What is Discourse?

Discourse is the next-generation community forum platform. Discourse has a thoroughly modern design and is written in JavaScript. Page loads are very fast and new content is loaded as the user scrolls down the page. Discourse allows you to create categories, tag posts, manage notifications, create user profiles, and includes features to let communities govern themselves by voting out trolls and spammers. Discourse is built for mobile from the ground up and support high-res devices.

https://www.discourse.org/

TL;DR;

Docker Compose

$ curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bitnami/bitnami-docker-discourse/master/docker-compose.yml > docker-compose.yml
$ docker-compose up -d

Why use Bitnami Images?

Bitnami closely tracks upstream source changes and promptly publishes new versions of this image using our automated systems.
With Bitnami images the latest bug fixes and features are available as soon as possible.
Bitnami containers, virtual machines and cloud images use the same components and configuration approach - making it easy to switch between formats based on your project needs.
All our images are based on minideb a minimalist Debian based container image which gives you a small base container image and the familiarity of a leading linux distribution.
Bitnami container images are released daily with the latest distribution packages available.

This CVE scan report contains a security report with all open CVEs. To get the list of actionable security issues, find the "latest" tag, click the vulnerability report link under the corresponding "Security scan" field and then select the "Only show fixable" filter on the next page.

How to deploy Discourse in Kubernetes?

You can find an example for testing in the file test.yaml. To launch this sample file run:

$ kubectl apply -f test.yaml

NOTE: If you are pulling from a private containers registry, replace the image name with the full URL to the docker image. E.g.

image: 'your-registry/image-name:your-version'

Supported tags and respective `Dockerfile` links

NOTE: Debian 8 images have been deprecated in favor of Debian 9 images. Bitnami will not longer publish new Docker images based on Debian 8.

Learn more about the Bitnami tagging policy and the difference between rolling tags and immutable tags in our documentation page.

Subscribe to project updates by watching the bitnami/discourse GitHub repo.

Prerequisites

To run this application you need Docker Engine 1.10.0. Docker Compose is recommended with a version 1.6.0 or later.

How to use this image

Run Discourse with a Database Container

Running Discourse with a database server is the recommended way. You can either use docker-compose or run the containers manually.

Run the application using Docker Compose

This is the recommended way to run Discourse. You can use the following docker compose template:

NOTE: If you are pulling from a private containers registry, replace the image name with the full URL to the docker image. E.g.

discourse: image: 'your-registry/discourse:your-version'

version: '2'

services:
  postgresql:
    image: 'bitnami/postgresql:latest'
    volumes:
      - 'postgresql_data:/bitnami'
  redis:
    image: 'bitnami/redis:4.0'
    environment:
      - ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD=yes
    volumes:
      - 'redis_data:/bitnami'
  discourse:
    image: 'bitnami/discourse:latest'
    ports:
      - '80:3000'
    volumes:
      - 'discourse_data:/bitnami'
    depends_on:
      - postgresql
      - redis
  sidekiq:
    image: 'bitnami/discourse:latest'
    depends_on:
      - discourse
    volumes:
      - 'sidekiq_data:/bitnami'
    command: 'nami start --foreground discourse-sidekiq'
volumes:
  postgresql_data:
    driver: local
  redis_data:
    driver: local
  discourse_data:
    driver: local
  sidekiq_data:
    driver: local

Launch the containers using:

$ docker-compose up -d

Run the application manually

If you want to run the application manually instead of using docker-compose, these are the basic steps you need to run:

Create a new network for the application and the database:

$ docker network create discourse-tier

Start a Postgresql database in the network generated:

$ docker run -d --name postgresql --net=discourse-tier bitnami/postgresql

Note: You need to give the container a name in order to Discourse to resolve the host

Start Redis in the network generated:

$ docker run -d --name redis --net=discourse-tier \
    -e ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD=yes \
    bitnami/redis

Run the Discourse Sidekiq container:

$ docker run -d -p 80:3000 --name sidekiq --net=discourse-tier \
    bitnami/discourse nami start --foreground discourse-sidekiq

Run the Discourse container:

$ docker run -d -p 80:3000 --name discourse --net=discourse-tier bitnami/discourse

Then you can access your application at http://your-ip/

Persisting your application

If you remove the container all your data and configurations will be lost, and the next time you run the image the database will be reinitialized. To avoid this loss of data, you should mount a volume that will persist even after the container is removed.

