debian.md

Rocket.Chat on Debian

This installation guide was tested in the following environment:

• Rocket.Chat 4.6.0
• OS: Debian 11, 10, 9
• Mongodb 5.0
• NodeJS 14.18.3

Requirements

• Install MongoDB: Please refer to the official MongoDB documentation on how to install MongoDB on Debian. For the list of supported versions, see our documentation here.
• Install NodeJS: Follow the official guide to install NodeJS on a Debian system. Check out our page on supported node versions for your specific version. You can also use third-party tools like nvm or n.

Install Rocket.Chat

• Update your system by running

sudo apt -y update
sudo apt -y upgrade

• Install required packages/dependencies

sudo apt install -y curl build-essential graphicsmagick

• To download the latest Rocket.Chat version run the following command:

curl -L https://releases.rocket.chat/latest/download -o /tmp/rocket.chat.tgz

You can also use wget.

wget https://releases.rocket.chat/latest/download -O /tmp/rocket.chat.tgz

You can also download a specific version by replacing latest by the version number. E.g.

wget https://releases.rocket.chat/4.1.2/download -O /tmp/rocket.chat.tgz

• Extract the archive with tar:

tar xzf /tmp/rocket.chat.tgz -C /tmp

You should now see a new directory under /tmp named bundle.

• Next, install all the node dependencies:

(cd /tmp/bundle/programs/server; npm i)

If you're doing all this under the root user, which is not recommended, you'll need to pass the --unsafe-perm flag to npm along with sudo.

/tmp has been a temporary non-root user-writable location to prepare the bundle. For this guide, we're going to use /opt to be the final location but you can choose any other. Whatever may it be, if not/opt, make sure you change the location in all the other places it is specified.

sudo mv /tmp/bundle /opt/Rocket.Chat

Configure the Rocket.Chat service

Add the rocketchat user, set the right permissions on the Rocket.Chat folder and create the Rocket.Chat service file:

sudo useradd -M rocketchat && sudo usermod -L rocketchat

sudo chown -R rocketchat:rocketchat /opt/Rocket.Chat

Depending on how you install NodeJs, the path to the binary can be different. Save the current path in a variable

NODE_PATH=$(which node)

Now create the systemd service file

cat << EOF |sudo tee -a /lib/systemd/system/rocketchat.service
[Unit]
Description=The Rocket.Chat server
After=network.target remote-fs.target nss-lookup.target nginx.service mongod.service
[Service]
ExecStart=$NODE_PATH /opt/Rocket.Chat/main.js
StandardOutput=syslog
StandardError=syslog
SyslogIdentifier=rocketchat
User=rocketchat
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
EOF

The command above will create a barebone service file, this service file is what systemd will use to start your Rocket.Chat daemon/process.

Passing environment variables

Next you need to pass some environment variables to the running process. For more information of configuring via environment variables read this article.

Run:

sudo systemctl edit rocketchat

It should open up a text editor. Now write down the following,

[Service]
Environment=ROOT_URL=http://localhost:3000
Environment=PORT=3000
Environment=MONGO_URL=mongodb://localhost:27017/rocketchat?replicaSet=rs01
Environment=MONGO_OPLOG_URL=mongodb://localhost:27017/local?replicaSet=rs01

Change the values as you need. Save and exit.

MongoDB Configuration

Open the MongoDB config file (/etc/mongod.conf) in your favorite text editor. It is a simple YAML file.

Set the storage engine to wiredTiger.

storage:
  engine: wiredTiger

Enable replication, and name the replicaset rs01.

replication:
  replSetName: rs01

MongoDB replicaset is mandatory for Rocket.Chat > 1.0.0.

Your MongoDB config file should look something like the following:

storage:
  dbPath: /var/lib/mongodb
  journal:
    enabled: true
  engine: wiredTiger

systemLog:
  destination: file
  logAppend: true
  path: /var/log/mongodb/mongod.log

net:
  port: 27017
  bindIp: 127.0.0.1

processManagement:
  fork: true
  timeZoneInfo: /usr/share/zoneinfo

replication:
  replSetName: rs01

For a full list of available MongoDB config options read their official documentation.

Start MongoDB with the following command:

sudo systemctl enable --now mongod

Create the replicaset:

mongo --eval "printjson(rs.initiate())"

You can start Rocket.Chat now.

sudo systemctl enable --now rocketchat

Optional configurations

• Configure firewall rule
• Configure a HTTP reverse proxy to access Rocket.Chat server
• Configure mongo access control
• Configure production values for mongodb

Configure your Rocket.Chat server

Open a web browser and access the configured ROOT_URL (http://your-host-name.com-as-accessed-from-internet:3000), follow the configuration steps to set up an admin account and your organization and server info.