Self-hosted Sites

Support for Self-hosted Sites

Discourse is under constant development and new features are being added all the time. Also, from time-to-time there are security updates that should be applied. Usually these updates can be done from the Discourse Admin panal, and usually, they work as expected. Sometimes, however, unexpected issues can arise. If you encounter a problem with your site, Literate Computing is here to help. Whether the issue is something as simple as the disk being full or as complex as a corrupted database index, we can help.

Often, doing a rebuild from the dashboard will get you back up again, but you can send us an email and we can take a look.

Routine Maintenance and Rebuilds

Routine maintenance and upgrades are usually seamless through the Discourse UX. However, a few times a year, a new base image is released, necessitating a command-line rebuild. These updates are necessary to update the applications and libraries that Discourse is built on top of. A few days after this becomes necessary, we’ll handle the upgrade on your site and send you an email confirmation once completed.”

For a while, Jay would do these upgrades by hand, one site at a time, but over the years, he developed an Ansible playbook that automatically does the same steps that self-hosters do by hand. (Ansible is a tool that is used for automating system administration tasks that enables infrastructure as code.) Ansible also takes care of some extra steps like pruning Docker when space gets tight, managing database upgrades, and restarting the existing image if something goes wrong with the rebuild. If you have a two-container install, it detects that automatically and handles the process with minimal downtime.

Now you can run those very same Ansible Playbooks with a click on the dashboard.

Emergency Services

In critical situations where your site is down, Literate Computing provides emergency services to swiftly get your community back online, whether we have worked with you before or not.

If we installed your site in the past 6 months, or you are a current Rebuilds When You Need Them client, just email and remind us of your hostname. We will get you back up and running as quickly as we can.

If you installed Discourse yourself (or someone other than Literate Computing did it for you), we are here to help. For most issues, we will get you back up and running and add your site to our Dashboard; you just need to sign up for our $300/year Rebuilds When You Need them Service, which you can cancel at any time.

If we have not worked with you before, here is what to do:

• Follow these instructions to install our SSH keys to give us access to your site. This step is essential so that we can log in to your server and access th ecommand line.

• Next, email jay@literatecomputing.com and include

  • your hostname (or IP address if it is different or you use something like Cloudflare),
  • ssh username (especially if not root or ubuntu), and as
  • much detail as you can about how the problem started.
  • acknowledgement of the $300 fee

  You could also send that information via the contact form rather than email. In most cases, we will get you up and running as quickly as possible.

• If you would lke to move ahead with payment, log in to the dashboard, enter your hostname, and Subscribe to the plan. Send a PM to @pfaffman, provide any information about your problem that might be helpful in solving it.