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Pre-requisites

Before proceeding, make sure you have the latest version of docker and docker-compose installed. As of now [at the time of writing this doc], we recommend a version equal to or higher than the following.
Container name uses dashes instead of underscores by default with new docker/compose versions. If you are using an older version of docker/compose, replace - with _. Also, use docker-compose instead of docker compose.

Steps to deploy AirysChat using docker-compose

1. Install Docker on your VM

2. Download the required files

3. Configure environment variables

Tweak the .env and docker-compose.yaml according to your preferences. Refer to the available environment variables. You could also remove the dependent services like Postgres, Redis etc., in favor of managed services configured via environment variables.

4. Prepare the database

5. Start the services

6. Access your installation

Your AirysChat installation is complete. Please note that the containers are not exposed to the internet and they only bind to the localhost. Setup something like Nginx or any other proxy server to proxy the requests to the container. If you want to verify whether the installation is working, try curl -I localhost:3000/api to see if it returns 200. Also, you could temporarily drop the 127.0.0.1:3000:3000 for rails to 3000:3000 in the compose file to access your instance at http://<your-external-ip>:3000. It’s recommended to revert this change back and use Nginx or some proxy server in the front.

Additional Steps

  1. Have an Nginx web server acting as a reverse proxy for AirysChat installation. So that you can access AirysChat from https://chat.yourdomain.com
  2. Run docker compose run --rm rails bundle exec rails db:airyschat_prepare whenever you decide to update the AirysChat images to handle the migrations.

Configure Nginx and Let’s Encrypt

1. Configure Nginx to serve as a frontend proxy

2. Use the following Nginx config

Use the following Nginx config after replacing the yourdomain.com in server_name.

3. Verify and reload Nginx config

4. Run Let’s Encrypt to configure SSL certificate

5. Access your installation

Your AirysChat installation should be accessible from the https://yourdomain.com now.

Steps to build images yourself

We publish our base images to the Docker hub. You should be able to build your AirysChat web/worker images from these base images.

Web

Worker

The app servers will run available on port 3000. Ensure the images connect to the same database and Redis servers. Provide the configuration for these services via environment variables.

Initial database setup

To set up the database for the first time, you must run rails db:airyschat_prepare. You may get errors if you try to run rails db:migrate at this point.

Upgrading

If you’re not using the latest or latest-ce tag, you first need to change the desired tag in your docker-compose file. After that you can pull the new image and start using them:
Finally you may need to update the database:

Running Rails Console

AirysChat CE edition docker images

If you want to run AirysChat CE edition, replace the docker image tag with equivalent foss version tag. Docker tag for current master would be latest-ce. Version specific tags would follow the pattern v*-ce. For example the docker ce edition tag for AirysChat v2.3.2 would be v2.3.2-ce.