Installing the VNC server

VNC (Virtual Network Computing) enables us to access the GUI of a remote system over a secured network. The VNC client installed on a local system captures the input events of a mouse and keyboard and transfers them to the remote VNC server. Those events are executed on a remote system and the output is sent back to the client. VNC is a desktop sharing tool and is generally used to access the desktop system for remote administration and technical support.

With Ubuntu server, we rarely need a desktop environment. However, if you are a newbie administrator or quite unfamiliar with the command line environment, then GUI becomes a handy tool for you. Plus, you may want to deploy a shared remote desktop environment where people can collaborate with each other. This recipe covers the installation of the VNC server on Ubuntu Server 14.04. We will install a GUI component that is required by VNC and then install and configure the VNC server.

Getting ready

You will need access to a root account or an account with sudo privileges.

How to do it…

The Ubuntu server and cloud editions generally ship with a minimal installation footprint and do not contain GUI components. We will use Gnome-core as our desktop component. Gnome-core is a part of an open source desktop environment.

Access the server shell and use the following command to install gnome-core:
```
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install gnome-core -y
```
This will take some time as the command needs to download a bunch of components and install them.
Once Gnome is installed, we can proceed with VNC server installation using the following command:
```
 $ sudo apt-get install vnc4server -y
```
When installation completes, start a new VNC session by using the following command:
```
$ vncserver
```

As this is the first time we have started VNC, you will be prompted to set up a password. This session will also create a few configuration files required for VNC. Your screen should look similar to the screenshot below:

Next, we will edit the default configuration files created by our first session, kill the VNC process, and then edit the configuration file:
```
$ vncserver -kill :1
Killing Xvnc4 process ID 2118
```

Edit the default configuration file and set it to use the Gnome session. Open ~/.vnc/xstartup and uncomment or add the following line to it:

$ nano ~/.vnc/xstartup
#!/bin/sh

# Uncomment the following two lines for normal desktop:
unset SESSION_MANAGER
# exec /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc

#[ -x /etc/vnc/xstartup ] && exec /etc/vnc/xstartup
#[ -r $HOME/.Xresources ] && xrdb $HOME/.Xresources
#xsetroot -solid grey
#vncconfig -iconic &
#x-terminal-emulator -geometry 80x24+10+10 -ls -title "$VNCDESKTOP Desktop" &
#x-window-manager &
metacity &
gnome-settings-daemon &
gnome-panel &

Optionally, disable the Gnome startup script. This will stop Gnome from starting with a system boot and you will see a CLI login instead of the new Gnome-based graphical login screen. Open /etc/init/gdm.conf and comment out the following lines:
```
$ sudo nano /etc/init/gdm.conf
#start on ((filesystem
#           and runlevel [!06]
#           and started dbus
#           and plymouth-ready)
#         or runlevel PREVLEVEL=S)
```
Save all modifications in configuration files and start a new VNC session. This time, we will add screen resolution and color depth options:
```
$ vncserver -geometry 1366x768 -depth 24
```
Next, from your local system, install the VNC client software and open it. I have used the TightVNC client. Enter your server IP address and a VNC desktop number to be connected. Here, we have created a single session to a sample IP address, which will be 192.168.0.1:1:
Click Connect; you will be prompted for a password to authenticate your session:
Enter the password that we created while starting the first session. You should see a desktop screen with a basic Gnome theme. The following is the scaled screenshot of the VNC viewer:

How it works…

VNC works with a client-server model. We have installed the VNC server daemon on our Ubuntu Server and a client on the local system. The server daemon communicates with the GUI buffer or frame buffer on the server side and transfers that buffer data to the client. The client renders that buffer in specially designed software called the VNC viewer. In addition to rendering the remote buffer, the VNC client or viewer captures mouse and keyboard (input) events happening over the client window. Those events are then sent to the VNC server, which applies them to the current graphics frame and any updates are sent back to client.

The pevious example uses simple Gnome-core components. This is a basic graphics suite which contains graphics drives, plus some other tools such as the Firefox browser and an instant messaging client. You can even choose to have a limited setup and install selective, required selected required Gnome packages as follows:

$ sudo apt-get install gnome-panel gnome-settings-daemon \
metacity nautilus gnome-terminal

This GUI does not match the one provided by Ubuntu Desktop. If you prefer to have the same experience as Ubuntu Desktop, you can separately install a package, ubuntu-desktop:

$ sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop

VNC does support multiple sessions to a single server. You may have noticed in the connection address used previously that we used :1 to represent the first session or display. This is shorthand for the full port number, which is 5901 for the first session, 5092 for the second, and so on. You can use the full port or just the last digit to refer to a session. Notice the change in desktop number when we start multiple VNC sessions:

Additionally, you can start a new VNC session for different users with its own password. Simply log in or switch (su user1) to the user account, start vncserver, set the password, and you are done.

Getting ready

You will need access to a root account or an account with sudo privileges.

How to do it…

The Ubuntu server and cloud editions generally ship with a minimal installation footprint and do not contain GUI components. We will use Gnome-core as our desktop component. Gnome-core is a part of an open source desktop environment.

