Wordpress + Discourse using Digital Ocean and Serverpilot

[therza]

I’m trying to setup a droplet on DO and end up with a wordpress at mydomain, and my discourse at forum.mydomain.

I am using serverpilot, I first installed discourse and set it up to run at forum.mydomain, then I configured the wordpress app via serverpilot one-click install and pointed it to mydomain.com.

However, discourse exists at both forum.mydomain AND mydomain. Serverpilot tells me that wordpress is ready to configure, but it is inaccessible via domain/IP.

How can I make sure discourse remains ONLY on forum.mydomain, while wordpress is relegated to mydomain.com?

[pfaffman (Jay Pfaffman)]

Do you have separate Droplets for Discourse and WordPress? If so, make sure that you point the DNS records accordingly. If you’re trying to configure WP and Discourse on the same droplet with ServerPilot, you probably can’t.

Run other websites on the same machine as Discourse

If you want to run other websites on the same machine as Discourse, you need to set up an extra NGINX or HAProxy proxy in front of the Docker container. NOTE: This is for advanced admins This guide assumes you already have Discourse working - if you don’t, it may be hard to tell whether or not the configuration is working. You cannot use ./discourse-setup to set up Discourse if another server is using port 80 or 443. You will need to copy and edit samples/standalone.yml with your favorite tex…

[thephotographyblog (The Mainframe)]

Apparently, it can be done. Has anyone tried doing this with Runcloud?

I’m looking into migrating from a shared host really soon and at the moment the only options I am looking at are ServerPilot and Runcloud. I think ServerPilot looks a bit more legitimate, but Runcloud’s pricing is irresistible. Paying $10/mo per server for ServerPilot seems like a bit much, especially when you get to use Runcloud on an unlimited number of servers for the same amount.

[itsbhanusharma (Bhanu Sharma)]

AFAIK Serverpilot released their new pricing today in a blog post!

in any case, I won’t recommend using such “agent” based services because very recently one such provider (cloudways) was found to be stealing their customers’ data. These services can’t be trusted.

[thephotographyblog (The Mainframe)]

Cloudways doesn’t do that first of all. Don’t go throwing around aspersions.

What do you mean by agent based service?

ServerPilot connects automatically and provisions your server without a human getting involved.

[itsbhanusharma (Bhanu Sharma)]

@thephotographyblog

Cloudways doesn’t do that first of all. Don’t go throwing around aspersions.

Their stuff is all around the internet.

@thephotographyblog

ServerPilot connects automatically and provisions your server without a human getting involved.

That exactly is the “agent based service” they install their serverpilot agent on to your server which is a threat in itself. It runs with root privileges on your server and not too long until one of their employee does something like cloudways and injects your servers with malware.

[thephotographyblog (The Mainframe)]

In theory that could happen with any web host. There’s nothing that would prevent someone from doing that, but it’s like saying that Facebook employees will hack into pages and profiles to post stuff, which is absurd.

[itsbhanusharma (Bhanu Sharma)]

@thephotographyblog

which is absurd.

Trusting some random company and their Frankenstein “agent” is more absurd than assuming that facebook will hack your pages.

What’s wrong with taking control of your own server and implementing a disk level encryption.

[thephotographyblog (The Mainframe)]

Managing a single server and application is easy and I’m sure I could learn how to self manage that. But I’d rather not manage 5-10 client servers with like 30 apps in total.

You’re the first person I’ve come across that has had something negative to say about either of those services. But, for the sake of argument, what dashboard/admin panel would you run then?

[itsbhanusharma (Bhanu Sharma)]

@thephotographyblog

what dashboard/admin panel would you run then?

I won’t go for a dashboard or panel, The server would be controlled solely form SSH.
For OTT management (e.g. managing wordpress) I’d use Jetpack and it’s centralized management page to update the Plugins/Themes etc.

@thephotographyblog

But I’d rather not manage 5-10 client servers with like 30 apps in total.

I definitely would. If I had to. and if there is a real need for a control panel, why not plesk or virtualmin which offer much more flexibility.
Package upgrades etc. can be automated form within the OS but then, there can be things that potentially break with updates so testing and due diligence is necessary.

[thephotographyblog (The Mainframe)]

I’ve taken a look at Virtualmin but read lots of negative things about it, such as: Forge versus Virtualmin versus Serverpilot versus ?

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Please let me know if you have any other recommendations, I will definetely consider them. Thanks a lot for your contribution and suggestions here, it really is greatly appreciated. It is always good to have a conflicting opinion, because it encourages you to take a look at what’s out there.

So, thanks, because I was all set on Runcloud/ServerPilot and you made me question my choice. (This is genuinely not sarcastic, but as I reread it I realized how sarcastic it sounds haha) I want to be sure that I am making the right choice before I decide to migrate, I want make the best informed decision possible.

