this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2023
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In the past few days, I've seen a number of people having trouble getting Lemmy set up on their own servers. That motivated me to create Lemmy-Easy-Deploy, a dead-simple solution to deploying Lemmy using Docker Compose under the hood.

To accommodate people new to Docker or self hosting, I've made it as simple as I possibly could. Edit the config file to specify your domain, then run the script. That's it! No manual configuration is needed. Your self hosted Lemmy instance will be up and running in about a minute or less. Everything is taken care of for you. Random passwords are created for Lemmy's microservices, and HTTPS is handled automatically by Caddy.

Updates are automatic too! Run the script again to detect and deploy updates to Lemmy automatically.

If you are an advanced user, plenty of config options are available. You can set this to compile Lemmy from source if you want, which is useful for trying out Release Candidate versions. You can also specify a Cloudflare API token, and if you do, HTTPS certificates will use the DNS challenge instead. This is helpful for Cloudflare proxy users, who can have issues with HTTPS certificates sometimes.

Try it out and let me know what you think!

https://github.com/ubergeek77/Lemmy-Easy-Deploy

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[–] ruud@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Really awesome work. We need more Lemmy servers!

[–] stephenc@waveform.social 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)
[–] orca@orcas.enjoying.yachts 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

This was the only tool that I was able to get running. I recommend it to anyone curious about running their own instance. I tried both the official Ansible and Docker instructions, and neither worked.

[–] IrrationalNumber@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

As someone who spent hours figuring out how to deploy through Ansible, how dare you ~/s~ But seriously thank you for putting in the work to make creating an instance more attainable for people.

[–] mfn@mfn.pub 2 points 1 year ago

After trying to do it with docker or ansible manually for hours and failing, this was soo helpful. So thank you.

[–] Thief@lemmy.myserv.one 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I used this and the developer is very helpful. Works great. Helped me even upgrade to 0.18.0.

[–] master@lem.serkozh.me 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The check $LEMMY_HOSTNAME == http* will give a false positive if (for whatever reason) the domain name starts with http

Thanks! Fix pushed.

[–] asimplefriedegg@yiffit.net 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Literally been thinking about this so thank you beautiful brained individual. Would you mind if I shouted this in the YSK group?

Thank you very much for the kind words!

Please be my guest! It would make me happy to know this was helping people join Lemmy!

[–] moons1de@lemmy.moonside.cc 1 points 1 year ago

Marius Hosting published a good guide this week that I used on my nas without an issue (via docker compose).

[–] Manifish_Destiny@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

Looks great my dude.
If you expanded out the environment variables a ton, making it more customizable, (with default values in place of couse) this could appeal to a huge range of people.

[–] JCreazy@midwest.social 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I will definitely try this out. I already have my domain and SSL certificate. This will work on linode right?

[–] ubergeek77@lemmy.ubergeek77.chat 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It will work on pretty much anything that has a public IP and a domain pointing to that IP. The only thing that won't work "out of the box" for most users is email, as most VPS providers block port 25. If you've requested access to port 25 and have been approved to use it, you can edit config.env to turn on the email service.

As for your SSL certificate, unfortunately this does not support importing your own certificate. It's made for beginners, after all :p

But there should be no problems with Caddy simply requesting a new one for you!

[–] b3nsn0w@pricefield.org 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

how well do those email servers work to begin with? i just flat out disabled the postfix relay on my instance and simply configured sendgrid, which works perfectly, no delays or spam folder issues (although i did have to disable a bunch of tracking bullshit). doing so with similar services has been my go-to card in freelance webdev, because getting other mail servers to trust you can be hard, so i'm interested in the experience people are having with those. (i'd much prefer to self-host email too, but providing a good experience is the primary goal)

I haven't actually used the embedded postfix server at all, I keep mine disabled. I only include it because it's "included" in the official Docker deployment files, and I try to keep this deployment as close to that as possible.

I'm considering adding support for an external email service, as you mentioned, but I have nearly zero experience in using managed email services, and I'm not sure if non-technical users would be able to navigate the configuration of things I can't do for them (i.e. on a web dashboard somewhere). And if I can't do it for them, it means more issues for me, so I hesitate to add support for it at all.

I'd love to hear your experience in setting up sendgrid and how easy that was. And the tracking stuff you mentioned as well.

[–] netburnr@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Email is vital to lemmy working. Saying this works without mail config is just silly.

[–] ubergeek77@lemmy.ubergeek77.chat 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I'm not sure what you mean? Most people are just self hosting instances for themselves, where email isn't needed. My instance doesn't have an email service.

And as I explained, if email is something you want, I have an advanced option for this. It's not the default because there is not a public VPS host out there that lets you use port 25 without special approval.