Access the server shell and use the following command to install gnome-core:
```
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install gnome-core -y
```
This will take some time as the command needs to download a bunch of components and install them.
Once Gnome is installed, we can proceed with VNC server installation using the following command:
```
 $ sudo apt-get install vnc4server -y
```
When installation completes, start a new VNC session by using the following command:
```
$ vncserver
```

As this is the first time we have started VNC, you will be prompted to set up a password. This session will also create a few configuration files required for VNC. Your screen should look similar to the screenshot below:

Next, we will edit the default configuration files created by our first session, kill the VNC process, and then edit the configuration file:
```
$ vncserver -kill :1
Killing Xvnc4 process ID 2118
```

Edit the default configuration file and set it to use the Gnome session. Open ~/.vnc/xstartup and uncomment or add the following line to it:

$ nano ~/.vnc/xstartup
#!/bin/sh

# Uncomment the following two lines for normal desktop:
unset SESSION_MANAGER
# exec /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc

#[ -x /etc/vnc/xstartup ] && exec /etc/vnc/xstartup
#[ -r $HOME/.Xresources ] && xrdb $HOME/.Xresources
#xsetroot -solid grey
#vncconfig -iconic &
#x-terminal-emulator -geometry 80x24+10+10 -ls -title "$VNCDESKTOP Desktop" &
#x-window-manager &
metacity &
gnome-settings-daemon &
gnome-panel &

Optionally, disable the Gnome startup script. This will stop Gnome from starting with a system boot and you will see a CLI login instead of the new Gnome-based graphical login screen. Open /etc/init/gdm.conf and comment out the following lines:
```
$ sudo nano /etc/init/gdm.conf
#start on ((filesystem
#           and runlevel [!06]
#           and started dbus
#           and plymouth-ready)
#         or runlevel PREVLEVEL=S)
```
Save all modifications in configuration files and start a new VNC session. This time, we will add screen resolution and color depth options:
```
$ vncserver -geometry 1366x768 -depth 24
```
Next, from your local system, install the VNC client software and open it. I have used the TightVNC client. Enter your server IP address and a VNC desktop number to be connected. Here, we have created a single session to a sample IP address, which will be 192.168.0.1:1:
Click Connect; you will be prompted for a password to authenticate your session:
Enter the password that we created while starting the first session. You should see a desktop screen with a basic Gnome theme. The following is the scaled screenshot of the VNC viewer:

How it works…

VNC works with a client-server model. We have installed the VNC server daemon on our Ubuntu Server and a client on the local system. The server daemon communicates with the GUI buffer or frame buffer on the server side and transfers that buffer data to the client. The client renders that buffer in specially designed software called the VNC viewer. In addition to rendering the remote buffer, the VNC client or viewer captures mouse and keyboard (input) events happening over the client window. Those events are then sent to the VNC server, which applies them to the current graphics frame and any updates are sent back to client.

The pevious example uses simple Gnome-core components. This is a basic graphics suite which contains graphics drives, plus some other tools such as the Firefox browser and an instant messaging client. You can even choose to have a limited setup and install selective, required selected required Gnome packages as follows:

$ sudo apt-get install gnome-panel gnome-settings-daemon \
metacity nautilus gnome-terminal

This GUI does not match the one provided by Ubuntu Desktop. If you prefer to have the same experience as Ubuntu Desktop, you can separately install a package, ubuntu-desktop:

$ sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop

VNC does support multiple sessions to a single server. You may have noticed in the connection address used previously that we used :1 to represent the first session or display. This is shorthand for the full port number, which is 5901 for the first session, 5092 for the second, and so on. You can use the full port or just the last digit to refer to a session. Notice the change in desktop number when we start multiple VNC sessions:

Additionally, you can start a new VNC session for different users with its own password. Simply log in or switch (su user1) to the user account, start vncserver, set the password, and you are done.

How to do it…

The Ubuntu server and cloud editions generally ship with a minimal installation footprint and do not contain GUI components. We will use Gnome-core as our desktop component. Gnome-core is a part of an open source desktop environment.

Access the server shell and use the following command to install gnome-core:
```
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install gnome-core -y
```
This will take some time as the command needs to download a bunch of components and install them.
Once Gnome is installed, we can proceed with VNC server installation using the following command:
```
 $ sudo apt-get install vnc4server -y
```
When installation completes, start a new VNC session by using the following command:
```
$ vncserver
```

As this is the first time we have started VNC, you will be prompted to set up a password. This session will also create a few configuration files required for VNC. Your screen should look similar to the screenshot below:

Next, we will edit the default configuration files created by our first session, kill the VNC process, and then edit the configuration file:
```
$ vncserver -kill :1
Killing Xvnc4 process ID 2118
```

Edit the default configuration file and set it to use the Gnome session. Open ~/.vnc/xstartup and uncomment or add the following line to it:

$ nano ~/.vnc/xstartup
#!/bin/sh

# Uncomment the following two lines for normal desktop:
unset SESSION_MANAGER
# exec /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc

#[ -x /etc/vnc/xstartup ] && exec /etc/vnc/xstartup
#[ -r $HOME/.Xresources ] && xrdb $HOME/.Xresources
#xsetroot -solid grey
#vncconfig -iconic &
#x-terminal-emulator -geometry 80x24+10+10 -ls -title "$VNCDESKTOP Desktop" &
#x-window-manager &
metacity &
gnome-settings-daemon &
gnome-panel &

Optionally, disable the Gnome startup script. This will stop Gnome from starting with a system boot and you will see a CLI login instead of the new Gnome-based graphical login screen. Open /etc/init/gdm.conf and comment out the following lines:
```
$ sudo nano /etc/init/gdm.conf
#start on ((filesystem
#           and runlevel [!06]
#           and started dbus
#           and plymouth-ready)
#         or runlevel PREVLEVEL=S)
```
Save all modifications in configuration files and start a new VNC session. This time, we will add screen resolution and color depth options:
```
$ vncserver -geometry 1366x768 -depth 24
```
Next, from your local system, install the VNC client software and open it. I have used the TightVNC client. Enter your server IP address and a VNC desktop number to be connected. Here, we have created a single session to a sample IP address, which will be 192.168.0.1:1:
Click Connect; you will be prompted for a password to authenticate your session:
Enter the password that we created while starting the first session. You should see a desktop screen with a basic Gnome theme. The following is the scaled screenshot of the VNC viewer:

