Setup a Digital Ocean server using Meteor Up

This page documents the process of setting up a cloud-based server for RadGrad using Digital Ocean and Meteor Up.

Buy a custom domain name for your RadGrad server

Use a service such as NameCheap to buy a domain name for your RadGrad server. This is necessary in order to enable HTTPS for secure communication with your RadGrad server.

Create an Digital Ocean Ubuntu server (i.e. Droplet)

Login to Digital Ocean, then click on the "Create" button and select a Droplet (Ubuntu server). Create a root password and save it someplace safe.

Configure NameCheap and Digital Ocean services to support the custom domain

You will need to tell NameCheap that Digital Ocean will be providing the name servers, and you will need to tell Digital Ocean to connect the custom domain to your droplet.

For detailed instructions, see How to set up a custom domain name.

When you are finished, you should be able to run nslookup and have it resolve your custom domain name correctly. For example:

$ nslookup radgrad-comp-eng.design
Server:     10.0.1.1
Address:    10.0.1.1#53

Non-authoritative answer:
Name:   radgrad-comp-eng.design
Address: 159.65.65.229

Configure app/.deploy/mup.js

Copy app/.deploy/sample.mup.js file to mup.js. It will look something like this:

module.exports = {
  servers: { one: { host: 'CHANGEME.EDU', username: 'root', password: 'CHANGEME' }},
  hooks: { 'pre.deploy': { localCommand: 'npm run update-build-version' }},
  app: {
    name: 'radgrad',
    path: '../',
    servers: { one: {}},
    buildOptions: { serverOnly: true, debug: true },
    env: {
      ROOT_URL: 'https://CHANGME.EDU',
      MONGO_URL: 'mongodb://mongodb/meteor',
      MONGO_OPLOG_URL: 'mongodb://mongodb/local',
    },
    docker: { image: 'abernix/meteord:node-12-base' },
    enableUploadProgressBar: true,
    deployCheckWaitTime: 900
  },
  mongo: { version: '3.4.1', servers: { one: {} } },
  proxy: {
    domains: 'CHANGEME.EDU',
    ssl: { letsEncryptEmail: 'CHANGEME@HAWAII.EDU', forceSSL: true }
  }
};

Note that there are several occurrences of the string “CHANGEME”. This indicates the parts of the mup.js file that need to be configured for your application. You can edit these strings to be lower case, they are upper case only to make them stand out in the file.

Note: that the “host” and "domains" values are just the domain name. For example, if your domain name is "radgrad-comp-eng.design", then the value of "host" and "domains" should be "radgrad-comp-eng.design". Do not include "https://" in these fields.

However, the ROOT_URL includes the protocol. For example, if your domain name is "radgrad-comp-eng.design", then the value of ROOT_URL should be “https://radgrad-comp-eng.design”.

Configure app/.deploy/settings.js

Copy app/.deploy/sample.settings.js to settings.js. Edit this file to include appropriate credentials and other information specific to your deployment.

Run mup setup

Inside the app/.deploy directory, invoke “mup setup” (or “mup.cmd setup” on Windows). You should get output like the following:

$ mup setup

Started TaskList: Setup Docker
[167.172.222.158] - Setup Docker
[167.172.222.158] - Setup Docker: SUCCESS

Started TaskList: Setup Meteor
[167.172.222.158] - Setup Environment
[167.172.222.158] - Setup Environment: SUCCESS

Started TaskList: Setup Mongo
[167.172.222.158] - Setup Environment
[167.172.222.158] - Setup Environment: SUCCESS
[167.172.222.158] - Copying Mongo Config
[167.172.222.158] - Copying Mongo Config: SUCCESS

Started TaskList: Start Mongo
[167.172.222.158] - Start Mongo
[167.172.222.158] - Start Mongo: SUCCESS

Next, you should run:
    mup deploy

$

For more details on the setup command, see http://meteor-up.com/docs.html#setting-up-a-server.

Note that if you get an error involving "Error response from daemon: endpoint mup-nginx-proxy not found", that's OK. It will get fixed in the following steps.server

Run mup reconfig

Now invoke mup reconfig:

$ mup reconfig

Started TaskList: Configuring App
[meteor-application-template-react.xyz] - Pushing the Startup Script
[meteor-application-template-react.xyz] - Pushing the Startup Script: SUCCESS
[meteor-application-template-react.xyz] - Sending Environment Variables
[meteor-application-template-react.xyz] - Sending Environment Variables: SUCCESS

Started TaskList: Start Meteor
[meteor-application-template-react.xyz] - Start Meteor
[meteor-application-template-react.xyz] - Start Meteor: SUCCESS
[meteor-application-template-react.xyz] - Verifying Deployment
[meteor-application-template-react.xyz] - Verifying Deployment: SUCCESS
$

If mup setup resulted in an error above, now run it again (and the problem should go away):

$ mup setup

Started TaskList: Setup Docker
[meteor-application-template-react.xyz] - Setup Docker
[meteor-application-template-react.xyz] - Setup Docker: SUCCESS

