# Deploy the Discourse charm for the first time In this tutorial, we’ll go through each step of the process to get a basic Discourse deployment. ## What you’ll need You will need a working station, e.g., a laptop, with AMD64 architecture. Your working station should have at least 4 CPU cores, 8 GB of RAM, and 50 GB of disk space. #### TIP You can use Multipass to create an isolated environment by running: ```default multipass launch 24.04 --name charm-tutorial-vm --cpus 4 --memory 8G --disk 50G ``` When using a Multipass VM, make sure to replace `127.0.0.1` IP addresses with the VM IP in steps that assume you’re running locally. To get the IP address of the Multipass instance run `multipass info discourse-tutorial-vm`. This tutorial requires the following software to be installed on your working station (either locally or in the Multipass VM): - Juju 3 - MicroK8s 1.33 Use [Concierge](https://github.com/canonical/concierge) to set up Juju and MicroK8s: ```default sudo snap install --classic concierge sudo concierge prepare -p microk8s ``` This first command installs Concierge, and the second command uses Concierge to install and configure Juju and MicroK8s. MicroK8s must have an NGINX ingress controller enabled. Complete this requirement by running: ```default microk8s enable ingress ``` For more details, see [Add-on: Ingress](https://microk8s.io/docs/addon-ingress). For this tutorial, Juju must be bootstrapped to a MicroK8s controller. Concierge should complete this step for you, and you can verify by checking for `msg="Bootstrapped Juju" provider=microk8s` in the terminal output and by running `juju controllers`. If Concierge did not perform the bootstrap, run: ```default juju bootstrap microk8s tutorial-controller ``` ## What you’ll do 1. Deploy the Discourse charm 2. Integrate with `nginx-ingress-integrator`, `postgresql-k8s` and `redis-k8s` charms 3. Inspect the Kubernetes resources created 4. Create an admin user and log in 5. Clean up the environment ### Shell into the Multipass VM #### NOTE If you’re working locally, you don’t need to do this step. To be able to work inside the Multipass VM first you need to log in with the following command: ```default multipass shell charm-tutorial-vm ``` ### Add a Juju model for the tutorial To easily clean up the resources and separate your workload from the contents of this tutorial, set up a new Juju model named `discourse-tutorial`: ```default juju add-model discourse-tutorial ``` ### Deploy the charms Discourse requires connections to PostgreSQL and Redis. For more information, see the [Charm Integrations](https://canonical.com/juju/docs/discourse-k8s-charm/latest/reference/integrations/index.html.md#reference-integrations). #### NOTE Discourse requires PostgreSQL extensions to be available in the relation. Deploy the charms: ```default juju deploy redis-k8s --channel latest/edge juju deploy postgresql-k8s --channel 16/stable --trust juju deploy discourse-k8s ``` Enable the required PostgreSQL extensions (for `16/stable`, use kebab-case option names): ```default juju config postgresql-k8s plugin-hstore-enable=true plugin-pg-trgm-enable=true plugin-vector-enable=true ``` ### Integrate with the Redis k8s charm and the PostgreSQL k8s charm Integrate `redis-k8s` and `postgresql-k8s` to `discourse-k8s`: ```default juju integrate redis-k8s discourse-k8s juju integrate discourse-k8s postgresql-k8s ``` By running `juju status --relations` the current state of the deployment can be queried: ```text Model Controller Cloud/Region Version SLA Timestamp discourse-tutorial microk8s microk8s/localhost 3.5.4 unsupported 14:07:18+03:00 App Version Status Scale Charm Channel Rev Address Exposed Message discourse-k8s 3.3.0 active 1 discourse-k8s latest/stable 173 10.152.183.231 no postgresql-k8s 16.x active 1 postgresql-k8s 16/stable 381 10.152.183.143 no redis-k8s 7.2.5 active 1 redis-k8s latest/edge 36 10.152.183.188 no Unit Workload Agent Address Ports Message discourse-k8s/0* active idle 10.1.32.182 postgresql-k8s/0* active idle 10.1.32.184 Primary redis-k8s/0* active