How it works…

VNC works with a client-server model. We have installed the VNC server daemon on our Ubuntu Server and a client on the local system. The server daemon communicates with the GUI buffer or frame buffer on the server side and transfers that buffer data to the client. The client renders that buffer in specially designed software called the VNC viewer. In addition to rendering the remote buffer, the VNC client or viewer captures mouse and keyboard (input) events happening over the client window. Those events are then sent to the VNC server, which applies them to the current graphics frame and any updates are sent back to client.

The pevious example uses simple Gnome-core components. This is a basic graphics suite which contains graphics drives, plus some other tools such as the Firefox browser and an instant messaging client. You can even choose to have a limited setup and install selective, required selected required Gnome packages as follows:

$ sudo apt-get install gnome-panel gnome-settings-daemon \
metacity nautilus gnome-terminal

This GUI does not match the one provided by Ubuntu Desktop. If you prefer to have the same experience as Ubuntu Desktop, you can separately install a package, ubuntu-desktop:

$ sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop

VNC does support multiple sessions to a single server. You may have noticed in the connection address used previously that we used :1 to represent the first session or display. This is shorthand for the full port number, which is 5901 for the first session, 5092 for the second, and so on. You can use the full port or just the last digit to refer to a session. Notice the change in desktop number when we start multiple VNC sessions:

Additionally, you can start a new VNC session for different users with its own password. Simply log in or switch (su user1) to the user account, start vncserver, set the password, and you are done.

How it works…

VNC works with a client-server model. We have installed the VNC server daemon on our Ubuntu Server and a client on the local system. The server daemon communicates with the GUI buffer or frame buffer on the server side and transfers that buffer data to the client. The client renders that buffer in specially designed software called the VNC viewer. In addition to rendering the remote buffer, the VNC client or viewer captures mouse and keyboard (input) events happening over the client window. Those events are then sent to the VNC server, which applies them to the current graphics frame and any updates are sent back to client.

The pevious example uses simple Gnome-core components. This is a basic graphics suite which contains graphics drives, plus some other tools such as the Firefox browser and an instant messaging client. You can even choose to have a limited setup and install selective, required selected required Gnome packages as follows:

$ sudo apt-get install gnome-panel gnome-settings-daemon \
metacity nautilus gnome-terminal

This GUI does not match the one provided by Ubuntu Desktop. If you prefer to have the same experience as Ubuntu Desktop, you can separately install a package, ubuntu-desktop:

$ sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop

VNC does support multiple sessions to a single server. You may have noticed in the connection address used previously that we used :1 to represent the first session or display. This is shorthand for the full port number, which is 5901 for the first session, 5092 for the second, and so on. You can use the full port or just the last digit to refer to a session. Notice the change in desktop number when we start multiple VNC sessions:

Additionally, you can start a new VNC session for different users with its own password. Simply log in or switch (su user1) to the user account, start vncserver, set the password, and you are done.

Installing Hackpad, a collaborative document editor

In this recipe, we will install a collaborative document editor, Hackpad. It is a document editor based on an open source editor, EtherPad. Hackpad was acquired by Dropbox, and in early 2015 they open sourced its code.

Getting ready

You will need a system with at least 2 GB of memory.

As always, you will need an account with super user privileges.

How to do it…

Hackpad is a web application based on Java. We will need to install the JDK; Scala, which is another programming language; and MySQL as a data store. We will start by installing dependencies and then cloning the Hackpad repository from GitHub.

Install JDK and Scala. The installation document mentions Sun JDK as a requirement but it works with Open JDK.
```
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install openjdk-7-jdk scala -y
```
Install the MySQL server. You can get more details on MySQL installation in the chapter handling the database:
```
$ sudo apt-get install mysql-server-5.6
```
Next, clone the Hackpad repository. You can choose not to install Git and download the ZIP archive of Hackpad from GitHub:
```
$ git clone https://github.com/dropbox/hackpad.git
```
This will create a new directory, hackpad. Before we run the build script, we need to set some configuration parameters to match our environment. Change the directory to hackpad and edit the bin/exports.sh file as follows:
```
export SCALA_HOME="/usr/share/java"
export SCALA_LIBRARY_JAR="$SCALA_HOME/scala-library.jar"
export JAVA_HOME="/usr/share/java"
```

Next, create a configuration file as a copy of the default configuration, as follows:

$ cp etherpad/etc/etherpad.localdev-default.properties \ etherpad/etc/etherpad.local.properties