Started TaskList: Setup Meteor
[meteor-application-template-react.xyz] - Setup Environment
[meteor-application-template-react.xyz] - Setup Environment: SUCCESS

Started TaskList: Setup Mongo
[meteor-application-template-react.xyz] - Setup Environment
[meteor-application-template-react.xyz] - Setup Environment: SUCCESS
[meteor-application-template-react.xyz] - Copying Mongo Config
[meteor-application-template-react.xyz] - Copying Mongo Config: SUCCESS

Started TaskList: Start Mongo
[meteor-application-template-react.xyz] - Start Mongo
[meteor-application-template-react.xyz] - Start Mongo: SUCCESS

Started TaskList: Setup proxy
[meteor-application-template-react.xyz] - Setup Environment
[meteor-application-template-react.xyz] - Setup Environment: SUCCESS
[meteor-application-template-react.xyz] - Pushing the Startup Script
[meteor-application-template-react.xyz] - Pushing the Startup Script: SUCCESS
[meteor-application-template-react.xyz] - Pushing Nginx Config Template
[meteor-application-template-react.xyz] - Pushing Nginx Config Template: SUCCESS
[meteor-application-template-react.xyz] - Pushing Nginx Config
[meteor-application-template-react.xyz] - Pushing Nginx Config: SUCCESS
[meteor-application-template-react.xyz] - Cleaning Up SSL Certificates
[meteor-application-template-react.xyz] - Cleaning Up SSL Certificates: SUCCESS
[meteor-application-template-react.xyz] - Configure Nginx Upstream
[meteor-application-template-react.xyz] - Configure Nginx Upstream: SUCCESS

Started TaskList: Start proxy
[meteor-application-template-react.xyz] - Start proxy
[meteor-application-template-react.xyz] - Start proxy: SUCCESS

Next, you should run:
    mup deploy
$

Run mup deploy

Now you can bundle up your Meteor application, send it over to the Droplet, and start it running on your Droplet.

Inside the app/.deploy directory, invoke “mup deploy” (or, on Windows “mup.cmd deploy”). You should get output like the following:

$ mup deploy
Building App Bundle Locally

Started TaskList: Pushing Meteor App
[167.172.222.158] - Pushing Meteor App Bundle to the Server
[167.172.222.158] - Pushing Meteor App Bundle to the Server: SUCCESS
[167.172.222.158] - Prepare Bundle
[167.172.222.158] - Prepare Bundle: SUCCESS

Started TaskList: Configuring App
[167.172.222.158] - Pushing the Startup Script
[167.172.222.158] - Pushing the Startup Script: SUCCESS
[167.172.222.158] - Sending Environment Variables
[167.172.222.158] - Sending Environment Variables: SUCCESS

Started TaskList: Start Meteor
[167.172.222.158] - Start Meteor
[167.172.222.158] - Start Meteor: SUCCESS
[167.172.222.158] - Verifying Deployment
[167.172.222.158] - Verifying Deployment: SUCCESS

For more details on the deploy command, see http://meteor-up.com/docs.html#deploying-an-app.

After deployment finishes, the app should be live.

Check status of deployment through logs

To ensure that what you wanted to have happen actually happened, check the logs with mup logs:

mup logs

Sample invocation and results:

mup logs
[radgrad2.ics.hawaii.edu]=> Starting meteor app on port:3000
[radgrad2.ics.hawaii.edu]Monti APM: completed instrumenting the app
[radgrad2.ics.hawaii.edu]Beginning startup.
[radgrad2.ics.hawaii.edu]Invoking defineAdminUser
[radgrad2.ics.hawaii.edu]Defining admin radgrad@hawaii.edu with password asfasdf
[radgrad2.ics.hawaii.edu]Invoking loadDatabase
[radgrad2.ics.hawaii.edu]Monti APM: Successfully connected

Find and save the admin password

Extremely Important Note: Each time you start up RadGrad and initialize it with a new database, a new admin password will be generated and the log file will be the only place it is made available. You must print the logs by running mup logs, find the line that indicates the admin password within the logs, and save that password someplace safe.

Note that the logs are cleared each time you deploy an update, so it is important to find and save that admin password.

If you forget to save the admin password, you will need to clear the database and reinitialize the system from scratch in order to regenerate it. There is no way to recover it after it is deleted from the logs.

Finish initial setup

See the next sections for additional setup instructions, including:

Publishing a new release

Once you have successfully set up your RadGrad server, subsequent updates to the system are much more simple.

See Publishing a new release for details.

Buy a custom domain name for your RadGrad server#

Create an Digital Ocean Ubuntu server (i.e. Droplet)#

Configure NameCheap and Digital Ocean services to support the custom domain#

Configure app/.deploy/mup.js#

Configure app/.deploy/settings.js#

Run mup setup#

Run mup reconfig#

Run mup deploy#

Check status of deployment through logs#

Find and save the admin password#

Finish initial setup#

Publishing a new release#