idle 10.1.32.181 Integration provider Requirer Interface Type Message discourse-k8s:restart discourse-k8s:restart rolling_op peer postgresql-k8s:database discourse-k8s:database postgresql_client regular postgresql-k8s:database-peers postgresql-k8s:database-peers postgresql_peers peer postgresql-k8s:restart postgresql-k8s:restart rolling_op peer postgresql-k8s:upgrade postgresql-k8s:upgrade upgrade peer redis-k8s:redis discourse-k8s:redis redis regular redis-k8s:redis-peers redis-k8s:redis-peers redis-peers peer ``` The deployment finishes when all the charms show `Active` states. Run `kubectl get pods -n discourse-tutorial` to see the pods that are being created by the charms: ```text NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE modeloperator-c584f6f9f-qf9gr 1/1 Running 0 5m30s redis-k8s-0 3/3 Running 0 5m22s discourse-k8s-0 2/2 Running 0 5m1s postgresql-k8s-0 2/2 Running 0 5m9s ``` ### Provide ingress capabilities In order to expose the charm, the Nginx Ingress Integrator needs to be deployed and integrated with Discourse: ```default juju deploy nginx-ingress-integrator ``` To check if RBAC is enabled run the following command: ```default microk8s status | grep rbac ``` If it is enabled, then the output should be like the following: ```text rbac # (core) Role-Based Access Control for authorisation ``` If the output is empty then RBAC is not enabled. If your cluster has RBAC enabled, you’ll be prompted to run the following command: ```default juju trust nginx-ingress-integrator --scope=cluster ``` Then you need to integrate the charm with Nginx Ingress Integrator: ```default juju integrate discourse-k8s nginx-ingress-integrator ``` ### Validate workload is reachable To validate that you can successfully reach the deployed workload, run the following command: ```default curl http://discourse-k8s --resolve discourse-k8s:80:127.0.0.1 ``` ### Create an admin user and log in To create an admin user, use the `create-user` action: ```default juju run discourse-k8s/0 create-user admin=true email=email@example.com ``` The command will return the password of the created user. Discourse will be deployed with `discourse-k8s` as default hostname. If you are following the tutorial in your local machine, modify your `/etc/hosts` file so that it points to `127.0.0.1`: ```default echo "127.0.0.1 discourse-k8s" | sudo tee -a /etc/hosts ``` After that, visit `http://discourse-k8s` to reach Discourse, using the credentials returned from the `create-user` action to login. ### Clean up the environment Congratulations! You have successfully finished the Discourse tutorial. You can now remove the model environment that you’ve created using the following command: ```default juju destroy-model discourse-tutorial --destroy-storage ``` If you used Multipass, to remove the Multipass instance you created for this tutorial, use the following command. ```default multipass delete --purge charm-tutorial-vm ``` Finally, remove the `127.0.0.1 discourse-k8s` line from the `/etc/hosts` file. ## Next steps You achieved a basic deployment of the Discourse charm. If you want to go further in your deployment or learn more about the charm, check out these pages: - Perform basic operations with your deployment like [configuring S3](https://canonical.com/juju/docs/discourse-k8s-charm/latest/how-to/configure-s3/index.html.md#how-to-configure-s3) or [SMTP](https://canonical.com/juju/docs/discourse-k8s-charm/latest/how-to/configure-smtp/index.html.md#how-to-configure-smtp). - Make your deployment more secure by [configuring SAML](https://canonical.com/juju/docs/discourse-k8s-charm/latest/how-to/configure-saml/index.html.md#how-to-configure-saml), and learn more about the charm’s security in [Security overview](https://canonical.com/juju/docs/discourse-k8s-charm/latest/explanation/security/index.html.md#explanation-security). - Learn more about the available [relation endpoints](https://canonical.com/juju/docs/discourse-k8s-charm/latest/reference/integrations/index.html.md#reference-integrations) for the Discourse charm.