Zulip is an open-source chat server, similar to Microsoft Teams, Rocket Chat or Slack. It is written in Python and uses Django, PostgreSQL, and JavaScript. It integrates with over 90 third-party plugins, including Github, Jira, Stripe, Zendesk, Sentry, etc. You can expand the integrations by connecting them with Zapier and IFTTT. It comes with features like private messaging, group chats, threaded conversations, custom channels, video calls, drag-and-drop file uploads, custom emojis, Giphy integration, Image and Tweets preview and many more. Zulip comes with desktop and mobile apps for every platform, making it platform agnostic.
In this tutorial, you will learn how to install and configure Zulip Chat on a Debian 11 based server.
Prerequisites
-
A server running Debian 11.
-
At least 2GB RAM if you expect less than 100 users. For 100 users, get a 4GB RAM and 2 CPU server.
-
A non-root user with sudo privileges.
-
A domain name configured to point to the server,
zulip.example.com. -
Everything is updated.
$ sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade
-
Few packages that your system needs.
$ sudo apt install wget curl nano ufw software-properties-common apt-transport-https gnupg2 ca-certificates debian-archive-keyring -y
Some of these packages may already be installed on your system.
Step 1 – Configure Firewall
The first step is to configure the firewall. Debian comes with ufw (Uncomplicated Firewall).
Check if the firewall is running.
$ sudo ufw status
You should get the following output.
Status: inactive
Allow SSH port so that the firewall doesn’t break the current connection on enabling it.
$ sudo ufw allow OpenSSH
Allow HTTP and HTTPS ports as well.
$ sudo ufw allow 80/tcp $ sudo ufw allow 443/tcp
Enable the Firewall
$ sudo ufw enable Command may disrupt existing ssh connections. Proceed with operation (y|n)? y Firewall is active and enabled on system startup
Check the status of the firewall again.
$ sudo ufw status
You should see a similar output.
Status: active To Action From -- ------ ---- OpenSSH ALLOW Anywhere 80/tcp ALLOW Anywhere 443/tcp ALLOW Anywhere OpenSSH (v6) ALLOW Anywhere (v6) 80/tcp (v6) ALLOW Anywhere (v6) 443/tcp (v6) ALLOW Anywhere (v6)
Step 2 – Install Zulip
Zulip ships with an installer script that does the following:
- Creates a user
zulipto run the Zulip server. - Creates a home directory using the
zulipuser which houses all the public code under the directory/home/zulip/deployments. - Installs all the dependencies that Zulip needs.
- Installs PostgreSQL database, Nginx web server, RabbitMQ, Redis Cache, and Memcached.
- Initializes Zulip’s database.
Create a temporary directory using the mktemp command to download the Zulip’s installer and switch to it.
$ cd $(mktemp -d)
Download the latest version of Zulip.
$ wget https://download.zulip.com/server/zulip-server-latest.tar.gz
Extract all the files.
$ tar -xf zulip-server-latest.tar.gz
Run the installer script.
$ sudo ./zulip-server-*/scripts/setup/install --certbot
--email=YOUR_EMAIL --hostname=YOUR_HOSTNAME
The --certbot flag makes the installer download Certbot and install SSL certificates automatically. Replace YOUR_EMAIL with your email id and YOUR_HOSTNAME with the domain name for Zulip (zulip.example.com).
Step 3 – Accessing Zulip Interface
Once the installer script is finished, you will be given a unique URL. Copy this URL.
.......
zulip-workers:zulip_deliver_scheduled_messages: started
set x
su zulip -c '/home/zulip/deployments/current/manage.py generate_realm_creation_link'
Please visit the following secure single-use link to register your
new Zulip organization:
https://zulip.example.com/new/il5dsewnhugjarbnlxf5nc46
Visit https://zulip.example.com/new/il5dsewnhugjarbnlxf5nc46 in your browser, and the following screen will appear.
Enter your email id to start creating your organization. You will be asked to set up an account on the next screen.
Enter your organization’s name and your name and choose a password for logging in and click the Sign up button to proceed.
Once finished, the Zulip dashboard will open, and you can start using it.
Step 4 – Configuring Outgoing Email
Zulip server needs to send emails on a regular basis. For this, you should set up outgoing mail for it. For our example, we will be using Amazon’s SES service. All the mails are sent from the email id you used to create the organization in step 3.
Zulip stores all of its settings in the /etc/zulip/settings.py file. Open it for editing.
$ sudo nano /etc/zulip/settings.py
Uncomment the following variables by removing # in front of them and entering the corresponding values.
## EMAIL_HOST and EMAIL_HOST_USER are generally required. EMAIL_HOST = 'email-smtp.us-west-2.amazonaws.com' EMAIL_HOST_USER = 'yoursmpt_username' ## Passwords and secrets are not stored in this file. The password ## for user EMAIL_HOST_USER goes in `/etc/zulip/zulip-secrets.conf`. ## In that file, set `email_password`. For example: # email_password = abcd1234 ## EMAIL_USE_TLS and EMAIL_PORT are required for most SMTP providers. EMAIL_USE_TLS = True EMAIL_PORT = 587
Fill in the following additional variables. The first one removes any random token to the no-reply email address, and the second one configures the no-reply email sender for your mails.
ADD_TOKENS_TO_NOREPLY_ADDRESS = False
# TOKENIZED_NOREPLY_EMAIL_ADDRESS = "noreply-{token}@example.com"
## NOREPLY_EMAIL_ADDRESS is the sender for noreply emails that don't
## contain confirmation links (where the security problem fixed by
## ADD_TOKENS_TO_NOREPLY_ADDRESS does not exist), as well as for
## confirmation emails when ADD_TOKENS_TO_NOREPLY_ADDRESS=False.
NOREPLY_EMAIL_ADDRESS = '[email protected]'
Once finished, save the file by pressing Ctrl X and entering Y when prompted.
