From Scratch

These instructions are written for Ubuntu 20.04.

Installation

Lemmy Backend

It is built from source, so this may take a while, especially on slow devices. For example, Lemmy v0.12.2 takes 17 minutes to build on a dual core VPS. If you prefer prebuilt binaries, use Docker.

Install Rust by following the instructions on Rustup.

Lemmy supports image hosting using pict-rs. We need to install a couple of dependencies for this. You can also skip these steps if you don't require image hosting.

Pict-rs requires the magick command which comes with Imagemagick version 7, but Ubuntu 20.04 only comes with Imagemagick 6. So you need to install that command manually, eg from the official website.

apt install ffmpeg exiftool libgexiv2-dev --no-install-recommends
wget https://download.imagemagick.org/ImageMagick/download/binaries/magick
# compare hash with the "message digest" on the official page linked above
sha256sum magick
mv magick /usr/bin/
chmod 755 /usr/bin/magick

Compile and install Lemmy, setup database:

apt install pkg-config libssl-dev libpq-dev postgresql
# installs latest release, you can also specify one with --version
# The --locked argument uses the exact versions of dependencies specified in
# `cargo.lock`at release time. Running it without the flag will use newer minor
# release versions of those dependencies, which are not always guaranteed to compile.
# Remove the parameter `--features embed-pictrs` if you don't require image hosting.
cargo install lemmy_server --target-dir /usr/bin/ --locked --features embed-pictrs
# replace db-passwd with a randomly generated password
sudo -iu postgres psql -c "CREATE USER lemmy WITH PASSWORD 'db-passwd';"
sudo -iu postgres psql -c "CREATE DATABASE lemmy WITH OWNER lemmy;"
adduser lemmy --system --disabled-login --no-create-home --group

Minimal Lemmy config, put this in /etc/lemmy/lemmy.hjson (see here for more config options). Run chown lemmy:lemmy /etc/lemmy/ -R to set the correct owner.

{
  database: {
    # put your db-passwd from above
    password: "db-passwd"
  }
  # replace with your domain
  hostname: example.com
  bind: "127.0.0.1"
  federation: {
    enabled: true
  }
  # remove this block if you don't require image hosting
  pictrs: {
    url: "http://localhost:8080/"
  }
}

Systemd unit file, so that Lemmy automatically starts and stops, logs are handled via journalctl etc. Put this file into /etc/systemd/system/lemmy.service, then run systemctl enable lemmy and systemctl start lemmy.

[Unit]
Description=Lemmy - A link aggregator for the fediverse
After=network.target

[Service]
User=lemmy
ExecStart=/usr/bin/lemmy_server
Environment=LEMMY_CONFIG_LOCATION=/etc/lemmy/lemmy.hjson
# remove these two lines if you don't need pict-rs
Environment=PICTRS_PATH=/var/lib/pictrs
Environment=PICTRS_ADDR=127.0.0.1:8080
Restart=on-failure

# Hardening
ProtectSystem=yes
PrivateTmp=true
MemoryDenyWriteExecute=true
NoNewPrivileges=true

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

If you did everything right, the Lemmy logs from journalctl -u lemmy should show "Starting http server at 127.0.0.1:8536". You can also run curl localhost:8536/api/{version}/site which should give a successful response, looking like {"site_view":null,"admins":[],"banned":[],"online":0,"version":"unknown version","my_user":null,"federated_instances":null}. For pict-rs, run curl 127.0.0.1:8080 and ensure that it outputs nothing (particularly no errors).

Install lemmy-ui (web frontend)

Install dependencies (nodejs and yarn in Ubuntu 20.04 repos are too old)

# https://classic.yarnpkg.com/en/docs/install/#debian-stable
curl -sS https://dl.yarnpkg.com/debian/pubkey.gpg | sudo apt-key add -
echo "deb https://dl.yarnpkg.com/debian/ stable main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/yarn.list
# https://github.com/nodesource/distributions/blob/master/README.md#installation-instructions
curl -fsSL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_12.x | sudo -E bash -
sudo apt install nodejs yarn

Clone the git repo, checkout the version you want (0.16.7 in this case), and compile it.

mkdir /var/lib/lemmy-ui
cd /var/lib/lemmy-ui
chown lemmy:lemmy .
# dont compile as admin
sudo -u lemmy bash
git clone https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy-ui.git --recursive .
git checkout 0.16.7 # replace with the version you want to install
yarn install --pure-lockfile
yarn build:prod
exit

Add another systemd unit file, this time for lemmy-ui. You need to replace example.com with your actual domain. Put the file in /etc/systemd/system/lemmy-ui.service, then run systemctl enable lemmy-ui and systemctl start lemmy-ui.

[Unit]
Description=Lemmy UI - Web frontend for Lemmy
After=lemmy.service
Before=nginx.service

[Service]
User=lemmy
WorkingDirectory=/var/lib/lemmy-ui
ExecStart=/usr/bin/node dist/js/server.js
Environment=LEMMY_INTERNAL_HOST=localhost:8536
Environment=LEMMY_EXTERNAL_HOST=example.com
Environment=LEMMY_HTTPS=true
Restart=on-failure

# Hardening
ProtectSystem=full
PrivateTmp=true
NoNewPrivileges=true

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

If everything went right, the command curl -I localhost:1234 should show 200 OK at the top.

Configure reverse proxy and TLS

Install dependencies

apt install nginx certbot python3-certbot-nginx

Request Let's Encrypt TLS certificate (just follow the instructions)

certbot certonly --nginx

Let's Encrypt certificates should be renewed automatically, so add the line below to your crontab, by running sudo crontab -e. Replace example.com with your actual domain.

@daily certbot certonly --nginx --cert-name example.com -d example.com --deploy-hook 'nginx -s reload'

Finally, add the nginx config. After downloading, you need to replace some variables in the file.

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/LemmyNet/lemmy-ansible/main/templates/nginx.conf \
    --output /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/lemmy.conf
# put your actual domain instead of example.com
sed -i -e 's/{{domain}}/example.com/g' /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/lemmy.conf
sed -i -e 's/{{lemmy_port}}/8536/g' /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/lemmy.conf
sed -i -e 's/{{lemmy_ui_port}}/1234/g' /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/lemmy.conf
nginx -s reload

Now open your Lemmy domain in the browser, and it should show you a configuration screen. Use it to create the first admin user and the default community.

Upgrading

Lemmy

# installs latest release, you can also specify one with --version
cargo install lemmy_server --target-dir /usr/bin/ --features embed-pictrs
systemctl restart lemmy

Lemmy UI

cd /var/lib/lemmy-ui
sudo -u lemmy
git checkout main
git pull --tags
git checkout 0.12.2 # replace with the version you want to install
git submodule update
yarn install --pure-lockfile
yarn build:prod
exit
systemctl restart lemmy-ui

Pict-rs

rustup update
cd /var/lib/pictrs-source
git checkout main
git pull --tags
# check docker-compose.yml for pict-rs version used by lemmy
# https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy-ansible/blob/main/templates/docker-compose.yml#L40
git checkout v0.2.6-r2
# or simply add the bin folder to your $PATH
$HOME/.cargo/bin/cargo build --release
cp target/release/pict-rs /usr/bin/
systemctl restart pictrs