Edit the newly created configuration, get the admin email address, and search for the following line in etherpad/etc/etherpad.local.properties:
```
etherpad.superUserEmailAddresses = __email_addresses_with_admin_access__
```
Replace it with:
```
etherpad.superUserEmailAddresses = admin@yourdomain.tld
```
Optionally, you can set the project to production mode by setting isProduction to true:
```
devMode = false
verbose = true
etherpad.fakeProduction = false
etherpad.isProduction = true
```
If you are using a domain name other than localhost, then configure the same with the following option:
```
topdomains =yourdomain.tld,localhost
```
Set your email host settings. You will need an email address to receive your registration confirmation email. However, this is not a hard requirement for initial setup:
```
smtpServer = Your SMTP server
smtpUser = SMTP user
smtpPass = SMTP password
```
Next, run a build script from the bin directory:
```
$ ./bin/build.sh
```
Once the build completes, set up the MySQL database. The script will create a new database named hackpad and a MySQL user account. You will be asked to enter your MySQL root account password:
```
$ ./contrib/scripts/setup-mysql-db.sh
```
Finally, you can start the server by executing run.sh from the bin directory:
```
$ ./bin/run.sh
```
This will take a few seconds to start the application. Once you see the HTTP server is listening to the line, you can access Hackpad at http://yourdomain.tld:9000:
Access Hackpad and register with an email address that is used for an admin account. If you have set up an email server, you should receive a confirmation email containing a link to activate your account.
If you have not set up email server access to the MySQL database to get your authentication token, open the MySQL client and use the following queries to get your token. The MySQL password for the Hackpad account is taken from the configuration file:
```
$ mysql -h localhost -u hackpad -ppassword
mysql> use hackpad;
mysql> select * from email_signup;
```

Select your token from the row matching your email address and replace it in the following URL. In this case, the auth toke is PgEJoGAiL3E2ZDl2FqMc:

http://yourdomain.com:9000/ep/account/validate-email?email=user@youremail.com&token=your_auth_token_from_db

The full auth URL for my admin account will look like this:

http://localhost.local:9000/ep/account/validate-email?email=admin@localhost.local&token= PgEJoGAiL3E2ZDl2FqMc

Open this URL in the browser and your account registration will be confirmed. You will be logged in to your Hackpad account.
Once you log in to your new account, Hackpad will start with a welcome screen listing all the default pads that looks something like the following:
You can click any of them and start editing or create a new document. When opened, you will get a full page to add contents, with basic text editing options in the top bar:

The document can be shared using the invite box or simply by sharing the URL.

How it works…

As mentioned before, Hackpad is a collaborative editor based on an open source project, EtherPad. It allows you to create online documents directly in your browser. In the same way as Google Docs, you can use Hackpad to create and store your documents in the cloud. Plus, you can access Hackpad from any device. All your documents will be rendered in a proper format suitable for your device.

When you log in for the first time, the home screen will greet you with stock pads. You can edit existing pads or start a new one from the top bar. An editor will give you a basic text editing setting, plus options to create lists and add comments. You can even add data in a tabular format. Click on the gear icon from the top bar and it will give you options to view document history, get an embedded link, or delete the document.

Every change in the document will be marked with your username, and if two or more people are working with the document at the same time, then the specific line being edited by each user is marked with the user's tag:

On the right-hand side of the document, you can see the options to invite your peers to collaborate on this document. You can invite people using their email address. Make sure that you have configured your email server before using this feature. Alternatively, the invites are also shown in a chat window with clickable links, as shown in the following screenshot:

At the bottom of the document, you can find all activity logs about the new initiation and the editing of this document. There is an option to chat with participating people directly from the same window. It is located at the bottom corner of the right-hand side; it's the small bar with a chat icon named after your domain. This provides one-to-one chat, as well as a group chat:

Note

Note that this setup does not work with IP addresses. You will need a domain name that maps to an IP address. You can set localhost files to set up local domain mappings, or use a local DNS server for your internal network.

There's more

Hackpad is a collaborative document editor. You can add snippets of code in a given document but not entire code files. To edit your code, you can use an open source Cloud IDE named Cloud 9 IDE. Check out the GitHub repo at https://github.com/c9/core/. Alternatively, you can get Docker images set up quickly and play around with the IDE.

Using Hackpad with Docker

The Hackpad setup contains a Docker file as well. If you have Docker installed, you can build a Docker image for Hackpad. Simply change your directory to Hackpad git repo and build a Docker image with the following command:

$ docker build -t hackpad

Getting ready

You will need a system with at least 2 GB of memory.

As always, you will need an account with super user privileges.

How to do it…

Hackpad is a web application based on Java. We will need to install the JDK; Scala, which is another programming language; and MySQL as a data store. We will start by installing dependencies and then cloning the Hackpad repository from GitHub.

Install JDK and Scala. The installation document mentions Sun JDK as a requirement but it works with Open JDK.
```
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install openjdk-7-jdk scala -y
```
Install the MySQL server. You can get more details on MySQL installation in the chapter handling the database:
```
$ sudo apt-get install mysql-server-5.6
```
Next, clone the Hackpad repository. You can choose not to install Git and download the ZIP archive of Hackpad from GitHub:
```
$ git clone https://github.com/dropbox/hackpad.git
```
This will create a new directory, hackpad. Before we run the build script, we need to set some configuration parameters to match our environment. Change the directory to hackpad and edit the bin/exports.sh file as follows:
```
export SCALA_HOME="/usr/share/java"
export SCALA_LIBRARY_JAR="$SCALA_HOME/scala-library.jar"
export JAVA_HOME="/usr/share/java"
```

Next, create a configuration file as a copy of the default configuration, as follows:

$ cp etherpad/etc/etherpad.localdev-default.properties \ etherpad/etc/etherpad.local.properties

