zulip/docs/prod-install.md

Installing Zulip in production

Ensure you have an Ubuntu system that satisfies the installation requirements.

These instructions should be followed as root.

(1) Install the SSL certificates for your machine to /etc/ssl/private/zulip.key and /etc/ssl/certs/zulip.combined-chain.crt.

If you don't know how to generate an SSL certificate, you can do the following to generate a self-signed certificate:

apt-get install openssl
openssl genrsa -des3 -passout pass:x -out server.pass.key 4096
openssl rsa -passin pass:x -in server.pass.key -out zulip.key
rm server.pass.key
openssl req -new -key zulip.key -out server.csr
openssl x509 -req -days 365 -in server.csr -signkey zulip.key -out zulip.combined-chain.crt
rm server.csr
cp zulip.key /etc/ssl/private/zulip.key
cp zulip.combined-chain.crt /etc/ssl/certs/zulip.combined-chain.crt

You will eventually want to get a properly signed SSL certificate (and note that at present the Zulip desktop app doesn't support self-signed certificates), but this will let you finish the installation process. When you do get an actual certificate, you will need to install as /etc/ssl/certs/zulip.combined-chain.crt the full certificate authority chain, not just the certificate; see the section on "SSL certificate chains" in the nginx docs for how to do this:

You can get a free, properly signed certificate from the Let's Encrypt service; here are the simplified instructions for using it with Zulip (run it all as root):

sudo apt-get install -y git bc openssl
git clone https://github.com/letsencrypt/letsencrypt /opt/letsencrypt
cd /opt/letsencrypt
./letsencrypt-auto certonly --standalone

# Now symlink the certificates to make them available where Zulip expects them.
# Replace YOUR_DOMAIN with your domain name.
ln -s /etc/letsencrypt/live/YOUR_DOMAIN/privkey.pem /etc/ssl/private/zulip.key
ln -s /etc/letsencrypt/live/YOUR_DOMAIN/fullchain.pem /etc/ssl/certs/zulip.combined-chain.crt

If you already had a webserver installed on the system (e.g. you previously installed Zulip and are now getting a cert), you will need to stop the webserver (e.g. service nginx stop) and start it again after (e.g. service nginx start) running the above.

Finally, if you want to proceed with just an IP address, it is possible to finish a Zulip installation that way; just set EXTERNAL_HOST to be the IP address.

(2) Download the latest built server tarball and unpack it to /root/zulip, e.g.

wget https://www.zulip.com/dist/releases/zulip-server-latest.tar.gz
mkdir -p /root/zulip && tar -xf zulip-server-latest.tar.gz --directory=/root/zulip --strip-components=1

(3) Run

/root/zulip/scripts/setup/install

This may take a while to run, since it will install a large number of packages via apt.

The Zulip install script is designed to be idempotent, so if it fails, you can just rerun it after correcting the issue that caused it to fail.

(4) Configure the Zulip server instance by filling in the settings in /etc/zulip/settings.py. Be sure to fill in all the mandatory settings, enable at least one authentication mechanism, and do the configuration required for that authentication mechanism to work. See the section on Authentication for more detail on configuring authentication mechanisms.

(5) Run

su zulip -c /home/zulip/deployments/current/scripts/setup/initialize-database

This will report an error if you did not fill in all the mandatory settings from /etc/zulip/settings.py. Once this completes successfully, the main installation process will be complete, and if you are planning on using password authentication, you should be able to visit the URL for your server and register for an account.

(6) Subscribe to the Zulip announcements Google Group to get announcements about new releases, security issues, etc.

Congratulations! Next: Authentication and logging into Zulip the first time.