For persistence you should mount a volume at the /bitnami path. Additionally you should mount a volume for persistence of the PostgreSQL, Redis data.

The above examples define docker volumes namely postgresql_data, redis_data, sidekiq_data and discourse_data. The Discourse application state will persist as long as these volumes are not removed.

To avoid inadvertent removal of these volumes you can mount host directories as data volumes. Alternatively you can make use of volume plugins to host the volume data.

Mount persistent folders in the host using docker-compose

This requires a sight modification from the template previously shown:

version: '2'

services:
  postgresql:
    image: 'bitnami/postgresql:latest'
    volumes:
      - '/path/to/your/local/postgresql_data:/bitnami'
  redis:
    image: 'bitnami/redis:4.0'
    environment:
      - ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD=yes
    volumes:
      - '/path/to/your/local/redis_data:/bitnami'
  discourse:
    image: 'bitnami/discourse:latest'
    ports:
      - '80:3000'
    volumes:
      - '/path/to/discourse-persistence:/bitnami'
    depends_on:
      - postgresql
      - redis
  sidekiq:
    image: 'bitnami/discourse:latest'
    depends_on:
      - discourse
    volumes:
      - '/path/to/sidekiq-persistence:/bitnami'
    command: 'nami start --foreground discourse-sidekiq'

Mount persistent folders manually

In this case you need to specify the directories to mount on the run command. The process is the same than the one previously shown:

If you haven't done this before, create a new network for the application and the database:

$ docker network create discourse-tier

Start a Postgresql database in the previous network:

$ docker run -d --name postgresql \
--net=discourse-tier \
--volume /path/to/postgresql-persistence:/bitnami \
bitnami/postgresql

Start Redis in the previous network as well:

$ docker run -d --name redis \
--net=discourse-tier \
 -e ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD=yes \
--volume /path/to/redis-persistence:/bitnami \
bitnami/redis

Note: You need to give the container a name in order for Discourse to resolve the host

Start Sidekiq in the previous network as well:

 $ docker run -d --name sidekiq \
  --net=discourse-tier \
  --volume /path/to/sidekiq-persistence:/bitnami \
  bitnami/discourse nami start --foreground discourse-sidekiq

Run the Discourse container:

$ docker run -d --name discourse -p 80:80 \
--net=discourse-tier \
--volume /path/to/discourse-persistence:/bitnami \
bitnami/discourse

Upgrade this application

Bitnami provides up-to-date versions of Postgresql and Discourse, including security patches, soon after they are made upstream. We recommend that you follow these steps to upgrade your container. We will cover here the upgrade of the Discourse container. For the Postgresql upgrade see https://github.com/bitnami/bitnami-docker-postgresql/blob/master/README.md#upgrade-this-image

Get the updated images:

$ docker pull bitnami/discourse:latest

Stop your container

For docker-compose: $ docker-compose stop discourse sidekiq
For manual execution: $ docker stop discourse sidekiq

Take a snapshot of the application state

$ rsync -a /path/to/discourse-persistence /path/to/discourse-persistence.bkp.$(date +%Y%m%d-%H.%M.%S)
$ rsync -a /path/to/sidekiq-persistence /path/to/sidekiq-persistence.bkp.$(date +%Y%m%d-%H.%M.%S)

Additionally, snapshot the PostgreSQL and Redis data.

You can use these snapshots to restore the application state should the upgrade fail.

