Lemmy-Ansible

This provides an easy way to install Lemmy on any server. It automatically sets up an nginx server, letsencrypt certificates, and email.

Requirements

To run this ansible playbook, you need to:

Have a Debian-based server / VPS where lemmy will run.
Configure a DNS A Record to point at your server's IP address.
Make sure you can ssh to it, with a sudo user: ssh <your-user>@<your-domain>
Install Ansible on your local machine (do not install it on your destination server).

Clone this repo:

git clone https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy-ansible.git
cd lemmy-ansible

Make a directory to hold your config:

mkdir -p inventory/host_vars/<your-domain>
Copy the sample configuration file:

cp examples/config.hjson inventory/host_vars/<your-domain>/config.hjson

Edit that file and change the config to your liking. Note: Do not edit anything inside the {{ }} braces.

Here are all the config options.
Copy the sample inventory hosts file:

cp examples/hosts inventory/hosts

Edit the inventory hosts file (inventory/hosts) to your liking.
Copy the sample postgresql.conf

cp examples/customPostgresql.conf inventory/host_vars/<your-domain>/customPostgresql.conf

You can use the PGTune tool to tune your postgres to meet your server memory and CPU.
Run the playbook:

ansible-playbook -i inventory/hosts lemmy.yml

Note: if you are not the root user or don't have password-less sudo, use this command:

ansible-playbook -i inventory/hosts lemmy.yml --become --ask-become-pass

Note: if you haven't set up ssh keys¹, and ssh using a password, use the command:

ansible-playbook -i inventory/hosts lemmy.yml --become --ask-pass --ask-become-pass

Full ansible command-line docs

If the command above fails, you may need to comment out this line In the ansible.cfg file:

interpreter_python=/usr/bin/python3

Run git pull
Check out the Lemmy Releases Changelog to see if there are any config changes with the releases since your last.
Run ansible-playbook -i inventory/hosts lemmy.yml --become

Follow this guide to backup your existing install.
Run docker-compose stop to stop lemmy.
Move your docker folders on the server to <lemmy_base_dir>/<your-domain>.
Copy your postgres password to inventory/host_vars/<your-domain>/passwords/postgres.
Follow the install guide above, making sure your config.hjson is the same as your backup.

ansible-playbook -i inventory/hosts uninstall.yml --become

To create an ssh key pair with your host environment, you can follow the instructions here, and then copy the key to your host server. ↩