Edit the newly created configuration, get the admin email address, and search for the following line in etherpad/etc/etherpad.local.properties:
```
etherpad.superUserEmailAddresses = __email_addresses_with_admin_access__
```
Replace it with:
```
etherpad.superUserEmailAddresses = admin@yourdomain.tld
```
Optionally, you can set the project to production mode by setting isProduction to true:
```
devMode = false
verbose = true
etherpad.fakeProduction = false
etherpad.isProduction = true
```
If you are using a domain name other than localhost, then configure the same with the following option:
```
topdomains =yourdomain.tld,localhost
```
Set your email host settings. You will need an email address to receive your registration confirmation email. However, this is not a hard requirement for initial setup:
```
smtpServer = Your SMTP server
smtpUser = SMTP user
smtpPass = SMTP password
```
Next, run a build script from the bin directory:
```
$ ./bin/build.sh
```
Once the build completes, set up the MySQL database. The script will create a new database named hackpad and a MySQL user account. You will be asked to enter your MySQL root account password:
```
$ ./contrib/scripts/setup-mysql-db.sh
```
Finally, you can start the server by executing run.sh from the bin directory:
```
$ ./bin/run.sh
```
This will take a few seconds to start the application. Once you see the HTTP server is listening to the line, you can access Hackpad at http://yourdomain.tld:9000:
Access Hackpad and register with an email address that is used for an admin account. If you have set up an email server, you should receive a confirmation email containing a link to activate your account.
If you have not set up email server access to the MySQL database to get your authentication token, open the MySQL client and use the following queries to get your token. The MySQL password for the Hackpad account is taken from the configuration file:
```
$ mysql -h localhost -u hackpad -ppassword
mysql> use hackpad;
mysql> select * from email_signup;
```

Select your token from the row matching your email address and replace it in the following URL. In this case, the auth toke is PgEJoGAiL3E2ZDl2FqMc:

http://yourdomain.com:9000/ep/account/validate-email?email=user@youremail.com&token=your_auth_token_from_db

The full auth URL for my admin account will look like this:

http://localhost.local:9000/ep/account/validate-email?email=admin@localhost.local&token= PgEJoGAiL3E2ZDl2FqMc

Open this URL in the browser and your account registration will be confirmed. You will be logged in to your Hackpad account.
Once you log in to your new account, Hackpad will start with a welcome screen listing all the default pads that looks something like the following:
You can click any of them and start editing or create a new document. When opened, you will get a full page to add contents, with basic text editing options in the top bar:

The document can be shared using the invite box or simply by sharing the URL.

How it works…

As mentioned before, Hackpad is a collaborative editor based on an open source project, EtherPad. It allows you to create online documents directly in your browser. In the same way as Google Docs, you can use Hackpad to create and store your documents in the cloud. Plus, you can access Hackpad from any device. All your documents will be rendered in a proper format suitable for your device.

When you log in for the first time, the home screen will greet you with stock pads. You can edit existing pads or start a new one from the top bar. An editor will give you a basic text editing setting, plus options to create lists and add comments. You can even add data in a tabular format. Click on the gear icon from the top bar and it will give you options to view document history, get an embedded link, or delete the document.

Every change in the document will be marked with your username, and if two or more people are working with the document at the same time, then the specific line being edited by each user is marked with the user's tag:

On the right-hand side of the document, you can see the options to invite your peers to collaborate on this document. You can invite people using their email address. Make sure that you have configured your email server before using this feature. Alternatively, the invites are also shown in a chat window with clickable links, as shown in the following screenshot:

At the bottom of the document, you can find all activity logs about the new initiation and the editing of this document. There is an option to chat with participating people directly from the same window. It is located at the bottom corner of the right-hand side; it's the small bar with a chat icon named after your domain. This provides one-to-one chat, as well as a group chat:

Note

Note that this setup does not work with IP addresses. You will need a domain name that maps to an IP address. You can set localhost files to set up local domain mappings, or use a local DNS server for your internal network.

There's more

Hackpad is a collaborative document editor. You can add snippets of code in a given document but not entire code files. To edit your code, you can use an open source Cloud IDE named Cloud 9 IDE. Check out the GitHub repo at https://github.com/c9/core/. Alternatively, you can get Docker images set up quickly and play around with the IDE.

Using Hackpad with Docker

The Hackpad setup contains a Docker file as well. If you have Docker installed, you can build a Docker image for Hackpad. Simply change your directory to Hackpad git repo and build a Docker image with the following command:

$ docker build -t hackpad

How to do it…

Hackpad is a web application based on Java. We will need to install the JDK; Scala, which is another programming language; and MySQL as a data store. We will start by installing dependencies and then cloning the Hackpad repository from GitHub.

Install JDK and Scala. The installation document mentions Sun JDK as a requirement but it works with Open JDK.
```
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install openjdk-7-jdk scala -y
```
Install the MySQL server. You can get more details on MySQL installation in the chapter handling the database:
```
$ sudo apt-get install mysql-server-5.6
```
Next, clone the Hackpad repository. You can choose not to install Git and download the ZIP archive of Hackpad from GitHub:
```
$ git clone https://github.com/dropbox/hackpad.git
```
This will create a new directory, hackpad. Before we run the build script, we need to set some configuration parameters to match our environment. Change the directory to hackpad and edit the bin/exports.sh file as follows:
```
export SCALA_HOME="/usr/share/java"
export SCALA_LIBRARY_JAR="$SCALA_HOME/scala-library.jar"
export JAVA_HOME="/usr/share/java"
```

Next, create a configuration file as a copy of the default configuration, as follows:

$ cp etherpad/etc/etherpad.localdev-default.properties \ etherpad/etc/etherpad.local.properties

