hack-chat-main/documentation/DEPLOY.md

Development Enviroment

1. Clone the repository.
   • Terminal Command: git clone https://github.com/hack-chat/main.git hackchat
2. Enter the directory in your terminal.
   • Terminal Command: cd hackchat
3. Install using npm.
   • Terminal Command: npm install
4. Start the application.
   • Terminal Command: npm start

Live Deployment Installation

1. (Follow steps 1 - 3 above)
2. Use PM2 to start the backend server.
   • Terminal Command: pm2 start ./server/main.js --node-args="-r esm" --name hackchat-dev-server
   • See tips below to make the server start on boot.
3. Migrate the contents of ./hackchat/client into any suitable directory of your webserver. HackChat comes bundled with http-server for development purposes only, it is highly recommended that you use a better web server such as Nginx or Apache.
4. (OPTIONAL) Cleanup; you may delete hackchat/clientSource and hackchat/documentation

Tips

• If you plan on using SSL to serve the client; you will need to use a reverse proxy, as TLS is not natively supported by the hack.chat server software (this may change in future releases).
• Do not use root. Installing while using the root account or installing with root privileges will result in an error similar to the following: npm WARN lifecycle hack.chat-v2@2.1.92~postinstall: cannot run in wd hack.chat-v2@2.1.91 cd ./clientSource && npm install && cd .. & cd ./server && npm install && npm run config (wd='/dir')
• PM2 may be configured to start the backend server on boot, read https://pm2.keymetrics.io/docs/usage/startup/
• On some computers, due to a bug in http-server, a blank page may be shown while attempting to open the default index page. If this happens, change the url to include index.html, or browse to a channel; http://127.0.0.1:3000/?programming
• Do not install using sudo apt install nodejs, instead use:

  cd ~
  curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_10.x -o nodesource_setup.sh
  sudo bash nodesource_setup.sh
  sudo apt install nodejs
  

• Quick setup script, tested on Ubuntu 18.
  • cd ~
  • nano ./hc_install.sh
  • Paste:

    #!/bin/bash
    cd ~
    sudo apt update
    sudo apt install build-essential git
    curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_10.x -o nodesource_setup.sh
    sudo bash nodesource_setup.sh
    sudo apt install nodejs
    nodejs -v
    npm -v
    git --version
    git clone https://github.com/hack-chat/main.git hackchat
    cd hackchat
    npm install
    

  • Ctrl + x
  • Y
  • chmod u+x ./hc_install.sh
  • ./hc_install.sh