Discourse Forum Setup

1. Pick domain for trial (probably bobbushman.com)
   1. Correction - using experiencemaking.com since email is already set up
2. Setup email for domain
   1. AWS Mail
      • Cheating - Experiencemaking.com is already set up. :D
   2. DNS registry setup
      • Cheating - Experiencemaking.com is already set up. :D
   3. Admin account for Let's Encrypt cert
      • created forum.admin@experiencemaking.com
3. Create Lightsail node
   • Created a $5 node.
   • Assigned static IP: 44.238.32.225
   • opened port 443 (HTTPS) through firewall
4. DNS registry for forum.experiencemaking.com
   • done
   • Login successful. It's alive!
5. Apt Update
   • sudo apt update
   • sudo apt dist-upgrade -y
   • sudo reboot # if needed
6. Install Extras
   • sudo apt install git
   • sudo apt install netcat
7. Install Discourse
   1. https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/master/docs/INSTALL-cloud.md
   2. $ sudo -s
   3. $ git clone https://github.com/discourse/discourse_docker.git /var/discourse
   4. $ cd /var/discourse
   5. Going to take a stab at doing this without SPF. I've already got DKIM, and Amazon SES does ses.amazon.com SPF. We'll see. Easy enough to try again.
   6. $ ./discourse-setup
      1. Hostname  : forum.experiencemaking.com
      2. Email  : forum.admin@experiencemaking.com
      3. SMTP address  : smtp.mail.us-west-2.awsapps.com
      4. SMTP port  : 465
      5. SMTP username : discourse.admin@experiencemaking.com
      6. SMTP password : password1.no.really.I.used.password1.haha.entertainment
      7. Let's Encrypt : forum.admin@experiencemaking.com
8. Register Admin Account
   1. Twice as entertaining
9. Troubles with email
   1. Tried SES and Workmail endpoints, STARTTLS and SSL/TLS, 587 and 465, bob and discourse.admin, telnet confirmed connectivity, sent email using Thunderbird. No dice with Discourse.
   2. I think the next step is to set up a local SMTP server that forwards to Workmail
      1. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/ses/latest/DeveloperGuide/postfix.html#send-email-postfix
   3. https://meta.discourse.org/t/net-readtimeout-when-sending-email-after-install/56856
   4. https://meta.discourse.org/t/not-able-to-send-email-net-readtimeout/98419/15
10. Considering DigitalOcean
    1. Some people with the same email problem mentioned that everything "just works" on DigitalOcean, so I went and took a look.
    2. Pricing seems reasonable, not significantly higher than AWS Lightsail.
    3. Looked for their solutions to email. They have two:
       1. Quick and easy integration with GMail SMTP. Maybe they also have a free testicle punching service but I wont be using that either.
       2. Install your own SMTP server. OK, so that whole "everything just works on DigitalOcean" thing is less of a solution than I thought.
          1. However, they do have a tutorial on installing SMTP on Debian 10, so that will help me move forward on Ligtsail:
          2. https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-and-configure-postfix-as-a-send-only-smtp-server-on-debian-10
          3. Side note: I hate setting up SMTP servers. But it's been a few years since the last time, maybe it's easier now.
11. ------------------
12. Set ports (at some point)
13. Install Docker

Appendix: AWS SMTP Test Settings

Email Send form Command Line

$ ./launcher enter app 
$ curl --url 'smtps://smtp.mail.us-west-2.awsapps.com:465' --ssl-reqd \
   --mail-from 'foo@bar.com' --mail-rcpt 'foo@traxel.com' \
   --upload-file mail1.txt --user 'login:pass'

One

DISCOURSE_SMTP_ADDRESS: email-smtp.us-west-2.amazonaws.com
DISCOURSE_SMTP_PORT: 587
DISCOURSE_SMTP_USER_NAME: bob@experiencemaking.com
DISCOURSE_SMTP_PASSWORD: "Password"
DISCOURSE_SMTP_AUTHENTICATION: "login"
DISCOURSE_SMTP_ENABLE_START_TLS: true

DISCOURSE_HOSTNAME=forum.experiencemaking.com
SMTP_ADDRESS=email-smtp.us-west-2.amazonaws.com
DEVELOPER_EMAILS=bob@experiencemaking.com
SMTP_PASSWORD=Password
SMTP_PORT=587
SMTP_USER_NAME=bob@experiencemaking.com
LETSENCRYPT_ACCOUNT_EMAIL=forum.admin@experiencemaking.com

Sending mail to bob@traxel.com. . . 
Testing sending to bob@traxel.com using email-smtp.us-west-2.amazonaws.com:587.
SMTP server connection successful.
Sending to bob@traxel.com. . . 
Sending mail failed.
Replacing: SMTP_PASSWORD
Replacing: LETSENCRYPT_ACCOUNT_EMAIL
Replacing: DEVELOPER_EMAILS
Replacing: DISCOURSE_DB_PASSWORD
Replacing: Sending mail to