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Installing on Fedora

OTP releases and RedHat-distributions

While the OTP releases of Akkoma work on most Linux distributions, they do not work correctly with RedHat-distributions. Therefore from-source installations are the recommended way to go when trying to install Akkoma on Fedora, Centos Stream or RedHat.

However, it is possible to compile your own OTP release of Akkoma for RedHat. Keep in mind that this has a few drawbacks, and has no particular advantage over a from-source installation, since you'll need to install Erlang and Elixir anyway.

This guide will cover a from-source installation. For instructions on how to build your own OTP release, please check out the OTP for RedHat guide.

Installation

This guide will assume you are on Fedora 36. This guide should also work with current releases of Centos Stream and RedHat, although it has not been tested yet. It also assumes that you have administrative rights, either as root or a user with sudo permissions. If you want to run this guide with root, ignore the sudo at the beginning of the lines, unless it calls a user like sudo -Hu akkoma; in this case, use su <username> -s $SHELL -c 'command' instead.

Required dependencies

  • PostgreSQL 12+
  • Elixir 1.14+ (currently tested up to 1.16)
  • Erlang OTP 25+ (currently tested up to OTP26)
  • git
  • file / libmagic
  • gcc (clang might also work)
  • GNU make
  • CMake

Optional dependencies

  • ImageMagick
  • FFmpeg
  • exiftool

Prepare the system

  • First update the system, if not already done:
sudo dnf upgrade --refresh
  • Install some of the above mentioned programs:
sudo dnf install git gcc g++ make cmake file-devel postgresql-server postgresql-contrib
  • Enable and initialize Postgres: 
    sudo postgresql-setup --initdb --unit postgresql
# Allow password auth for postgres
sudo sed -E -i 's|(host +all +all +127.0.0.1/32 +)ident|\1md5|' /var/lib/pgsql/data/pg_hba.conf
sudo systemctl enable --now postgresql.service

Install Elixir and Erlang

  • Install Elixir and Erlang:
sudo dnf install elixir erlang-os_mon erlang-eldap erlang-xmerl erlang-erl_interface erlang-syntax_tools

Optional packages: docs/installation/optional/media_graphics_packages.md

  • Install ffmpeg (requires setting up the RPM-fusion repositories):
sudo dnf -y install https://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm
sudo dnf -y install https://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm
sudo dnf install ffmpeg
  • Install ImageMagick and ExifTool for image manipulation:
sudo dnf install ImageMagick perl-Image-ExifTool

Install AkkomaBE

  • Add a new system user for the Akkoma service:
sudo useradd -r -s /bin/false -m -d /var/lib/akkoma -U akkoma

Note: To execute a single command as the Akkoma system user, use sudo -Hu akkoma command. You can also switch to a shell by using sudo -Hu akkoma $SHELL. If you don’t have and want sudo on your system, you can use su as root user (UID 0) for a single command by using su -l akkoma -s $SHELL -c 'command' and su -l akkoma -s $SHELL for starting a shell.

  • Git clone the AkkomaBE repository from stable-branch and make the Akkoma user the owner of the directory:
sudo mkdir -p /opt/akkoma
sudo chown -R akkoma:akkoma /opt/akkoma
sudo -Hu akkoma git clone https://akkoma.dev/AkkomaGang/akkoma.git -b stable /opt/akkoma
  • Change to the new directory:
cd /opt/akkoma
  • Install the dependencies for Akkoma and answer with yes if it asks you to install Hex:
sudo -Hu akkoma mix deps.get
  • Generate the configuration: sudo -Hu akkoma MIX_ENV=prod mix pleroma.instance gen
  • Answer with yes if it asks you to install rebar3.
  • This may take some time, because parts of akkoma get compiled first.

  • After that it will ask you a few questions about your instance and generates a configuration file in config/generated_config.exs.

  • Check the configuration and if all looks right, rename it, so Akkoma will load it (prod.secret.exs for productive instances):

sudo -Hu akkoma mv config/{generated_config.exs,prod.secret.exs}
  • The previous command creates also the file config/setup_db.psql, with which you can create the database:
sudo -Hu postgres psql -f config/setup_db.psql
  • Now run the database migration:
sudo -Hu akkoma MIX_ENV=prod mix ecto.migrate
  • Now you can start Akkoma already
sudo -Hu akkoma MIX_ENV=prod mix phx.server

Finalize installation

If you want to open your newly installed instance to the world, you should run nginx or some other webserver/proxy in front of Akkoma and you should consider to create a systemd service file for Akkoma.

Nginx

  • Install nginx, if not already done:
sudo dnf install nginx
  • Copy the example nginx configuration and activate it:
sudo cp /opt/akkoma/installation/nginx/akkoma.nginx /etc/nginx/conf.d/akkoma.conf
  • Before starting nginx edit the configuration and change it to your needs (e.g. change servername, change cert paths)
  • Enable and start nginx:
sudo systemctl enable --now nginx.service
  • Setup your SSL cert, using your method of choice or certbot. If using certbot, first install it:
sudo dnf install certbot python3-certbot-nginx

and then set it up:

sudo certbot --email <your@emailaddress> -d <yourdomain> -d <media_domain> --nginx

If that doesn't work the first time, add --dry-run to further attempts to avoid being ratelimited as you identify the issue, and do not remove it until the dry run succeeds. A common source of problems are nginx config syntax errors; this can be checked for by running nginx -t.

Certificate renewal should be handled automatically by Certbot from now on.

Other webserver/proxies

You can find example configurations for them in /opt/akkoma/installation/.

Systemd service

  • Copy example service file
sudo cp /opt/akkoma/installation/akkoma.service /etc/systemd/system/akkoma.service
  • Edit the service file and make sure that all paths fit your installation
  • Enable and start akkoma.service:
sudo systemctl enable --now akkoma.service

Create your first user

If your instance is up and running, you can create your first user with administrative rights with the following task:

sudo -Hu akkoma MIX_ENV=prod mix pleroma.user new <username> <your@emailaddress> --admin

Installing Frontends

Once your backend server is functional, you'll also want to probably install frontends.

These are no longer bundled with the distribution and need an extra command to install.

For most installations, the following will suffice:

./bin/pleroma_ctl frontend install pleroma-fe --ref stable
# and also, if desired
./bin/pleroma_ctl frontend install admin-fe --ref stable

mix pleroma.frontend install pleroma-fe --ref stable
mix pleroma.frontend install admin-fe --ref stable

./docker-resources/manage.sh mix pleroma.frontend install pleroma-fe --ref stable
./docker-resources/manage.sh mix pleroma.frontend install admin-fe --ref stable

For more customised installations, refer to Frontend Management

Further reading

Support

If you encounter any issues or have questions regarding the install process, feel free to ask at meta.akkoma.dev.

Or message via IRC on #akkoma at irc.akkoma.dev (port 6697, SSL)