Install Discourse on Ubuntu 22.04

Prerequisites

• A server with Ubuntu 22.04 as OS
• Valid domain pointed to the servers IP address
• User privileges: root or non-root user with sudo privileges

Step 1. Update the System

Update the packages to their latest versions available after a fresh install of Ubuntu 22.04

sudo apt-get update -y && sudo apt-get upgrade -y

Step 2. Install Docker

First, we will add the GPG keys and Docker repository since it is not added by default in the Ubuntu 22.04 official repository.

curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg | sudo apt-key add -

sudo add-apt-repository "deb [arch=amd64] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu focal stable"

Once the keys and repo are added, install Docker with the following command:

sudo apt install docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io -y

After successful installation, start and enable the Docker service.

sudo systemctl start docker && sudo systemctl enable docker

To check the status of the Docker service, execute the following command:

sudo systemctl status docker

You should receive the following output:

root@host:~# systemctl status docker
● docker.service - Docker Application Container Engine
Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/docker.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: active (running) since Thu 2023-03-02 16:28:53 CST; 21s ago
TriggeredBy: ● docker.socket
Docs: https://docs.docker.com
Main PID: 96031 (dockerd)
Tasks: 9
Memory: 24.8M
CPU: 525ms
CGroup: /system.slice/docker.service
└─96031 /usr/bin/dockerd -H fd:// --containerd=/run/containerd/containerd.sock

Step 3. Install Discourse

First, we need to download the Discourse repo from GitHub.

sudo mkdir -p /home/discourse

cd /home/discourse/

sudo git clone https://github.com/discourse/discourse_docker.git .

Now, once the Discourse is downloaded, we can execute the following command for the script to start installing the software.

sudo bash ./discourse-setup

The installation will start, and you will be asked for a couple of inputs, explained in bold below:

Checking your domain name . . .
Connection to yourdomain.com succeeded.
Email address for admin account(s)? [me@example.com,you@example.com]: admin@yourdomain.com
SMTP server address? [smtp.example.com]: smtp.yourdomain.com
SMTP port? [587]:
SMTP user name? [user@example.com]: user@yourdomain.com
SMTP password? [pa$word]: YourStrongPasswordHere
notification email address? [noreply@yourdomain.com]:
Optional email address for Let's Encrypt warnings? (ENTER to skip) [me@example.com]:
Optional Maxmind License key (ENTER to continue without MAXMIND GeoLite2 geolocation database) [1234567890123456]:

Does this look right?

Hostname : yourdomain.com
Email : admin@yourdomain.com
SMTP address : smtp.yourdomain.com
SMTP port : 587
SMTP username : user@yourdomain.com
SMTP password : YourStrongPasswordHere
Notification email: noreply@yourdomain.com
Maxmind license: (unset)

ENTER to continue, 'n' to try again, Ctrl+C to exit:
letsencrypt.ssl.template.yml enabled

Configuration file at containers/app.yml updated successfully!

The installation script will proceed with downloading the Discourse base image for Docker and building it. After successful installation will be displayed the following output:

DISCOURSE_HOSTNAME=yourdomain.com -e DISCOURSE_DEVELOPER_EMAILS=admin@yourdomain.com -e DISCOURSE_SMTP_ADDRESS=smtp.yourdomain.com -e DISCOURSE_SMTP_PORT=587 -e DISCOURSE_SMTP_USER_NAME=user@yourdomain.com -e DISCOURSE_SMTP_PASSWORD=YourStrongPasswordHere -e DISCOURSE_SMTP_DOMAIN=yourdomain.com -e DISCOURSE_NOTIFICATION_EMAIL=noreply@yourdomain.com -e LETSENCRYPT_ACCOUNT_EMAIL=me@example.com -h host-app -e DOCKER_HOST_IP=172.17.0.1 --name app -t -p 80:80 -p 443:443 -v /var/discourse/shared/standalone:/shared -v /var/discourse/shared/standalone/log/var-log:/var/log --mac-address 02:a7:ac:92:6f:88 local_discourse/app /sbin/boot
48d8ab41804db85677cc197fd19e7d5510faec248d99ce16d5a31082956f3463

Now, you can access the Web interface at https://yourdomain.com/ and register an account. Congratulations! You successfully installed Discourse software using the Docker image. 

Src:

How to Install Discourse on Ubuntu 22.04