Comment Castles

Comment Castles is an internet forum project. Users write posts, nested comments and profiles. You must follow a user in order to see their content. There is an instance running at commentcastles.org!

Other Features:

• OAuth 2 JSON API
• public and private groups
• inbox for direct comments you receive
• help page
• light mode and dark mode

Install

Install one of the tagged releases, preferably the most recent.

Create a PostgreSQL 11 database and execute all the code in sql/structure.sql. This will create all the database tables, triggers, etc. PostgreSQL 11+ is probably fine.

Install Redis. This is only for the session store. Redis versions 2 and 6 worked for us, so most versions are probably fine.

Make sure you have Node.js installed. I am using v20.10.0 locally and the live site uses v20.12.1.

Run npm install to download all the Node.js dependencies that are listed in package.json.

Set the following environment variables:

• PGHOST: PostgreSQL host (usually localhost)
• PGUSER: PostgreSQL username
• PGDATABASE: PostgreSQL database name
• PGPASSWORD: PostgreSQL password
• PGPORT: PostgreSQL port
• HTTP_PORT: Port this app will use
• REDIS_PORT: Redis port
• IS_PROD: This is a redundant production flag (there's already the built-in NODE_ENV) that must be set. If NODE_ENV is "production" then set this flag to 1, otherwise use 0.
• SESSION_NAME: express-session name
• SESSION_SECRET: express-session secret
• NODE_ENV: built-in node environment flag

On Windows you can use a .env and npm start to set the environment variables. Here's a sample .env:

PGHOST=localhost
PGUSER=postgres
PGDATABASE=mydb
PGPASSWORD=123abc
PGPORT=5432
HTTP_PORT=80
REDIS_PORT=6379
IS_PROD=1
SESSION_NAME=mysesh
SESSION_SECRET=wOgw3oQpmbYbie7V
NODE_ENV=production

On Linux we used an ecosystem.config.js and pm2 start ecosystem.config.js to set the environment variables. Here is a sample ecosystem.config.js:

module.exports = {
    apps : [{
        name: "myappid",
        script: "./app.js",
        env: {
            PGHOST: "localhost",
            PGUSER: "postgres",
            PGDATABASE: "mydb",
            PGPASSWORD: "123abc",
            PGPORT: 5432,
            HTTP_PORT: 80,
            REDIS_PORT: 6379,
            IS_PROD: 1,
            SESSION_NAME: "mysesh",
            SESSION_SECRET: "wOgw3oQpmbYbie7V",
            NODE_ENV: "production",
        }
    }]
}

There must exist a row in the tuser database table that has a user_id set to 1. This user_id serves as the default following list. So after an instance of this application is launched, you should immediately sign up as this admin user. If you want to use a user_id other than 1, then you can change it in src/config/index.js via adminUserId.

On the API page, a post ID and comment ID are used in URLs on the page. If you want these links to work, you must create a post and comment and then set their IDs to match the ones used on the page.

Update

When you deploy new commits to your instance of this app that is already running, make sure to also execute any new commands that are in sql/migrations.sql.

If you deployed your instance before commit 46d52bff7765b250317ee297d570800447cb4afa, then you need to run scripts/gen-user-public-ids.js in order to generate public IDs for users that are already in the database.

If you deployed your instance before commit c88bb90499aa616cd4f1d2b777d21e9a90d470c4, then you need to run scripts/populate-domain-names.js.

If you deployed your instance before commit 90b98831eeb5785391b371cf46712f1a0b4a0e47, then you need to run scripts/set-last-comment-times.js.