Deploying Rocket.Chat on Centos 7

If coming from Rocket.Chat 0.x.x to 0.40.0 please see our update notes

The following was tested with Vultr and Digital Ocean. Should work on Linode too.

Add the epel repository and update everything.

yum -y install epel-release nano && yum -y update

Populate the yum repo with the mongodb repository

nano /etc/yum.repos.d/mongodb.repo

Paste this into the new file:

  [mongodb]
  name=MongoDB Repository
  baseurl=http://downloads-distro.mongodb.org/repo/redhat/os/x86_64/
  gpgcheck=0
  enabled=1

To write and save do:

CTRL-O, CTRL-X

Now we need to install our dependencies from yum:

yum install -y nodejs curl GraphicsMagick npm mongodb-org-server mongodb-org gcc-c++

Now that we have Node.js and npm installed, we need to install a few more dependencies:

npm install -g inherits n

The recommended Node.js version for using Rocket.Chat is 8.9.3. Using n we are going to install that version:

n 8.9.3

Installing Rocket.Chat

Now we download and install Rocket.Chat

cd /opt

curl -L https://releases.rocket.chat/latest/download -o rocket.chat.tar.gz
tar zxvf rocket.chat.tar.gz

mv bundle Rocket.Chat
cd Rocket.Chat/programs/server

npm install

cd ../..

You can set PORT, ROOT_URL and MONGO_URL:

export PORT=3000
export ROOT_URL=http://your-host-name.com-as-accessed-from-internet:3000/
export MONGO_URL=mongodb://localhost:27017/rocketchat

Replace 3000, with the port of your choosing.

If you choose to use port 80 you will need to run Rocket.Chat as root.

If you don’t have DNS configured use your IP in place of the hostname. You can change it later in the admin menu.

Mongo

First lets enable Mongodb to start with the host using:

chkconfig mongod on

Now we need to start mongo:

systemctl start mongod

or for CentOs 6.X

/etc/init.d/mongod start

Try install out

Now lets do a quick test and see if everything is working before we continue:

node main.js

Browse to your new rocket-chat instance by opening your favorite web browser and entering the url

http://your-host-name.com-as-accessed-from-internet:3000/

Replace your-host-name.com-as-accessed-from-internet with the ip address or DNS hostname of your server you set above in the ROOT_URL

Now that you’re connected:

• Click “register a new account”
• Enter the admin’s name, email and password twice. For my instance I entered:
  • name = Admin
  • email = admin@.com
  • password = test1234
• Click SUBMIT
• You will be prompted to select a username. I selected admin.
• Click USE THIS USERNAME to continue.
• You should now be logged in as an administrator on your new Rocket.Chat installation.

Hit Ctrl + c in your terminal to stop Rocket.Chat.

Auto Start Rocket.Chat

Now that we have all of the dependencies installed, and have verified that Rocket.Chat works. We need to configure Rocket.Chat to start as a service.

First we create the service file:

nano /usr/lib/systemd/system/rocketchat.service

In it write:

  [Unit]
  Description=The Rocket.Chat server
  After=network.target remote-fs.target nss-lookup.target nginx.target mongod.target
  [Service]
  ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/node /opt/Rocket.Chat/main.js
  StandardOutput=syslog
  StandardError=syslog
  SyslogIdentifier=rocketchat
  User=root
  Environment=MONGO_URL=mongodb://localhost:27017/rocketchat ROOT_URL=http://your-host-name.com-as-accessed-from-internet:3000/ PORT=3000
  [Install]
  WantedBy=multi-user.target

Note: Replace the values in Environment with the values you used above.

Now you can enable this service by running:

systemctl enable rocketchat.service

And finally start it by running:

systemctl start rocketchat.service

Upgrade

Upgrading is much the same as installing Rocket.Chat

1. Shutdown Rocket.Chat
2. Goto the installation folder in this case: cd /opt/
3. Remove or move the Rocket.Chat folder.
4. Follow the installation section