Edit the newly created configuration, get the admin email address, and search for the following line in etherpad/etc/etherpad.local.properties:
```
etherpad.superUserEmailAddresses = __email_addresses_with_admin_access__
```
Replace it with:
```
etherpad.superUserEmailAddresses = admin@yourdomain.tld
```
Optionally, you can set the project to production mode by setting isProduction to true:
```
devMode = false
verbose = true
etherpad.fakeProduction = false
etherpad.isProduction = true
```
If you are using a domain name other than localhost, then configure the same with the following option:
```
topdomains =yourdomain.tld,localhost
```
Set your email host settings. You will need an email address to receive your registration confirmation email. However, this is not a hard requirement for initial setup:
```
smtpServer = Your SMTP server
smtpUser = SMTP user
smtpPass = SMTP password
```
Next, run a build script from the bin directory:
```
$ ./bin/build.sh
```
Once the build completes, set up the MySQL database. The script will create a new database named hackpad and a MySQL user account. You will be asked to enter your MySQL root account password:
```
$ ./contrib/scripts/setup-mysql-db.sh
```
Finally, you can start the server by executing run.sh from the bin directory:
```
$ ./bin/run.sh
```
This will take a few seconds to start the application. Once you see the HTTP server is listening to the line, you can access Hackpad at http://yourdomain.tld:9000:
Access Hackpad and register with an email address that is used for an admin account. If you have set up an email server, you should receive a confirmation email containing a link to activate your account.
If you have not set up email server access to the MySQL database to get your authentication token, open the MySQL client and use the following queries to get your token. The MySQL password for the Hackpad account is taken from the configuration file:
```
$ mysql -h localhost -u hackpad -ppassword
mysql> use hackpad;
mysql> select * from email_signup;
```

Select your token from the row matching your email address and replace it in the following URL. In this case, the auth toke is PgEJoGAiL3E2ZDl2FqMc:

http://yourdomain.com:9000/ep/account/validate-email?email=user@youremail.com&token=your_auth_token_from_db

The full auth URL for my admin account will look like this:

http://localhost.local:9000/ep/account/validate-email?email=admin@localhost.local&token= PgEJoGAiL3E2ZDl2FqMc

Open this URL in the browser and your account registration will be confirmed. You will be logged in to your Hackpad account.
Once you log in to your new account, Hackpad will start with a welcome screen listing all the default pads that looks something like the following:
You can click any of them and start editing or create a new document. When opened, you will get a full page to add contents, with basic text editing options in the top bar:

The document can be shared using the invite box or simply by sharing the URL.

How it works…

As mentioned before, Hackpad is a collaborative editor based on an open source project, EtherPad. It allows you to create online documents directly in your browser. In the same way as Google Docs, you can use Hackpad to create and store your documents in the cloud. Plus, you can access Hackpad from any device. All your documents will be rendered in a proper format suitable for your device.

When you log in for the first time, the home screen will greet you with stock pads. You can edit existing pads or start a new one from the top bar. An editor will give you a basic text editing setting, plus options to create lists and add comments. You can even add data in a tabular format. Click on the gear icon from the top bar and it will give you options to view document history, get an embedded link, or delete the document.

Every change in the document will be marked with your username, and if two or more people are working with the document at the same time, then the specific line being edited by each user is marked with the user's tag:

On the right-hand side of the document, you can see the options to invite your peers to collaborate on this document. You can invite people using their email address. Make sure that you have configured your email server before using this feature. Alternatively, the invites are also shown in a chat window with clickable links, as shown in the following screenshot:

At the bottom of the document, you can find all activity logs about the new initiation and the editing of this document. There is an option to chat with participating people directly from the same window. It is located at the bottom corner of the right-hand side; it's the small bar with a chat icon named after your domain. This provides one-to-one chat, as well as a group chat:

Note

Note that this setup does not work with IP addresses. You will need a domain name that maps to an IP address. You can set localhost files to set up local domain mappings, or use a local DNS server for your internal network.

There's more

Hackpad is a collaborative document editor. You can add snippets of code in a given document but not entire code files. To edit your code, you can use an open source Cloud IDE named Cloud 9 IDE. Check out the GitHub repo at https://github.com/c9/core/. Alternatively, you can get Docker images set up quickly and play around with the IDE.

Using Hackpad with Docker

The Hackpad setup contains a Docker file as well. If you have Docker installed, you can build a Docker image for Hackpad. Simply change your directory to Hackpad git repo and build a Docker image with the following command:

$ docker build -t hackpad

How it works…

As mentioned before, Hackpad is a collaborative editor based on an open source project, EtherPad. It allows you to create online documents directly in your browser. In the same way as Google Docs, you can use Hackpad to create and store your documents in the cloud. Plus, you can access Hackpad from any device. All your documents will be rendered in a proper format suitable for your device.

When you log in for the first time, the home screen will greet you with stock pads. You can edit existing pads or start a new one from the top bar. An editor will give you a basic text editing setting, plus options to create lists and add comments. You can even add data in a tabular format. Click on the gear icon from the top bar and it will give you options to view document history, get an embedded link, or delete the document.

Every change in the document will be marked with your username, and if two or more people are working with the document at the same time, then the specific line being edited by each user is marked with the user's tag:

On the right-hand side of the document, you can see the options to invite your peers to collaborate on this document. You can invite people using their email address. Make sure that you have configured your email server before using this feature. Alternatively, the invites are also shown in a chat window with clickable links, as shown in the following screenshot:

At the bottom of the document, you can find all activity logs about the new initiation and the editing of this document. There is an option to chat with participating people directly from the same window. It is located at the bottom corner of the right-hand side; it's the small bar with a chat icon named after your domain. This provides one-to-one chat, as well as a group chat:

Note

Note that this setup does not work with IP addresses. You will need a domain name that maps to an IP address. You can set localhost files to set up local domain mappings, or use a local DNS server for your internal network.

