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NimForum setup

This document describes the steps needed to setup a working NimForum instance.

Requirements

  • Ubuntu 16.04+
  • Some Linux knowledge

Installation

Begin by downloading the latest NimForum release from here. The macOS releases are mainly provided for testing.

Extract the downloaded tarball on your server. These steps can be done using the following commands:

wget https://github.com/nim-lang/nimforum/releases/download/v2.0.0/nimforum_2.0.0_linux.tar.xz
tar -xf nimforum_2.0.0_linux.tar.xz

Then cd into the forum's directory:

cd nimforum_2.0.0_linux

Dependencies

The following may need to be installed on your server:

sudo apt install libsass-dev sqlite3

Configuration and DB creation

The NimForum release comes with a handy setup_nimforum program. Run it to begin the setup process:

./setup_nimforum --setup

The program will ask you multiple questions which will require some additional setup, including mail server info and recaptcha keys. You can just specify dummy values if you want to play around with the forum as quickly as possible and set these up later.

This program will create a nimforum.db file, this contains your forum's database. It will also create a forum.json file, you can modify this file after running the setup_nimforum script if you've made any mistakes or just want to change things.

Running the forum

Executing the forum is simple, just run the forum binary:

./forum

The forum will start listening to HTTP requests on port 5000 (by default, this can be changed in forum.json).

On your server you should set up a separate HTTP server. The recommended choice is nginx. You can then use it as a reverse proxy for NimForum.

HTTP server

nginx

Once you have nginx installed on your server, you will need to configure it. Create a forum.hostname.com file (replace the hostname with your forum's hostname) inside /etc/nginx/sites-available/.

Place the following inside it:

server {
        server_name forum.hostname.com;
        autoindex off;

        location / {
                proxy_pass http://localhost:5000;
                proxy_set_header Host $host;
                proxy_set_header X-Real_IP $remote_addr;
        }
}

Again, be sure to replace forum.hostname.com with your forum's hostname.

You should then create a symlink to this file inside /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/:

ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/<forum.hostname.com> /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/<forum.hostname.com>

Then reload nginx configuration by running sudo nginx -s reload.

Supervisor

systemd

In order to ensure the forum is always running, even after a crash or a server reboot, you should create a systemd service file.

Create a new file called nimforum.service inside /lib/systemd/system/nimforum.service.

Place the following inside it:

[Unit]
Description=nimforum
After=network.target httpd.service
Wants=network-online.target

[Service]
Type=simple
WorkingDirectory=/home/<user>/nimforum-2.0.0/ # MODIFY THIS
ExecStart=/usr/bin/stdbuf -oL /home/<user>/nimforum-2.0.0/forum # MODIFY THIS
# Restart when crashes.
Restart=always
RestartSec=1

User=dom

StandardOutput=syslog+console
StandardError=syslog+console

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Be sure to specify the correct WorkingDirectory and ExecStart!

You can then enable and start the service by running the following:

sudo systemctl enable nimforum
sudo systemctl start nimforum

To check that everything is in order, run this:

systemctl status nimforum

You should see something like this:

● nimforum.service - nimforum
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/nimforum.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: active (running) since Fri 2018-05-25 22:09:59 UTC; 1 day 22h ago
 Main PID: 21474 (forum)
    Tasks: 1
   Memory: 55.2M
      CPU: 1h 15min 31.905s
   CGroup: /system.slice/nimforum.service
           └─21474 /home/dom/nimforum/src/forum

Conclusion

That should be all you need to get started. Your forum should now be accessible via your hostname, assuming that it points to your VPS' IP address.