[itsbhanusharma (Bhanu Sharma)]

See, let me make this slightly simple for you. If you’re scared of sysadmin duties, Find a better hosting provider. There are many good names in the industry now that provide really decent solutions. You don’t have to run for a VPS or Bare metal unless you’re prepared for it. I had used shared hosting and even managed hosting for years before taking things in my own hands.

I’m against runcloud/serverpilot because of the risk factor and the fact that eventually those agents can go rouge with a malicious code or intercepted API requests and then can do more harm than good. By not letting such services control your ecosystem, you eliminate one potential point of failure. The time you spend learning and building your own web server is priceless and will probably save you in future from unexpected surprises.

One of my friend (a big time user of serverpilot) deleted some of the apps from their serverpilot account and that nuked their server, Nginx won’t start because it somehow forgot to delete the config files and serverpilot staff had no answer as to why is it happening. It was my understanding of the web server that made me look into the logs and identify that there are some incorrect config files present, it was just a matter of removing those and server was back up. Funny thing is that serverpilot team couldn’t identify that issue from their end even after having full root access to server.

[thephotographyblog (The Mainframe)]

I’m not scared of managing a server. I just want a more intuitive way of managing it. After all, ServerPilot/Runcloud and any cpanel just run commands to carry out tasks for you.

I want to move away from shared hosting for many reasons, mainly to use Ghost and Discourse, but also because I want to migrate my client sites so they have dedicated resources, and greater flexibility.

Have you heard of https://sandstorm.io/?

[itsbhanusharma (Bhanu Sharma)]

@thephotographyblog

Have you heard of https://sandstorm.io/?

No! I haven’t heard of them.

@thephotographyblog

mainly to use Ghost and Discourse, but also because I want to migrate my client sites so they have dedicated resources, and greater flexibility.

If you’re looking to host Discourse or Ghost, You should be looking towards DigitalOcean they’re probably the best and as long as you manage to configure unattended security updates you can just sit back and relax, come in every 2 months and do the regular system updates. That’s all.

[tophee (Christoph)]

@itsbhanusharma

If you’re looking to host Discourse or Ghost, You should be looking towards DigitalOcean they’re probably the best

I like DO and there is nothing wrong with recommending them, but whether they are “the best” depends on what your criteria are. Their CPUs are not the fastest for discourse and their prices are not the lowest.

@itsbhanusharma

If you’re scared of sysadmin duties, Find a better hosting provider. There are many good names in the industry now that provide really decent solutions. You don’t have to run for a VPS or Bare metal unless you’re prepared for it.

I think that is good advice (and you don’t have to be “scared”, just not wanting to deal with stuff is good enough a reason). But when it comes to discourse hosting, are there really so many providers? (I know of three. The third one is https://nodechef.com/discourse-hosting)

@thephotographyblog

I just want a more intuitive way of managing it.

So let us call that the mid-way option, somewhere between fully hosted and your own server, probably a good bit more towards the own server side. What exactly are the benefits of this option? I’m wondering because, as you say,

@thephotographyblog

ServerPilot/Runcloud and any cpanel just run commands to carry out tasks for you.

What are all those commsnds that you need to perform and that those services/products are going to take off your shoulder?

[itsbhanusharma (Bhanu Sharma)]

@tophee

but whether they are “the best” depends on what your criteria are.

Going with the discussion here, criteria was ease of use and price to performance.

I pay over $200/month to colocate my servers in a datacenter because I want a level of performance that others may not. Hence, this question in itself is very dynamic and may have answers depending on perspective of the very individual.

I hear people praising vultr but their servers are not really better than DO when it comes to performance but they kinda price themselves in a way that they look cheaper than DO so they get some customers from there.

If I had to get a managed discourse hosting I’d much rather spend on a package either from Communiteq (formerly DiscourseHosting) or from CDCK directly because simply said they do it best .

[itsbhanusharma (Bhanu Sharma)]

@tophee

What are all those commsnds that you need to perform and that those services/products are going to take off your shoulder?

The fantastic 5 of ubuntu maybe!

apt update
apt upgrade
apt dist-upgrade
apt autoclean
apt autoremove

[thephotographyblog (The Mainframe)]

No you can do way more. Haven’t you even bothered to take a look at their sites?

Also, not a single negative experience here with ServerPilot: Experiences with serverpilot.io | DigitalOcean

[thephotographyblog (The Mainframe)]

That’s expensive but I’m sure it pays off in terms of performance.

[itsbhanusharma (Bhanu Sharma)]

@thephotographyblog

Haven’t you even bothered to take a look at their sites?

I have! But I have people moving away from them because of reasons that are beyond the scope of this conversation.
I won’t believe those reviews because unless I’m doing some serious task on a server, casual updates are enough for it to function normally unless something fails.
If you’re paying someone just to keep your server updated, you probably don’t know about linux and the way it handles updates.
There is a thing called Canonical Livepatch if you are not comfortable with rebooting.

The reviews are not from prosumers. Those are people who don’t know much about servers and linux in general and hence look out for something that can shift the liability from them to a 3rd party.