vpub-plus

Simple message board software and also a fork.

Examples

Status Cafe Forum

Installation

Using Docker and Docker Compose

You can try it out using Docker, for testing purposes you can skip configuring .env file and just run:

docker-compose up -d

And then you can navigate to localhost:1337 to see your very own forum!

Compiling vpub-plus from the source

To host it and install it you have to have:

• Golang
• Postgresql
• Git
• Make
• Systemd (optional)

Here is how to build vpub:

1. git clone https://github.com/hugmouse/vpub-plus.git
2. cd vpub-plus
3. make

You should now have vpub in ./bin/!

Creating a vpub user

For isolation purposes, we can create a user that is going to run a vpub instance

• useradd vpub

Make sure that vpub group exists too! And if it does not, then:

• groupadd vpub

Database setup

Make sure that you have postgresql installed!

• Create a new database: createdb vpub (or create it from psql)

Set up environment variables

Now you have to set those environment variables:

• DATABASE_URL - Postgresql connection URL
• SESSION_KEY - 32 bytes long session key
• CSRF_KEY - 32 bytes longs CSRF key
• CSRF_SECURE - Makes CSRF cookies secure (true/false)
• PORT - What port is going to be used by a vpub HTTP server

You can check the example configuration in systemd config!

---

At this point you can run vpub just fine, other steps are optional ones

Systemd config (optional)

Create a /etc/systemd/system/vpub.service file and add this example config to there:

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

[Unit]
Description="Message board"
Documentation="https://github.com/hugmouse/vpub-plus"

[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/vpub
User=vpub
Group=vpub

Environment=DATABASE_URL=postgres://[email protected]/vpub?sslmode=disable

# Default port 8080
Environment=PORT=1337

# Those keys should be 32 bytes long
Environment=SESSION_KEY=CHANGE ME
Environment=CSRF_KEY=CHANGE ME

# If you are going to use HTTPS, then use secure cookies
Environment=CSRF_SECURE=true

After that you just can run it like any other systemd service: systemctl enable --now vpub

If something goes wrong, you can use journalctl -eu vpub to troubleshoot this service

Where to go next

At this point a vpub service should be running on a 1337 port without HTTPS.

• You can add a reverse proxy, like NGINX, to handle a secure connection
• You can install a certbot that is going to create a let's encrypt cert for your domain

Credentials

On the first run vpub will create an admin user with the password "admin". Log in and change it by navigating to /admin/users route.

Registering new users

To register you have to have a unique key! Create one on /admin/keys page and use it to create a new user account.

Atom feed

You need to change the URL in settings to pass the atom feed check.

Specify your domain name in /admin/settings/edit like this: https://example.com/.