self-hosting.md

Talk - Self Hosting

Requirments

• Recommended: Hetzner (CPX11 it's enough, OS: Ubuntu 20.04) you can use this link to receive €⁠20 in cloud credits.
• Mandatory: Node.js at least 12x, better 16.15.1 LTS & npm
• Optional: Setup your own TURN server like coturn and change it on ICE_SERVERS
• Mandatory: Your domain name, example: your.domain.name
  • Set a DNS A record for that domain that point to Your Server public IPv4

---

Install the requirements (Note: Many of the installation steps require root or sudo access)

# Install NodeJS 16.X and npm
$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt -y install curl dirmngr apt-transport-https lsb-release ca-certificates
$ curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_16.x | sudo -E bash -
$ sudo apt-get install -y nodejs
$ npm install -g npm@latest

---

Quick start

# Clone Talk repo
$ git clone https://github.com/vasanthv/talk.git
# Go to Talk dir
$ cd talk
# Install dependencies
$ npm install
# Start the server
$ npm start

Check if is correctly installed: https://your.domain.name:3000

---

PM2

Using PM2 to run it as daemon

# Install pm2
$ npm install -g pm2
# Start the server
$ pm2 start server.js
# Takes a snapshot 
$ pm2 save
# Add it on startup
$ pm2 startup

---

Docker

If you want to use Docker

# Install docker and docker-compose
$ sudo apt install docker.io
$ sudo apt install docker-compose

# Build or rebuild services
$ docker-compose build
# Create and start containers
$ docker-compose up -d

Check if is correctly installed: https://your.domain.name:3000

---

Nginx & Certbot

In order to use it without the port number at the end, and to have encrypted communications (mandatory to make it work correctly), we going to install nginx and certbot

# Install Nginx
$ sudo apt-get install nginx

# Install Certbot (SSL certificates)
$ sudo apt install snapd
$ sudo snap install core; sudo snap refresh core
$ sudo snap install --classic certbot
$ sudo ln -s /snap/bin/certbot /usr/bin/certbot

# Setup Nginx sites
$ sudo vim /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default

Paste this:

# HTTP — redirect all traffic to HTTPS
server {
    if ($host = your.domain.name) {
        return 301 https://$host$request_uri;
    }
        listen 80;
        listen [::]:80  ;
    server_name your.domain.name;
    return 404;
}

# Check if all configured correctly
$ sudo nginx -t

# Active https for your domain name (follow the instruction)
$ sudo certbot certonly --nginx

# Add let's encrypt part on nginx config
$ sudo vim /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default

Paste this:

# Talk - HTTPS — proxy all requests to the Node app
server {
	# Enable HTTP/2
	listen 443 ssl http2;
	listen [::]:443 ssl http2;
	server_name your.domain.name;

	# Use the Let’s Encrypt certificates
	ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/your.domain.name/fullchain.pem;
	ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/your.domain.name/privkey.pem;

	location / {
		proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
		proxy_set_header Host $host;
		proxy_pass http://localhost:3000/;
		proxy_http_version 1.1;
		proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
		proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
	}
}

# Check if all configured correctly
$ sudo nginx -t

# Restart nginx
$ service nginx restart
$ service nginx status

# Auto renew SSL certificate
$ sudo certbot renew --dry-run

# Show certificates
$ sudo certbot certificates

Check Your Talk instance: https://your.domain.name

---

Update script

In order to have Your Talk instance always updated to latest, we going to create a script

$ cd
# Create a file talkUpdate.sh
$ vim talkUpdate.sh

---

If you use PM2, paste this:

#!/bin/bash

cd talk
git pull
pm2 stop server.js
sudo npm install
pm2 start server.js

---

If you use Docker, paste this:

#!/bin/bash

cd talk
git pull
docker-compose down
docker-compose build
docker images |grep '<none>' |awk '{print $3}' |xargs docker rmi
docker-compose up -d

---

Make the script executable

$ chmod +x talkUpdate.sh

Follow the commits of the Talk project here

To update Your Talk instance at latest commit, execute:

./talkUpdate.sh

---

Talk - Ngrok

If you want to self host it quickly, without all this settings, just follow this documentation