For a long time, I have been harboring the idea of building forums. Since 2021, I tried to use various forum systems, such as Discuz, Xiuno BBS, youBBS, HYPHP and Flarum. After continuous exploration and comparison, I finally chose Discourse.
Discourse is different from traditional forum systems in that even though the tutorials on its official website look simple, the actual operation is not easy. In my opinion, compared to other forum programs, Discourse does have a certain technical threshold for installation and configuration.
At one time, I remember there was a Discourse Chinese community, but then it was closed for some reason, and now I have to rely on the resources on the official website to solve the problem. Previously, I tried to install Discourse many times without success. This time, with the help of GPT, I finally finished the deployment after a few days of hard work. Next, I will share some of my experience and hope it will help other bloggers.
Notes on installing Discourse
1. Port issues
I’m using a VPS and have a pagoda panel installed on it, which already has several websites running. To avoid port conflicts, the default ports 80 and 443 need to be changed. This can be done directly in the `app.yml` file.
2. SMTP mail configuration
SMTP setup is one of the biggest problems I have encountered. At first, I tried to use QQ mailbox (port 465), but emails were never sent properly. Strangely, after about half an hour, QQ mailbox started to send a lot of emails, but the Discourse backend showed that the emails had failed to be sent and the task was still in progress. After that, I switched to port 587, but the problem was still there. In the end, I chose Gmail mailbox to solve the mail problem.
QQ mailbox is not completely unavailable, but there may be uncertainty in the configuration; in contrast, Gmail is more stable and reliable.
3. Selection of installation directory
Before installing Discourse, be sure to select the installation directory. If you need to rebuild the container but do not specify the directory location, it may result in data loss. Therefore, it is important to plan the catalog in advance.
4. Server configuration requirements
Discourse has a high memory and CPU usage, so it’s critical to choose the right machine before deploying. One of the main reasons why my previous installation failed was due to insufficient VPS memory.
Key tips for the installation process
1. Waiting patiently
Discourse’s deployment process is relatively slow, especially when running commands to rebuild containers, which can take 20 to 30 minutes or more. Even though it seems to be stuck, it is actually running in the background. It is important to make sure that the `app.yml` configuration is correct during installation, as you will need to rebuild the container after each change.
2. Preventing spam registrations
In order to avoid malicious registrations, the forums I deployed took an invitation to register. Previously, when using Discuz, I was frequently harassed by spam users due to open registrations, which was a real headache.
Welcome to my community!
After many efforts, I have successfully deployed my own forum, Bokeuquan Community. Currently, the community adopts an invitation registration mechanism, mainly to maintain a good discussion environment. We hope that interested bloggers can join and exchange and learn together. If you also have insights or questions during the deployment process, feel free to share your experience!
Put a link to my invite here:http://bkq.net.cn/invites/jtAvmM8WzQ
summarize
Although the deployment process of Discourse is slightly cumbersome, the installation and configuration is actually relatively simple as long as you master the basic process and points to note. These are some of the points and notes that I summarized during the build process, and I hope they can help fellow bloggers who want to try it out.