Install Discourse on Ubuntu or Debian for Development

Discourse
Sat, 12 Apr 2014 22:22:07 +0000
Developer Guides

This guide covers installation instructions in a development environment. For a production guide see: Install Discourse in production with the official supported instructions

So you want to set up Discourse on Ubuntu or Debian to hack on and develop with?

We’ll assume that you work locally and don’t have Ruby/Rails/Postgres/Redis installed on your Ubuntu or Debian system. Let’s begin!

Requirements

We suggest having at least 4 GB RAM and 2 CPU cores.

Current compatibility:

OS | Compatibility
Debian 11 |
Crostini (Linux on ChromeOS) |
Ubuntu 22.04 or later |

Install Discourse Dependencies

You will need the following packages on your system:

Git

rbenv or asdf

ruby-build

Ruby (latest stable)

Rails

PostgreSQL

SQLite

Redis

Node.js

pnpm

MailHog**

ImageMagick**

** optional

Now that we have installed Discourse dependencies, let’s move on to install Discourse itself.

Clone Discourse

Clone the Discourse repository in ~/discourse folder:

git clone https://github.com/discourse/discourse.git ~/discourse

~ indicates home folder, so Discourse source code will be available in your home folder.

Setup Database

Create role with the same name as your Linux system username:

cd /tmp && sudo -u postgres createuser -s "$USER"

[/details]

Bootstrap Discourse

Switch to your Discourse folder:

 cd ~/discourse

Install the needed gems

source ~/.bashrc
bundle install

Install the JS dependencies

pnpm install

Now that you have successfully installed gems, run these commands:

bin/rails db:create
bin/rails db:migrate
RAILS_ENV=test bin/rails db:create db:migrate

Start rails and ember server:

bin/ember-cli -u

If the images are not appearing, use this command instead:
(you can also specify an IP if you are working on a remote server)

DISCOURSE_HOSTNAME=localhost UNICORN_LISTENER=localhost:3000 bin/ember-cli -u

You should now be able to navigate to http://localhost:4200 to see your local Discourse installation.

Create New Admin

To create a new admin, run the following command:

bin/rails admin:create

Follow the prompts, and a new admin account will be created.

Configure Mail

Run MailHog:

mailhog

Congratulations! You are now the admin of your own Discourse installation!

Happy hacking! And to get started with that, see Beginner’s Guide to Creating Discourse Plugins.

Last Reviewed by @blake on Monday, April 3, 2023 6:00 AM UTC

This document is version controlled - suggest changes on github.

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