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Install Lemmy from Scratch docs seem broken

join-lemmy.org Install from Scratch - Lemmy Documentation

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?

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  • The lemmy-ui steps, the next part - are pretty outdated. It has instructions to install NodeJS 12.x, which is really far back. I have no idea which version the Docker install is using...

    The latest version of Node is 20

    • Before I even get there, the instructions say I should be able to run

      curl localhost:8536/api/{version}/site

      And it should return some json structure.

      But I see this returning 404

      lemmy_server[41511]: 2023-06-09T17:02:35.296098Z  INFO actix_web::middleware::logger: 127.0.0.1 "GET /api/0.17.3/site HTTP/1.1" 404 0 "-" "curl/7.81.0" 0.000074

      Is that the correct way to specify the version?

      Is there a better log than journalctl which would actually tell me what REST endpoints it is using?

      • Is that the correct was to specify the version?

        No, I had to dig around too, the correct command is:

        curl localhost:8536/api/v3/site

        • 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?

          • I found another documentation page that actually tells you how to get the "v3" version....

            https://join-lemmy.org/docs/en/contributors/04-api.html

            That needs to be part of the "Lemmy from Scratch" documentation page too.

          • 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/

            • Why are you tagged as bot account?

              • 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.

                • 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.

                  • 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

                    • 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?

                      • 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

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