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Installing Plume (fediverse blog platform)

Hi, this is just a quick tutorial to install Plume on Debian.

Step 1: Installing dependencies

First let's install the dependencies for Plume. Actually it's just the database because we're gonna use the precompiled binary for this tutorial.

sudo apt install postgresql

Step 2: Installing plume binaries

Now let's download all the binaries.

mkdir -p /usr/www/plume
cd /usr/www/plume
wget -O plume.tar.gz <installation tarball link for postgres>
tar -xvf plume.tar.gz
chmod +x bin/*
rm plume.tar.gz

Step 3: Configure

Now let's setup the database:

systemctl restart postgresql
su - postgres
createuser -d -P plume
createdb -O plume plume
exit

Then create the .env file for the configuration:

nano .env

Paste and change the following configuration:

DATABASE_URL=postgres://plume:PASSWORD@127.0.0.1:5432/plume
MIGRATION_DIRECTORY=migrations/postgres
BASE_URL=DOMAIN

And set the secret key using openssl

echo "ROCKET_SECRET_KEY=$(openssl rand -base64 32)" >> .env

Run the commands to migrate the database and create the instance:

./bin/plm migration run
./bin/plm search init
./bin/plm instance new
./bin/plm users new --admin

Step 4: Add SystemD service file

Let's open the plume.service file:

nano /etc/systemd/system/plume.service

And paste the following content:

[Unit]
Description=plume

[Service]
Type=simple
WorkingDirectory=/var/www/plume
ExecStart=/var/www/plume/bin/plume
TimeoutSec=30
Restart=always

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Enable and run the file:

systemctl enable plume
systemctl start plume
systemctl status plume

Step 5: Configuring the reverse proxy

Create the file plume.conf

nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/plume.conf

And paste the following content:

server {
	listen 80;
	listen [::]:80;

	server_name plume.example.tld;

	return 301 https://plume.example.tld$request_uri;
}

server {
	listen 443 ssl http2;
	listen [::]:443 ssl http2;

	location / {
		proxy_pass http://localhost:7878;

	    proxy_set_header Host $host;
    	proxy_set_header Connection       $http_connection;
	    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For  $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
    	proxy_set_header X-Scheme         $scheme;
	    proxy_buffering                   off;
	}

	include /etc/nginx/snippets/letsencrypt.conf;

	server_name plume.example.tld;

	ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/plume.example.tld/fullchain.pem;
	ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/plume.example.tld/privkey.pem;
	ssl_trusted_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/plume.example.tld/fullchain.pem;

	access_log /var/log/nginx/plume.access.log;
	error_log /var/log/nginx/plume.error.log;
}

Then enable this file by creating a symlink:

ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/plume.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/plume.conf

Step 6: Enable HTTPS

Make sure to create a new DNS entry for your domain name like this:

DomainTypeIP
plume.example.tldA12.34.56.78
plume.example.tldAAAA2a02:a03f:a1de:4600:467a:291d:a613:c637

Then stop nginx and generate a certificate:

systemctl stop nginx
certbot certonly --standalone -d plume.example.tld
systemctl start nginx

Conclusion

Congratulation, you just installed plume! You can now checkout your subdomain and plume should be there. You can then connect using your admin credentials and start writing and following blogs.