There's more

Hackpad is a collaborative document editor. You can add snippets of code in a given document but not entire code files. To edit your code, you can use an open source Cloud IDE named Cloud 9 IDE. Check out the GitHub repo at https://github.com/c9/core/. Alternatively, you can get Docker images set up quickly and play around with the IDE.

Using Hackpad with Docker

The Hackpad setup contains a Docker file as well. If you have Docker installed, you can build a Docker image for Hackpad. Simply change your directory to Hackpad git repo and build a Docker image with the following command:

$ docker build -t hackpad

There's more

Hackpad is a collaborative document editor. You can add snippets of code in a given document but not entire code files. To edit your code, you can use an open source Cloud IDE named Cloud 9 IDE. Check out the GitHub repo at https://github.com/c9/core/. Alternatively, you can get Docker images set up quickly and play around with the IDE.

Using Hackpad with Docker

The Hackpad setup contains a Docker file as well. If you have Docker installed, you can build a Docker image for Hackpad. Simply change your directory to Hackpad git repo and build a Docker image with the following command:

$ docker build -t hackpad

Using Hackpad with Docker

The Hackpad setup contains a Docker file as well. If you have Docker installed, you can build a Docker image for Hackpad. Simply change your directory to Hackpad git repo and build a Docker image with the following command:

$ docker build -t hackpad

Installing Mattermost – a self-hosted slack alternative

This recipe covers another open source collaboration tool, Mattermost. Mattermost is a modern communication tool that includes one-to-one chat, group chat IRC-like channels, file sharing, and a super-fast search functionality. It can be thought of as a modern IRC tool. Mattermost is well known as an open source Slack alternative, but the Mattermost website says it is not limited to being a Slack alternative. You can find a list of features at http://www.mattermost.org/features.

The GitHub repository contains a step-by-step guide for installing Mattermost on production servers. We will use the same guide as our base.

Getting ready

You will need a 64-bit Ubuntu server and access to an account with sudo privileges. Mattermost prebuilt binaries are available only on a 64-bit platform. If you are running 32-bit Ubuntu, you will need to compile Mattermost from source. We will use MySQL as a database for Mattermost. I will use the same server for the database and Mattermost. You may want to separate these services on two different servers for better performance.

Create a separate MySQL user account and database for Mattermost. I will use the lowercase mattermost as a database name as well as a username.

Additionally, you will need a proxy if you are planning to load balance multiple Mattermost instances or have a secure setup with SSL enabled.

You will need a separate storage directory for shared multimedia contents. You should use a separate large volume specifically assigned for this purpose. Make sure that the directory is owned by the current user. To keep things simple, I will use a data directory under the current user's home, that is, /home/ubuntu/mattermost-data.

How to do it…

Mattermost is based on Golang as a backend and React, a JavaScript framework, for the frontend. Golang is capable of creating self-sufficient independent binaries. We will download the prebuilt package available on GitHub. As of writing this, the latest stable version is 1.3.0:

Download the Mattermost archive with the following command:

$ wget https://github.com/mattermost/platform/releases/download/v1.3.0/mattermost.tar.gz

Extract content from the archive. This will create a new directory named mattermost:
```
$ tar -xf mattermost.tar.gz
```
Next, edit the Mattermost configuration file located under the config directory:
```
$ cd mattermost
$ vi config/config.json
```
It is already configured to use MySQL as a data source. We need to set our username and password details for the database. Search for the SqlSettings section and replace the content of the DataSource parameter with the following line:
```
"DataSource": "mattermost: password@tcp(localhost:3306)/mattermost?charset=utf8mb4,utf8"
```
Next, search for the FileSettings section and set the Directory parameter to the directory we created for multimedia content:
```
"Directory":"/home/ubuntu/mattermost-data/"
```
Now, run the Mattermost server with the following command, and wait for the server to start listening:
```
$./bin/platform
```
Now you can access the Mattermost service at the hostname of your server at http://server_ip_or_host:8065. However, the service is still running from the console and will be terminated when we close the terminal.
Terminate this process by pressing Ctrl + C and set a startup daemon so that we can start Mattermost in the backend and automatically start the service on system reboot.
Create a new upstart configuration under the /etc/init directory:
```
$ sudo nano /etc/init/mattermost.conf
```

Add the following content to the newly created file:

start on runlevel [2345]
stop on runlevel [016]
respawn
chdir /home/ubuntu/mattermost
setuid ubuntu
exec bin/platform

Now you can start Mattermost with any of the following commands:
```
$ sudo start mattermost
```
```
Or
$ sudo service mattermost start
```
Optionally, if you want to load balance the Mattermost service using Nginx or HAProxy in front of it, please refer to Chapter 3, Working with Web Servers, for detail on how to do so. The use of a load balancer will also give you an option to enable SSL security for all communication.
Once you start the Mattermost service and access the homepage, you will be asked to sign up. Create an account with an email address and you can start using your own Mattermost instance. You can access the server at http://yourserver:8065.