Remove the currently running container

For docker-compose: $ docker-compose rm -v discourse sidekiq
For manual execution: $ docker rm -v discourse sidekiq

Run the new image

For docker-compose: $ docker-compose up discourse sidekiq
For manual execution (mount the directories if needed): docker run --name discourse bitnami/discourse:latest

Configuration

Environment variables

When you start the discourse image, you can adjust the configuration of the instance by passing one or more environment variables either on the docker-compose file or on the docker run command line. If you want to add a new environment variable:

For docker-compose add the variable name and value under the application section:

discourse:
  image: bitnami/discourse:latest
  ports:
    - 80:80
  environment:
    - DISCOURSE_PASSWORD=bitnami123
  volumes_from:
    - discourse_data:/bitnami

For manual execution add a -e option with each variable and value:

 $ docker run -d --name discourse -p 80:80 \
 --net=discourse-tier \
 --env DISCOURSE_PASSWORD=bitnami123 \
 --volume discourse_data:/bitnami \
 bitnami/discourse

Available variables:

DISCOURSE_USERNAME: Discourse application username. Default: user
DISCOURSE_PASSWORD: Discourse application password. Default: bitnami123
DISCOURSE_EMAIL: Discourse application email. Default: user@example.com
DISCOURSE_SITENAME: Discourse site name. Default: My site!
DISCOURSE_HOSTNAME: Discourse hostname to create application URLs for features such as email notifications and emojis. It can be either an IP or a domain. Default: www.example.com
DISCOURSE_PORT_NUMBER: Port number in which Discourse will run. Default: 3000
DISCOURSE_EXTERNAL_PORT_NUMBER: Port number for accessing Discourse. Default: 80
POSTGRESQL_ROOT_USER: Root user for the Postgresql database. Default: postgres
POSTGRESQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: Root password for Postgresql.
POSTGRESQL_HOST: Hostname for Postgresql server. Default: postgresql
POSTGRESQL_PORT_NUMBER: Port used by Postgresql server. Default: 5432
DISCOURSE_POSTGRESQL_USERNAME: Discourse application database user. bn_discourse
DISCOURSE_POSTGRESQL_PASSWORD: Discourse application database password. bitnami1
DISCOURSE_POSTGRESQL_NAME: Discourse application database name. bitnami_application
REDIS_HOST: Hostname for Redis. Default: redis
REDIS_PORT_NUMBER: Port used by Redis. Default: 6379
REDIS_PASSWORD: Password for Redis.

SMTP Configuration

To configure Discourse to send email using SMTP you can set the following environment variables for both container images, discourse and discourse-sidekiq:

SMTP_HOST: Host for outgoing SMTP email. No defaults.
SMTP_PORT: Port for outgoing SMTP email. No defaults.
SMTP_USER: User of SMTP used for authentication (likely email). No defaults.
SMTP_PASSWORD: Password for SMTP. No defaults.
SMTP_TLS: Whether use TLS protocol for SMTP or not. Default: true.

This would be an example of SMTP configuration using a GMail account:

docker-compose (application part):

  discourse:
    image: 'bitnami/discourse:latest'
    ports:
      - '80:3000'
    environment:
      - SMTP_HOST=smtp.gmail.com
      - SMTP_PORT=587
      - SMTP_USER=your_email@gmail.com
      - SMTP_PASSWORD=your_password
    volumes:
      - 'discourse_data:/bitnami'
  sidekiq:
    image: 'bitnami/discourse-sidekiq:latest'
    depends_on:
      - discourse
    volumes:
      - 'sidekiq_data:/bitnami'
    command: 'nami start --foreground discourse-sidekiq'
    environment:
      - SMTP_HOST=smtp.gmail.com
      - SMTP_PORT=587
      - SMTP_USER=your_email@gmail.com
      - SMTP_PASSWORD=your_password

Contributing

We'd love for you to contribute to this container. You can request new features by creating an issue, or submit a pull request with your contribution.

Issues

If you encountered a problem running this container, you can file an issue. For us to provide better support, be sure to include the following information in your issue:

Host OS and version
Docker version (docker version)
Output of docker info
Version of this container (echo $BITNAMI_APP_VERSION inside the container)
The command you used to run the container, and any relevant output you saw (masking any sensitive information)

License

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.

joanfont/bitnami-docker-discourse