[–] netburnr@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Email config is needed for lost passwords. It's also needed for account verification, if you run without verification you could easily become a place for people to abuse other servers and get yourself defederated.

Many web hosts have poisoned mail IPs, so setting up with a smtp config to a well known site server is required if you want your emails to be delivered.

[–] ubergeek77@lemmy.ubergeek77.chat 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

And that is why I don't advertise this as supporting email out of the box, and why it's an advanced option without any support from me. The embedded postfix server is part of the official Docker Compose deployment from upstream Lemmy, and it's part of the officially supported Ansible deployment too. Those deployment methods are what this is modeled after. That is as far as I go on email support. If upstream Lemmy started including some automatic AWS SNS configuration, I would adopt it, but they have not done so.

Everyone who has reported success to me so far are running single user instances for themselves. That is my target audience, and for that audience (and myself), email is not even close to being a hard requirement.

However, if you would like to improve this script by adding support for more robust and secure email systems, I would be happy if you submitted a PR to do just that :)

[–] lemmy@lemmy.quad442.com 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Don't lose your passwords and leave closed registration so only people you actually want on your instance are on it. You absolutely do not need email.

[–] netburnr@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

You can't have the checkbox for federation and private, the server will crash and tell you that in the lemmy log. Had that happen when I did thy to setup without email the first time.

[–] SonyJunkie@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hi @ubergeek77@lemmy.ubergeek77.chat

I must be doing something wrong here because unlike many others I can't seem to get this working! Please can you offer some advice?

I have amended the config.env file to change the HOSTNAME, SITE NAME and ADMIN USER but left everything else the same.

I then ran ./deploy.sh and everything seems to have worked because it presented me with the admin login credentials and basic instructions to shutdown and start the instance. I tried simply typing the IP address of the docker container in to a browser but that didn't work and TBH I didn't expect it to. I then typed the URL into the browser and I'm getting a "ERR_TOO_MANY_REDIRECTS" error message. I read through the trouble shooting on your Github but the only reference to too many redirects mentions a Cloudflare API token, I'm not using Cloudflare nut I am using nginx proxy manager to point my URL to the docker container.

I hope some of this makes sense.

[–] ubergeek77@lemmy.ubergeek77.chat 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hey there, please note that running behind a reverse proxy is not supported. You can do it if you want, but you are kinda on your own, sorry.

If it helps, you will probably need to disable Caddy's TLS in the config, and you will need to make sure that the request reaches Caddy via the correct host. You can't reverse proxy directly to port 80 over an IP, it needs to think it's coming from an actual domain.

You can also check out my advanced configuration page to learn how to override the Caddyfile template and roll your own config that is more compatible for your use case.

Good luck!

[–] SonyJunkie@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thank you so much for replying.

I think this is above my skill level, but I will have a read through your advanced configuration page and see if I can understand it.

Thanks again, but I think I'm going to need more than luck!! LOL

[–] ubergeek77@lemmy.ubergeek77.chat 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You're welcome!

If you're not already, I recommend trying to host this on a cloud VPS service, such as Vultr, Linode, or DigitalOcean. This would give you a reliable, always online Lemmy instance, which means you won't miss any federation data. Even a cheap $5 VPS instance would be enough to get you started, though a $10 would give you more breathing room.

If you're hosting at home, it's generally not a good idea to do that, especially for an application like Lemmy. Most consumer grade network equipment at home might not be equipped to deal with the unrelenting 24/7 flood of data coming in due to federation. And if your power or internet ever goes out, you will be missing any comments, posts, or votes that were sent out during your downtime.

[–] SonyJunkie@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Thank you again. Yeah, I'm trying this from home as opposed to a vps. It's more as a learning exercise than a serious instance.

I'm still going to try and getting it working behind my reverse proxy, like I say, as a learning experience.

[–] Marxine@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

You kind Sir/Lady/Gentleperson are making the fediverse a better place with this help. Thanks a bunch, gonna definitely ease my attempts at eventually self-hosting!

[–] ipkpjersi@lemmy.one 1 points 1 year ago

Wow, I'll definitely look into this, thanks! Even if I don't use it, it still may be useful just reading through it.

[–] manager123321@kbin.social 0 points 1 year ago

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[–] marketingpro123@kbin.social 0 points 1 year ago

Exploring Go High Level:

What’s the Enthusiasm About?
Hello there! Are you familiar with Go High Level? If not, let's break it down. Imagine managing multiple apps for marketing. Sounds busy. That's where Go High Level comes in. It's like that friend who has a solution for everything. Whether you are working on creating an outstanding sales funnel or sending out an email campaign, this platform has your back. The best part? They let you test drive everything with a 14-day free trial. It's like trying out a new car but for your business. And if you ever need assistance, their support team is just a click away. Pretty exciting, huh?