How it works…

Mattermost is all about team communication and collaboration. When you access the Mattermost server for the first time and sign up with your email address, you will get an option to create a new team or join existing teams.:

To join an existing team, you need to submit your email address and Mattermost will reply with links to the team page where you are a member. If you have not yet created a team, simply proceed with signup. On signup, after you have entered your email address, you will be asked to select a team name and URI or a web address for your team page. Enter a good name for your team and click Next:

On the next page, you will be asked to choose a URL for your team page. The box should be pre-filled with a suggested URL. Feel free to change it if you have a better idea:

Once you are done with signup, you will be greeted with a welcome message and a simple walkthrough of the Mattermost service. Once you are done with the introduction, you will land on the Town Square channel. This is a prebuilt public channel accessible to all users. There's one more prebuilt channel named Off-Topic listed on the left side menu. You can create your own public channel, create a Private Group, or have a one-to-one chat through Direct Messages.

Before you start using the service, invite some more users to your team. Click on the Invite others to this team link or click on your username at the top left and then select the Invite New Member link. Here, you can enter the email and name of a single member to invite them. Optionally, you can get a team invite link, which can be shared with a group:

The username menu on the left gives you some more options. You can update team settings, manage team members, and even create a new team altogether. You will need to be a team admin to access these options. If you are part of multiple teams, then you can see an option to switch to a different team.

The team members will receive all communication in public channels. A user can decide to be a part of a channel or leave it and not receive any communication from a specific channel. Other options are Private group and Direct messages. In private groups, you can communicate and share with selected people and not the entire team, whereas in a direct message, as the name suggests, it is a one-to-one chat.

Every single message shared using Mattermost is archived and stored on the Mattermost server. Users can access their respective communication history and even search for a specific message, or documents from a specific user. Shared documents also become part of the archive and are available for later use. The search menu is available at the top-right corner of the screen.

The first user to sign up on Mattermost will get additional admin rights and can access the System Console (from the username menu) to configure system settings and set global defaults. Here, you can configure the database, set your email server and configure email notifications, configure default team settings, check system logs, and much more. When using Mattermost in production mode, make sure that you have configured the SMTP service under email settings and enabled email notifications. You can also enable email verification where account activation will need a user to verify their email address.

There's more …

The Mattermost service provides an option to integrate with various other popular services. One such service we have worked with is the GitLab server. While working with Git, we have seen the installation process of the GitLab omnibus package. The omnibus package contains Mattermost as a configurable component. If you have GitLab installed through the Omnibus package, check its configuration to enable the Mattermost service. Alternatively, you can configure GitLab integration from the Mattermost settings as well.

From version 1.1, Mattermost added support for web hooks to integrate with external services. Mattermost supports both incoming and outgoing hooks. Incoming hooks can pull events from external services and vice versa. These hooks are compatible with Slack APIs and the tools developed to work with Slack should work with self-hosted Mattermost as well.

Getting ready

You will need a 64-bit Ubuntu server and access to an account with sudo privileges. Mattermost prebuilt binaries are available only on a 64-bit platform. If you are running 32-bit Ubuntu, you will need to compile Mattermost from source. We will use MySQL as a database for Mattermost. I will use the same server for the database and Mattermost. You may want to separate these services on two different servers for better performance.

Create a separate MySQL user account and database for Mattermost. I will use the lowercase mattermost as a database name as well as a username.

Additionally, you will need a proxy if you are planning to load balance multiple Mattermost instances or have a secure setup with SSL enabled.

You will need a separate storage directory for shared multimedia contents. You should use a separate large volume specifically assigned for this purpose. Make sure that the directory is owned by the current user. To keep things simple, I will use a data directory under the current user's home, that is, /home/ubuntu/mattermost-data.

How to do it…

Mattermost is based on Golang as a backend and React, a JavaScript framework, for the frontend. Golang is capable of creating self-sufficient independent binaries. We will download the prebuilt package available on GitHub. As of writing this, the latest stable version is 1.3.0:

Download the Mattermost archive with the following command:

$ wget https://github.com/mattermost/platform/releases/download/v1.3.0/mattermost.tar.gz

Extract content from the archive. This will create a new directory named mattermost:
```
$ tar -xf mattermost.tar.gz
```
Next, edit the Mattermost configuration file located under the config directory:
```
$ cd mattermost
$ vi config/config.json
```
It is already configured to use MySQL as a data source. We need to set our username and password details for the database. Search for the SqlSettings section and replace the content of the DataSource parameter with the following line:
```
"DataSource": "mattermost: password@tcp(localhost:3306)/mattermost?charset=utf8mb4,utf8"
```
Next, search for the FileSettings section and set the Directory parameter to the directory we created for multimedia content:
```
"Directory":"/home/ubuntu/mattermost-data/"
```
Now, run the Mattermost server with the following command, and wait for the server to start listening:
```
$./bin/platform
```
Now you can access the Mattermost service at the hostname of your server at http://server_ip_or_host:8065. However, the service is still running from the console and will be terminated when we close the terminal.
Terminate this process by pressing Ctrl + C and set a startup daemon so that we can start Mattermost in the backend and automatically start the service on system reboot.
Create a new upstart configuration under the /etc/init directory:
```
$ sudo nano /etc/init/mattermost.conf
```

Add the following content to the newly created file:

start on runlevel [2345]
stop on runlevel [016]
respawn
chdir /home/ubuntu/mattermost
setuid ubuntu
exec bin/platform

Now you can start Mattermost with any of the following commands:
```
$ sudo start mattermost
```
```
Or
$ sudo service mattermost start
```
Optionally, if you want to load balance the Mattermost service using Nginx or HAProxy in front of it, please refer to Chapter 3, Working with Web Servers, for detail on how to do so. The use of a load balancer will also give you an option to enable SSL security for all communication.
Once you start the Mattermost service and access the homepage, you will be asked to sign up. Create an account with an email address and you can start using your own Mattermost instance. You can access the server at http://yourserver:8065.