I’m not exactly a linux beginner but I’m far from an expert and I could use some pointers. I have a domain and a VPS through Namecheap, I chose Ubuntu 20.04 LAMP and I’ve tried several guides to get this working but something always goes wrong sooner or later.
My latest attempt is to follow along with this guide: https://join-lemmy.org/docs/administration/install_docker.html
No errors until the docker-compose up -d command, then
ERROR: yaml.constructor.ConstructorError: while constructing a mapping in “./docker-compose.yml”, line 26, column 12 found unhashable key in “./docker-compose.yml”, line 26, column 13
which leads to image: {{ lemmy_docker_image }}
I guess I could start over with a different guide but I’m just chasing my tail at this point. Could any kind soul suggest where to go from here?
I found the install to be cake using the ansible playbook https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy-ansible
i see those instructions already use some of the assets from the ansible deploy.
I looked at that one and got confused about how Ansible works. Am I to run those install commands locally or on the VPS? Thanks!
ansible is an automation tool, it does all the things you would do manually, ssh, run commands, etc etc. The files provided bascially have it generate scripts that get pushed to the host and run. it can be run on a remote host or run on the machine you want to install on. either works.
I’m going to start over, I remember I had a few issues with PATH when installing Ansible on a different Mac. I think I can figure them out now.
Came here to say the Ansible method is much, much easier than manual with Docker and from scratch.
I was banging my head for hours fixing all kinds of errors. I finally gave up and went the Ansible method and was able to get to the Lemmy login page within 5 minutes.
OP, if you decide to go the Ansible method, you’ll need to setup a separate server and install Ansible on it. From there clone the Git repo and modify the files the instructions tell you to. Make sure the two servers can talk to each other via SSH. Lastly, run the “ansible-playbook -i inventory/hosts lemmy.yml” command and your Lemmy instance should be online within a few minutes.
Honestly, my advice is to setup two temp VPS’s with Ubuntu on them. Don’t lock them down too tight and play with the Ansible deployment. Once you get a feel for how everything goes, you can redeploy the VPS’s and set them up properly with proper security.
there are also instructions to spin up ansible within a container on the host so you don’t have to install anything else on the target and use only 1 machine. I havent tried it though.