### WARNING: beta status - have fun but don't rely on it yet 🙏
Bonfire is currently beta software. While it's fun to play with it, we would not recommend running any production instances yet (meaning not using it for your primary fediverse identity) because it's not quite ready for that today.
_These instructions are for setting up Bonfire in production. If you want to run the backend in development, please refer to our [Developer Guide](./HACKING.md)!_
We recommend only granting an account to people you trust to minimise the attack surface. Accordingly, Bonfire ships with public registration disabled. The admin panel has an `invite` facility.
1. Install dependencies. You will need to install [just](https://github.com/casey/just#packages), and other requirements such as Docker (check the exact list of requirements based on the option you choose in step 2.)
2. Clone this repository and change into the directory:
The first thing to do is choose what flavour of Bonfire you want to deploy, as each flavour uses different Docker images and set of configs. For example if you want to run the `classic` flavour:
-`export MIX_ENV=prod FLAVOUR=classic` (you may also want to put this in the appropriate place in your system so your choice of flavour is remembered for next time)
5. Edit the config (especially the secrets) for the selected flavour in `./.env` (except if using the Bonfire co-op cloud recipe, which will create its own env file you should edit instead).
-`MAIL_DOMAIN` and `MAIL_KEY` to configure transactional email, you can for example sign up at [Mailgun](https://www.mailgun.com/) and then configure the domain name and key. Other providers are supported as well.
-`UPLOADS_S3_BUCKET` and the related API key and secret for uploads. WARNING: If you want to store uploads in an object storage rather than directly on your server (which you probably want, to not run out of space), you need to configure that up front, otherwise URLs will break if you change it later. See `config/runtime.exs` for extra variables to set if you're not using the default service and region (which is [Scaleway](https://www.scaleway.com/en/object-storage/) Paris).
These are the secret keys for which you should put random secrets. You can run `just secrets` to generate some:
The app needs some environment variables to be configured in order to work. The easy way to manage that is whit the `just` commands which take care of loading the environment for you.
In the `./config/` (which is a symbolic link to the config of the flavour you choose to run) directory of the codebase, there are following config files:
-`config.exs`: default base configuration, which itself loads many other config files, such as one for each installed Bonfire extension.
-`prod.exs`: default extra configuration for `MIX_ENV=prod`
-`runtime.exs`: extra configuration which is loaded at runtime (vs the others which are only loaded once at compile time, i.e. when you build a release)
### Option A - Install using Co-op Cloud (recommended)
[https://coopcloud.tech](https://coopcloud.tech) is an alternative to corporate clouds built by tech co-ops, and provides very useful tools for setting up and managing many self-hosted free software tools using ready-to-use "recipes".
If you're interested in hosting Bonfire alongside other open and/or federated projects, we recommend installing [Abra](https://docs.coopcloud.tech/abra/), [setting up a co-op cloud server](https://docs.coopcloud.tech/operators/) and using the [Bonfire recipe](https://recipes.coopcloud.tech/bonfire) (which provides it's own instructions, so read that and you can mostly ignore this document) to set up an instance.
The `docker-compose.release.yml` uses `config/prod/.env` to launch a container with the necessary environment variables along with its dependencies, currently that means an extra postgres container, along with a reverse proxy (Caddy server, which you may want to replace with nginx or whatever you prefer).
Make sure you have [Docker](https://www.docker.com/), a recent [docker-compose](https://docs.docker.com/compose/install/#install-compose) (which supports v3 configs), and [just](https://github.com/casey/just#packages) installed:
Now that your tooling is set up, you have the choice of using pre-built images or building your own. For example if your flavour does not have a prebuilt image on Docker Hub, or if you want to customise any of the extensions, you can build one yourself - see option A2 below.
- The `image` entry in `docker-compose.release.yml` will by default use the image on Docker Hub which corresponds to your chosen flavour (see step 1 above for choosing your flavour).
You can see the images available per flavour, version (we currently recommend using the `latest` tag), and architecture at https://hub.docker.com/r/bonfirenetworks/bonfire/tags
- Start the docker containers with docker-compose:
There are some useful database-related release tasks under `EctoSparkles.Migrator.` that can be run in an `iex` console (which you get to with `just rel.shell` followed by `bin/bonfire remote`, assuming the app is already running):
`Dockerfile.release` uses the [multistage build](https://docs.docker.com/develop/develop-images/multistage-build/) feature to just the image as small as possible. It generates the OTP release which is later copied into the final image packaged in an Alpine linux container.
Once you've built and tagged your image, you may need to update the `image` name in `docker-compose.release.release.yml` to match (either your local image name if running on the same machine you used for the build, or a remote image on Docker Hub if you pushed it) and then follow the same steps as for option A1.
For production, we recommend to set up a CI workflow to automate this, for an example you can look at the one [we currently use](../github/workflows/release.yaml).
- Elixir version 1.13 with OTP 24 (or newer). If your distribution only has an old version available, check [Elixir's install page](https://elixir-lang.org/install.html) or use a tool like [asdf](https://github.com/asdf-vm/asdf) (run `asdf install` in this directory).
- Run `mix release` to create an elixir release. This will create an executable in your `_build/prod/rel/bonfire` directory. We will be using the `bin/bonfire` executable from here on.
- If you’re using RDS or some other locked down DB, you may need to run `CREATE EXTENSION IF NOT EXISTS citext WITH SCHEMA public;` on your database with elevated privileges.
Your `flake.nix` file would look like the following. Remember to replace `myHostName` with your actual hostname or however your deployed system is called.
By default, the backend listens on port 4000 (TCP), so you can access it on http://localhost:4000/ (if you are on the same machine). In case of an error it will restart automatically.
Once you've signed up, you will automatically be an instance admin if you were the first to register.
The common and convenient way for adding HTTPS is by using a reverse proxy like Nginx or Caddyserver (the latter of which is bundled as part of the docker-compose setup).
Caddyserver and other servers can handle generating and setting up HTTPS certificates automatically, but if you need TLS/SSL certificates for nginx, you can look get some for free with [letsencrypt](https://letsencrypt.org/). The simplest way to obtain and install a certificate is to use [Certbot.](https://certbot.eff.org). Depending on your specific setup, certbot may be able to get a certificate and configure your web server automatically.