使用旧数据库启动新的 Discourse 社区

大家好,祝大家今天愉快。

你们可能已经知道,我在两周多之前在 AWS 上创建了我的第一个 Discourse 社区,但使用的是他们的 Bitnami AMI 镜像,而这当然不是官方支持的安装方式。正如预期,我遇到了一些问题,并尽力尝试解决,但问题却不断累积。我遇到的最后一个问题是服务器错误(500 错误),导致我的社区无法显示。我不得不重启服务器,结果就像闪电一样,我在前两周建立的所有内容都丢失了。相信我,那里面有很多内容!

当然,我并不是在为打翻的牛奶哭泣(显然,这个社区已经多次警告过使用推荐的安装方式,而我这位“悔过者”现在也会这样做 :grinning:),但我不想从头开始重建数据库和内容。简而言之,如果有人能提供切实可行的信息,指导我如何获取数据库详情以及所有必要的信息,以便将其集成到我的新安装中,从而保留所有已注册用户的日志/详情及其活动记录,我将不胜感激。这样,整个过程就不会有任何损失。这对我来说也将是一次宝贵的学习经历。

还有一个重要的一点:我仍将在 AWS 上托管。至少,那里有一个涉及 Docker 的推荐安装流程,而且我的 1000 美元信用额度不能被浪费。因此,如果所有信息都能针对 AWS 平台及其相关服务进行定制,使这段旅程变得值得,我将非常感激。

另外,请低调一点:我不断成长的社区已经离线三天了。我必须挽回声誉。所以,大家行动起来吧!

If you have a discourse backup file, then you can restore it to a new server fairly easily. Do you have a backup file?

No, I don’t. Barely added or configured anything. But is there still a way possible?

I am not familiar with the Bitnami image, so I can’t say for sure. Do you still have access to the Postgres database in some way?

No, I don’t too. But I can get access to it or find my way around it. And besides, I think I took a screenshot when I initially installed the software but not later. So can any of this?

  • Backup old site, download backup
  • bring up new site
  • Restore from backup
  • ???
  • ???
  • PROFIT11111!!!

If this isn’t possible, don’t use unsupported install methods.

Hello @robbyoconnor, I think I understand your point to the third one but got lost with the multiple ??? And Profit 11111… If you don’t mind, can you be more specific? I’ll appreciate.

Safe to ignore everything after #3

My recommendation here would be to restart your community from scratch with a supported install and ensure you enable automatic backups to s3 this time

I appreciate that losing two weeks is not fun, but given you are struggling to get access to your data… there is not much we can do

Hi Sam, thanks for your candid reply. I think I might just do that and throw some apologies in the air to the people who started with me for the fun 2 weeks we had. Besides, Discourse has been fun, though.

Yeah, nice opinion. But think I’d be taking @Sam 's opinion. That’d be ‘too long’ a try for something that may not work. So starting a new one from scratch would be better. Just wish I had stared earlier than wasting half a week hoping to hold enough water in a basket.

Went through the supported installation details for AWS, but unfortunately, it’s not the official documen from the Discourse Team. And then surfed through the web and was able to come up with this that gives detailed instruction about installing Discourse on AWS using supported instances from Discourse. So just for the asking and staying on the safer side, is this install method going to give me the supported Discourse software? I’d love to hear your opinion, @Sam?

I’m not sure if you have actually looked at the official Discourse install guide which is the only supported install method I’ve heard of.

Other users have referred you to it in your other topic, e.g. this reply:
https://meta.discourse.org/t/can-not-configure-my-bitnami-discourse-instance-to-send-out-mails/101618/2?u=remah

You will see on other topics that AWS/Bitnami installs are not supported although people may still be able to help you, e.g. as in this topic:

https://meta.discourse.org/t/just-installed-discourse-on-aws/86146?u=remah

FYI, here is some background on the AWS install guide that you found.

The blog owner is a user here, @stroupaloop, although I haven’t seen him posting for a while.
He had a couple of topics on AWS that I read when i first joined:

Wow, thanks a bunch for this Remah. I actually saw an installation guide here on Meta about installing on Amazon; not with Bitnami, but from scratch. So whilst I wouldn’t call that the official install guide, I believe the installation process still installs Discourse the normal way it was meant to be installed-with Docker. The installation guide is here on Meta, and will link to it once I’m done with this post. (I’m on mobile)
Edit: This is the install guide I was referring to.
So a quick one:
What do you think?

  1. Install a new community using the guide I now shared its link or
  2. Starting a New Digital Ocean droplet.
    And note: I have over $1k in my Amazon credit. The only reason I’d paid for that is because of Discourse hosting for about two or three years, depending on the resources I use.
    But paraphrasing the question properly, I’d ask: If I install using the guide by @Frez, is it going to come with support here on Meta if I run into trouble? Believe me, I’d prefer to get help here than from any other place; including Bitnami, which I have now ditched. Better to source for help from the source!

Thank you for your time. I appreciate!

Yes, David, I have access to the postgres database.

I can’t say what will get support. You’ll have to get that from the Discourse team when they’re back in the day time.

While you wait for a reply from the Discourse team, then why not try out option 1. If everything installs fine then you can check that it works perfectly before going public. Option 2 would be your fallback if option 1 doesn’t work OK and you cannot resolve the issues.

One caveat is that the guide is over two years old - last edited April 2016. Since then there has been at least one problem identified. This problem with SES email was resolved but I don’t know if other problems are out there:

Thanks again Remah for your input. You’ve done me a whole lot of good, you know? Glad to have you here.

The only setup we support is this one: discourse/docs/INSTALL-cloud.md at main · discourse/discourse · GitHub

Typically people do that on a digital ocean droplet, but it should work the same on any linux server.

The problem with AWS is the complexity - finding the right way to set things up is very tricky. Is your AWS credit valid for AWS Lightsail? That provides a ‘Digital-ocean-like’ experience on AWS: Virtual Private Server and Web Hosting–Amazon Lightsail—Amazon Web Services

There is no requirement to use SES, you can use another recommended provider, even if your server is hosted on AWS.

The guide @habeycole referred to assumes that SES is used. Another reason why that guide needs an update.

Yes, my credit is eligible to work with Lightsail. Think it’d be better using that then. But think I’ll also do EC2 install and check for which works best for me in the next two days before I eventually settle for the better. I appreciate the feedback I’ve received from all.

And to note: I possibly won’t be using SES for sending mails because of the restrictions. Mailgun is my preferred choice.