OS: Ubuntu Server 18.04

Setting up Helios on Ubuntu Server 18.04

This is a guide specifically for setting up a production ready Helios server on Ubuntu 18.04.

Install Node.JS and MongoDB

Helios is written in JavaScript and runs best on Node.JS 10. Let's get started by installing this version of node:

curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_10.x | sudo -E bash -
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y nodejs
sudo setcap 'cap_net_bind_service=+ep' /usr/bin/node

Helios uses MongoDB as its database. MongoDB is a powerful NoSQL database that supports advanced features like sharding and master/slave replication. For our purpose we will simply install an isolated local database.

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80 --recv 9DA31620334BD75D9DCB49F368818C72E52529D4
echo "deb [ arch=amd64 ] https://repo.mongodb.org/apt/ubuntu bionic/mongodb-org/4.0 multiverse" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mongodb-org-4.0.list
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y mongodb-org

Setting up the database

FIXME: A proper explanation on how to setup MongoDB as a service that automatically starts. I end up creating a new db user and adding the following service, and put the mongodb config in the users home. However this is probably not the standard way of doing this.

# /etc/systemd/system/mongodb.service
[Unit]
Description=Database for Helios
After=network.target

[Service]
User=db
Group=db
ExecStart=/usr/bin/mongod --config /home/db/mongod.conf
Restart=always
RestartSec=3

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

# /home/db/mongod.conf
# for documentation of all options, see:
#   http://docs.mongodb.org/manual/reference/configuration-options/
storage:
  dbPath: /home/db/mongodb
  journal:
    enabled: true

systemLog:
  destination: file
  logAppend: true
  path: /home/db/mongod.log

net:
  port: 27017
  bindIp: 127.0.0.1

processManagement:
  timeZoneInfo: /usr/share/zoneinfo

mkdir /home/db/mongodb

Make sure the user db owns the directory & .conf file!

Setting up Helios

Create a new user called "helios" and log into it.

adduser helios
su - helios

Then go ahead and clone the repository into the user's home directory.

git clone https://github.com/PatrickSachs/helios
cd helios

Now go ahead and configure your server using the "Getting Started" tutorial, but do not run it yet(no npm run start). Compile the server(AFTER adjusting the configuration files):

npm i --prefix /home/helios/helios
npm run build --prefix /home/helios/helios

Now we have to setup Helios to automatically run on startup and automatically restart should it be daring enough to crash.

To do this log back into the root account and follow these steps:

cd /etc/systemd/system/
nano helios.service

Go ahead and insert the following configuration into it:

[Unit]
Description=Helios
After=network.target mongodb.service

[Service]
User=helios
Group=helios
ExecStart=/usr/bin/npm run start --prefix /home/helios/helios
Restart=always
RestartSec=3

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Wrapping up

Now let's put the whole thing to test and enable the services, and then reboot the server to see how it fares!

systemctl enable mongodb.service
systemctl enable helios.service
reboot

Helios should now be up and running.