse”? That could include the dpkg-reconfigure -plow unattended-upgrades, apt install libpam-cracklib, and fail2ban info, and maybe the apt-get update/upgrade?