Zulip saves the Email password in a different file. Open the file /etc/zulip/zulip-secrets.conf for editing.
$ sudo nano /etc/zulip/zulip-secrets.conf
Paste the following line at the end of the file.
email_password = yoursmtp_password
Save the file by pressing Ctrl X and entering Y when prompted.
To test your outgoing email configuration, you can send a test mail using the following command.
$ sudo -u zulip /home/zulip/deployments/current/manage.py send_test_email [email protected] If you run into any trouble, read: https://zulip.readthedocs.io/en/latest/production/email.html#troubleshooting The most common error is not setting `ADD_TOKENS_TO_NOREPLY_ADDRESS=False` when using an email provider that doesn't support that feature. Sending 2 test emails from: * [email protected] * [email protected].example.com Successfully sent 2 emails to [email protected]
Restart the server.
$ sudo -u zulip /home/zulip/deployments/current/scripts/restart-server
Notice that you can start or stop the Zulip server only as zulip user.Advertisement
Step 5 – Zulip Server Commands
To stop the Zulip server, use the following command.
$ sudo -u zulip /home/zulip/deployments/current/scripts/stop-server
To start the server again, use the following command.
$ sudo -u zulip /home/zulip/deployments/current/scripts/start-server
Restart the server in a similar manner.
$ sudo -u zulip /home/zulip/deployments/current/scripts/restart-server
There are a lot of management tasks you can achieve using the manage.py script shipped with Zulip.
You can run the script using the following command. We will use the help sub-command to list all the possible operations one can perform.
$ sudo -u zulip /home/zulip/deployments/current/manage.py help
Type 'manage.py help ' for help on a specific subcommand.
Available subcommands:
[analytics]
check_analytics_state
clear_analytics_tables
clear_single_stat
populate_analytics_db
stream_stats
update_analytics_counts
[auth]
changepassword
createsuperuser
[contenttypes]
remove_stale_contenttypes
[django]
check
createcachetable
dbshell
diffsettings
dumpdata
flush
inspectdb
loaddata
makemigrations
migrate
sendtestemail
shell
showmigrations
sqlflush
sqlmigrate
sqlsequencereset
squashmigrations
startapp
startproject
test
testserver
[otp_static]
addstatictoken
[sessions]
clearsessions
[social_django]
clearsocial
[staticfiles]
collectstatic
findstatic
runserver
[two_factor]
two_factor_disable
two_factor_status
[zerver]
add_users_to_streams
archive_messages
audit_fts_indexes
backup
bulk_change_user_name
change_password
change_realm_subdomain
change_user_email
change_user_role
check_redis
checkconfig
compilemessages
convert_gitter_data
convert_mattermost_data
convert_slack_data
create_default_stream_groups
create_large_indexes
create_realm_internal_bots
create_stream
create_user
deactivate_realm
deactivate_user
delete_old_unclaimed_attachments
delete_realm
delete_user
deliver_scheduled_emails
deliver_scheduled_messages
dump_messages
edit_linkifiers
email_mirror
enqueue_digest_emails
enqueue_file
export
export_single_user
export_usermessage_batch
fill_memcached_caches
fix_unreads
generate_invite_links
generate_multiuse_invite_link
generate_realm_creation_link
get_migration_status
import
list_realms
logout_all_users
makemessages
merge_streams
print_email_delivery_backlog
process_queue
purge_queue
query_ldap
rate_limit
reactivate_realm
realm_domain
register_server
remove_users_from_stream
rename_stream
reset_authentication_attempt_count
restore_messages
runtornado
scrub_realm
send_custom_email
send_password_reset_email
send_realm_reactivation_email
send_stats
send_test_email
send_to_email_mirror
send_webhook_fixture_message
set_message_flags
show_admins
soft_deactivate_users
sync_ldap_user_data
transfer_uploads_to_s3
turn_off_digests
Step 6 – Upgrading Zulip
To upgrade Zulip, download the latest release from the server.
$ curl -fLO https://download.zulip.com/server/zulip-server-latest.tar.gz
Run the following command to perform the upgrade.
$ sudo /home/zulip/deployments/current/scripts/upgrade-zulip ~/zulip-server-latest.tar.gz
The script will perform the following functions.
- Run
apt upgradeto upgrade the system. - Install the new version of Zulip’s dependencies.
- Shuts down the Zulip server.
- Runs the
puppet applycommand. - Perform database migrations if required.
- Restarts Zulip server.
Step 7 – Backup and Restore Zulip
Backing and Restoring Zulip is easy, thanks to the in-built scripts that take care of everything.
To take a complete backup of Zulip, run the following command.
$ sudo -u zulip /home/zulip/deployments/current/manage.py backup --output=~/backups/zulip-backup.tar.gz
The above command will create a zulip-backup.tar.gz file in the ~/backups directory. This contains everything that you will need to transfer or restore Zulip.
To restore an existing backup, install Zulip by going through step 2.
Once finished, run the following command to finish restoring.
$ sudo -u zulip /home/zulip/deployments/current/scripts/setup/restore-backup ~/backups/zulip-backup.tar.gz
If you want to change the domain, you can change the variable EXTERNAL_HOST in the file /etc/zulip/settings.py and then restart the server using the following command.
$ sudo -u zulip /home/zulip/deployments/current/scripts/restart-server
Conclusion
This concludes our tutorial on installing and configuring the Zulip Chat server on a Debian 11 based system. You can follow Zulip’s official documentation to explore in detail. If you have any questions, post them in the comments below.