So, How Much Does It Cost?
Alright, let's talk about the financial side. Go High Level offers 3 main plans. The Agency Starter Plan is perfect if you're just starting or have a small business. It's loaded with all the essential tools, and it's quite cost-effective. But if you're looking to scale up, the Agency Unlimited Plan is your best choice. It's like the VIP pass at a concert, giving you access to everything without any limitations. Not sure about committing? Remember that 14-day free trial I mentioned? It's a great way to give it a try without any obligations. Lastly, they offer a Pro plan that includes "SaaS mode," where you can white label the product under your brand. Fantastic!

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In a world full of sophisticated digital tools, Go High Level is like that all-in-one Swiss Army knife. There's no need to switch between apps because it has everything under one roof. Whether you're a newcomer or an experienced marketer, it's super user-friendly. It's not just about launching impressive campaigns; they ensure you understand their performance with top-notch analytics. There's even a white-label feature for marketing agencies, so you can add your brand and impress your clients.

Here is a link to their 14-day free trial:
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[–] sideone@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Hey @ubergeek77@lemmy.ubergeek77.chat, I'm trying this on an Aarm64 instance and the script says it only works on v0.17.4. Is there a plan to update to 0.18?

EDIT: the script fails for 0.17.4 here:

=> ERROR [lemmy builder 6/7] RUN cargo build --release 1183.5s

Build timer continues but CPU usage drops off. Any ideas where I've gone wrong?

[–] ubergeek77@lemmy.ubergeek77.chat 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Try again with the latest version of Lemmy Easy Deploy.

I am now building multiarch images for 0.18.x, and my script will now default to my multiarch images, so there is no longer a need to build it yourself :)

[–] sideone@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

I'll give it a go on Monday, cheers!

[–] ubergeek77@lemmy.ubergeek77.chat 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Before this week, I would have told you no. But I have big plans for the 0.18.1 update.

The Lemmy team has completely broken ARM support with seemingly no plan to support it again. They switched to a base Docker image that only supports x86_64. This is why your build fails. I still don't understand why they would move from a multiarch image to an x86_64-only one.

I've been working on this for about a week, and just yesterday I finished a GitHub Actions pipeline that builds multiarch images for x64/arm/arm64. I currently have successful builds for 0.18.1-rc.2. In a future update for my script, I will have it use these, that way ARM users don't need to compile it anymore. I just ask for a little patience, I haven't been able to do any work on Lemmy Easy Deploy since I've been working on this pipeline :)

I also do want to qualify - don't get your hopes up until you see it running for yourself. Ultimately, I am just a DevOps guy, not a Lemmy maintainer. I haven't tested my ARM images yet, and while I did my best to get these to build properly, I can't fix everything. If anything else breaks due to running on ARM, it will be up to the Lemmy team to fix those issues (which is not likely anytime soon, if their updated x86_64 Dockerfiles are any indication).

But, fingers crossed everything goes smoothly! Keep an eye out for an update, I'm working hard on it, hopefully I can get it out in time for 0.18.1!


EDIT:

Putting my notes on this progress here:

https://github.com/ubergeek77/Lemmy-Easy-Deploy/issues/17

[–] untilyouarrived@lemmy.gtfo.social 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm relatively competent installing server software, but the Lemmy instructions completely flummoxed me. Their docker instructions just don't work.

I ended up using the ansible docker scripts and filling out the blanks because I'm unfamiliar with ansible.

If this is as good as it sounds, you're doing everyone a massive favour.

[–] redcalcium@c.calciumlabs.com 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Nice! Looks like it even has update checker as well. Is there any reason why pictrs is not included in the update checker and hardcoded to version 0.3.1?

[–] ubergeek77@lemmy.ubergeek77.chat 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The Lemmy maintainers themselves seem to lock it at 0.3.1, and I wanted to maintain parity with their deployment. I know pictrs is up to at least 0.3.3, and has a release candidate for 0.4, but upstream Lemmy uses 0.3.1 for whatever reason, so that's why I lock it there.

It's excluded from the update checker because I don't have a stable way to check what version upstream is using. The Lemmy update checker just checks to see what the latest tag on LemmyNet/lemmy is. I could try and pull the latest Gitea tag for pictrs, but since upstream Lemmy isn't using the latest version, that's not really an option as something might break.

I considered trying to parse their docker-compose.yml file to see what version they use, but they seem to be restructuring their docker folder right now. The folder in main is completely different from the one tagged 0.17.4. If I assume a certain directory path for that file for every version after this, but they move it, my script will break. Sadly, until their Docker deployment files seem like they're going unchanged for a good few versions, I'll have to do it manually for now.

[–] redcalcium@c.calciumlabs.com 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I see, looks like it's a correct decision to me. Let the Lemmy developers worry about which version of pictrs to use themselves.

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