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Christina Gorton for Forem Core Team

Posted on • Updated on

Installing Forem Requirements for MacOS

Introduction

In this guide you will learn how to set up the necessary requirements to self-host a Forem.

Prerequisites

This guide is for self-host instances on MacOS.

Requirements

Step 1- Installing Git

In this step you’ll check to see if you have git installed on your machine. If it is not installed you will walk through the steps to install.

Go to your terminal on Mac.

Check for git by typing git --version into your terminal.
git --version in MacOs terminal

  • If it is not installed, download the latest version of Git for your Mac. here.

Once downloaded, you’ll see prompts to install Git. Hit the Continue button.
MacOS git installer

To confirm that your installation was successful type:

git --version
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git --version in MacOs terminal

Note: Your version of Git may be different than in the example.

Step 2- Installing Homebrew

In this step you will install Homebrew, the package manager for MacOS. Many of the self-host requirements can be added with Homebrew after it is installed.

In your terminal see if Homebrew is already installed by typing:

brew help
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If you see this error brew: command not found you can install Homebrew with the following command in your terminal:

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"
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Note: this script will explain what it is doing and pause before it does it.
Make sure to watch your terminal for any instructions.
Homebrew may take a few minutes to install fully.

Once installation is complete, type brew help to confirm brew was installed.
brew help in MacOS terminal

Step 3 - Installing Python

In this step you will check to see if Python is installed on your machine. If it is not installed you will walk through the steps to install it.

First, in your terminal check for Python with:

python ––version
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or check for pip3 with:

pip3 --version
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If you don't have Python 3 installed already, you can use Homebrew to install it.
In your terminal type the following command to install python:

brew install python3
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Check that Python was installed correctly with:

python3 ––version
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Check that pip3 was also installed with:

pip3 --version
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Step 4- Installing Butane

Butane is a tool that consumes a Butane Config and produces an Ignition Config, which is a JSON document that can be given to a Fedora CoreOS machine when it first boots. In this step you will use Homebrew to install butane on your machine.

In your terminal type:

brew install butane
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Check that Butane was installed correctly with:

butane --version
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butane --version in MacOS terminal

Step 5- Installing pwgen

Pwgen generates passwords that are secure and easy to memorize. In this step you will install pwgen with Homebrew. This will be used in the Quick Start guide to generate an Ansible Vault password.

In your terminal type:

brew install pwgen
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Conclusion

You have now installed all of the requirements you need to start setting up a self-host instance of Forem.

Note: Ansible will be installed for you when you work through the Quick Start guide.

Please visit our Quick Start Guide to finish installing Forem.

Latest comments (1)

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Ella (she/her/elle)

This extra info for the requirements is really helpful, thanks! I found it a useful checklist to go through, even though I thought I had all the requirements.