szuru/INSTALL.md

This guide assumes Arch Linux. Although exact instructions for other distributions are different, the steps stay roughly the same.

Installing hard dependencies

user@host:~$ sudo pacman -S postgresql
user@host:~$ sudo pacman -S python
user@host:~$ sudo pacman -S python-pip
user@host:~$ sudo pacman -S ffmpeg
user@host:~$ sudo pacman -S npm
user@host:~$ sudo pip install virtualenv
user@host:~$ python --version
Python 3.5.1

The reason ffmpeg is used over, say, ImageMagick or even PIL is because of Flash and video posts.

Setting up a database

First, basic postgres configuration:

user@host:~$ sudo -i -u postgres initdb --locale en_US.UTF-8 -E UTF8 -D /var/lib/postgres/data
user@host:~$ sudo systemctl start postgresql
user@host:~$ sudo systemctl enable postgresql

Then creating a database:

user@host:~$ sudo -i -u postgres createuser --interactive
Enter name of role to add: szuru
Shall the new role be a superuser? (y/n) n
Shall the new role be allowed to create databases? (y/n) n
Shall the new role be allowed to create more new roles? (y/n) n
user@host:~$ sudo -i -u postgres createdb szuru
user@host:~$ sudo -i -u postgres psql -c "ALTER USER szuru PASSWORD 'dog';"

Preparing environment

Getting szurubooru:

user@host:~$ git clone https://github.com/rr-/szurubooru.git szuru
user@host:~$ cd szuru

Installing frontend dependencies:

user@host:szuru$ cd client
user@host:szuru/client$ npm install

npm sandboxes dependencies by default, i.e. installs them to ./node_modules. This is good, because it avoids polluting the system with the project's dependencies. To make Python work the same way, we'll use virtualenv. Installing backend dependencies with virtualenv looks like this:

user@host:szuru/client$ cd ../server
user@host:szuru/server$ virtualenv python_modules # consistent with node_modules
user@host:szuru/server$ source python_modules/bin/activate # enters the sandbox
(python_modules) user@host:szuru/server$ pip install -r requirements.txt # installs the dependencies

Preparing szurubooru for first run

1. Configure things:

   user@host:szuru$ cp config.yaml.dist config.yaml
   user@host:szuru$ vim config.yaml
   

   Pay extra attention to these fields:

   • base URL,
   • API URL,
   • data directory,
   • data URL,
   • database,
   • the smtp section.

2. Compile the frontend:

   user@host:szuru$ cd client
   user@host:szuru/client$ npm run build
   

3. Upgrade the database:

   user@host:szuru/client$ cd ../server
   user@host:szuru/server$ source python_modules/bin/activate
   (python_modules) user@host:szuru/server$ alembic upgrade head
   

   alembic should have been installed during installation of szurubooru's dependencies.

4. Run the tests:

   (python_modules) user@host:szuru/server$ ./test
   

It is recommended to rebuild the frontend after each change to configuration.

Wiring szurubooru to the web server

szurubooru is divided into two parts: public static files, and the API. It tries not to impose any networking configurations on the user, so it is the user's responsibility to wire these to their web server.

Below are described the methods to integrate the API into a web server:

1. Run API locally with waitress, and bind it with a reverse proxy. In this approach, the user needs to (from within virtualenv) install waitress with pip install waitress and then start szurubooru with ./host-waitress from within the server/ directory (see --help for details). Then the user needs to add a virtual host that delegates the API requests to the local API server, and the browser requests to the client/public/ directory.
2. Alternatively, Apache users can use mod_wsgi.
3. Alternatively, users can use other WSGI frontends such as gunicorn or uwsgi, but they'll need to write wrapper scripts themselves.

Note that the API URL in the virtual host configuration needs to be the same as the one in the config.yaml, so that client knows how to access the backend!

Example

nginx configuration - wiring API http://great.dude/api/ to localhost:6666 to avoid fiddling with CORS:

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name great.dude;
    merge_slashes off;  # to support post tags such as ///

    location ~ ^/api$ {
        return 302 /api/;
    }
    location ~ ^/api/(.*)$ {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:6666/$1$is_args$args;
    }
    location / {
        root /home/rr-/src/maintained/szurubooru/client/public;
        try_files $uri /index.htm;
    }
}

config.yaml:

api_url: 'http://big.dude/api/'
base_url: 'http://big.dude/'
data_url: 'http://big.dude/data/'
data_dir: '/home/rr-/src/maintained/szurubooru/client/public/data'

Then the backend is started with host-waitress from within virtualenv and ./server/ directory.