Install from Scratch - Lemmy Documentation
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I’m trying this on Ubuntu 22.04 Rust’s cargo install seems to keep creating permission problems between what I have to install, compile and what gets published in the cargo “registry”, which causes issues at runtime when I run as lemmy:lemmy through systemctl.

If I run: cargo install lemmy_server --target-dir /usr/bin/ --locked --features embed-pictrs as a non-root user, I get permission denied issues with /usr/bin/.future-incompat-report.json and /usr/bin/release

If I run the build as a root user, and then manually copy the binaries to /usr/bin and chmod them to lemmy:lemmy, then try to run as lemmy:lemmy, it appears the binary is trying to access some “registry” files in /root/.cargo/registry (for which of course it does not have permissions.)

How do I fix this?

  • KIM_JONG_JUICEBOXOP
    1·
    2 years ago

    Thank you, again!

    How was I to know {version} in the REST endpoint path was supposed to be “v3”?

    Any luck with the lemmy-ui install?

    • RoundSparrow
      1·
      2 years ago

      I knew it was v3 because I saw a webapp failure on one of the Lemmy instance (lemmy.ml) I was using ;) We need to update those install documents.

      It seems right now I can get a client to load, but websockets aren’t working. Others on Reddit reported the same issue: https://old.reddit.com/r/Lemmy/comments/142sszq/spinning_up_lemmy_websockets_dont_connect/

      EDIT: Ok, I solved the websocket problem by using proper nginx config that the instructions said. I was confused about the domain names with the certification generation as I already had some nginx certs for other subdomains in place.

        • RoundSparrow
          2·
          2 years ago

          Oops. I was running some test code that IIRC set the bot field (it was code for creating a bot) on my own login. I just changed it. Thanks for letting me know.

          • KIM_JONG_JUICEBOXOP
            2·
            2 years ago

            Well, you are the only person really responding to me here with helpful information.

            So if you are a bot, I welcome our new robot overlords.

            I’m still trying to get the lemmy-ui installed. I’ll check your links. Looks like they updated the join-lemmy.org page.

            I owe you a beer, or a pint of 10w-40.

            • RoundSparrow
              1·
              2 years ago

              ha.

              I didn’t have much trouble with lemmu-ui, I ended up following instructions that put it at /var/lib/lemmy-ui on Ubuntu 22.04 server.

              I already had nginx running for a different domain name on that server, so that confused me for a while. As the SSL certification instructions assume you have an empty nginx server, it won’t prompt you for domain names if you already have some defined. Once I figured that out, the instructions worked fine.

              1. I moved all my live site config files out of /etc/nginx/sites-enabled

              2. ran the certbot certonly --nginx command from the 'From Scratch" instructions, which now prompted me for domain names interactively.

              3. put back my previous sites-enabled files I removed in step 1.

              4. Then the template in the ‘From Scratch’ instructions worked fine after the sed commands to modify it: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/LemmyNet/lemmy-ansible/main/templates/nginx.conf

              Are you stuck on updating NodeJS on your server? I already had Node apps on my server, so I followed my standard setup for node. I’m running lemmy-ui on Node.js v19.4.0, I think it probably wold work on version 20.x too. My npm --version says 9.3.1 and my yarn --version says 1.22.19

              • KIM_JONG_JUICEBOXOP
                2·
                2 years ago

                Thanks @RoundSparrow

                I am able to bring things up and I can create an admin user by visiting the /setup URL.

                Problem is, after I create my admin user, the /setup URL appears to still be active.

                Is there some step I am missing to disable this /setup page after I have created my admin user?

                • RoundSparrow
                  2·
                  2 years ago

                  There are security/data-exposure issues with this that I raised on Github… https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/issues/3060 (I’m RocketDerp)

                  My testing shows that visiting /setup on Lemmy isn’t restricted. it behaves differently if you are logged-in or not logged-in. If not logged-in, it presents a form to create an admin user. If logged-in (even as a normal non-admin user) it shows the site configuration.

                  Since /setup has to be accessible to someone not logged-in, the whole design is a race condition for some script-kiddie to admin-create wen installing on a public remote server. The admin accounts should probably be managed from Linux shell and not from lemmy-ui

                  • KIM_JONG_JUICEBOXOP
                    2·
                    2 years ago

                    Ok, thanks for confirming that I am not entirely insane.

                    1 - I visited other lemmy instances and saw that the /setup URL was still accessible.

                    That seems like a huge bug / security issue.

                    2 - How did you configure and daemonize pictrs?

                    I don’t want to run that as root, so I ended up creating a pictrsxx user

                    And a systemd service that runs as that user.

                    /etc/systemd/system/lemmy-pictrsxx.service

                    Which makes me wonder, what is the purpose of this “embed-pictrs” option.

                    cargo install lemmy_server --target-dir /usr/bin/ --locked --features embed-pictrs

                    3 - email

                    Still can’t get smtp to work.