Question: how much of the tech stack should I be familiar with to selfhost forem?

#selfhost #systems

Hi all,

I have been wanting to get my forem site up and running for a bit. I ran through a test run of the guide on Digital Ocean and everything worked great. But, I worry about how difficult it will be to maintain the forem site once I have it running. I come from a more sysadmin/backend developer perspective, so maybe I am paranoid and scared from on-call rotations

From other people's perspectives who are running a forem site solo, how much work is it? And how much of the tech stack do you think you should (or wish you did) know?

Top comments (10)

Ben Halpern • Dec 10 '21

Sysadmin is way more important than the app side of things for being successful, but learning a bit of Rails along the way couldn't hurt. It definitely shouldn't be a blocker outside of a few edge cases here and there. When you run into issues you can post here for help!

tbonesteaks • Dec 10 '21

Ok, good to know! Now it's just mostly about "making license plates". I really appreciate the response and the welcoming community!

Ella (she/her/elle) • Dec 9 '21 • Edited

I think @oli might be a good person to weigh in here, and I'm pretty sure @noeltim is using DO for selfhost as well.

I also welcome comments from @andygeorge and @andy as people who are familiar with the server- and console-side of Forem-hosted communities.

Oli • Dec 9 '21

Hey @tbonesteaks, you have nothing to worry about because Forem is well documented. We've been hosting on DO for a few months and have yet to experience a significant issue.

tbonesteaks • Dec 9 '21

Thank you for the response @oli ! That's great to hear. It is very well documented. I think I will just have to go for it and setup my site and see how it goes.

Ella (she/her/elle) • Dec 10 '21

Thanks for chiming in here, @oli !

Noeltim • Dec 12 '21

Hey @tbonesteaks , i have only a high level understanding of the techstack, of course if you are familiar with ansible, this should be a breeze.

Ella (she/her/elle) • Dec 13 '21

Thanks for your take on this, @noeltim 🙏 I remembered you'd experimented with the installation a bit but didn't want to speak on your behalf!

Lee • Dec 17 '21

Hey there, yeah Ben is spot on. You'll probably start learning more about the app side of things just through curiosity but in terms of pushing updates, it's all really easy and more importantly, enjoyable.