# Advanced setup (non-Vagrant)

Contents:

* [Installing directly on Ubuntu, Debian, CentOS, or Fedora](#installing-directly-on-ubuntu-debian-centos-or-fedora)
* [Installing directly on Windows 10](#installing-directly-on-windows-10-experimental)
* [Installing manually on other Linux/UNIX](#installing-manually-on-unix)
* [Installing directly on cloud9](#installing-on-cloud9)

## Installing directly on Ubuntu, Debian, CentOS, or Fedora

If you'd like to install a Zulip development environment on a computer
that's running one of:

* Ubuntu 20.04 Focal, 18.04 Bionic
* Debian 10 Buster
* CentOS 7 (beta)
* Fedora 29 (beta)
* RHEL 7 (beta)

You can just run the Zulip provision script on your machine.

**Note**: you should not use the `root` user to run the installation.
If you are using a [remote server](../development/remote.md), see
the
[section on creating appropriate user accounts](../development/remote.html#setting-up-user-accounts).

```eval_rst
.. warning::
    there is no supported uninstallation process with this
    method.  If you want that, use the Vagrant environment, where you can
    just do `vagrant destroy` to clean up the development environment.
```

Start by [cloning your fork of the Zulip repository][zulip-rtd-git-cloning]
and [connecting the Zulip upstream repository][zulip-rtd-git-connect]:

```
git clone --config pull.rebase git@github.com:YOURUSERNAME/zulip.git
cd zulip
git remote add -f upstream https://github.com/zulip/zulip.git
```

```
# On CentOS/RHEL, you must first install epel-release, and then python36,
# and finally you must run `sudo ln -nsf /usr/bin/python36 /usr/bin/python3`
# On Fedora, you must first install python3
# From a clone of zulip.git
./tools/provision
source /srv/zulip-py3-venv/bin/activate
./tools/run-dev.py  # starts the development server
```

Once you've done the above setup, you can pick up the [documentation
on using the Zulip development
environment](../development/setup-vagrant.html#step-4-developing),
ignoring the parts about `vagrant` (since you're not using it).

## Installing directly on Windows 10 (experimental)

We will be using Microsoft's new feature [WSL
2](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/wsl2-about) for
installation.

WSL2 can be uninstalled by following the instructions [here from Microsoft]
(https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/faq#how-do-i-uninstall-a-wsl-distribution).

1. Install WSL 2 by following the instructions provided by Microsoft
[here](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/wsl2-install).

1. Install the `Ubuntu 18.04` Linux distribution from the Microsoft
Store.

1. Launch the `Ubuntu 18.04` shell and run the following commands:

   ```
   sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade
   sudo apt install rabbitmq-server memcached redis-server postgresql
   ```

1. Open `/etc/rabbitmq/rabbitmq-env.conf` using e.g.:

   ```
   sudo vim /etc/rabbitmq/rabbitmq-env.conf
   ```

   Add the following lines at the end of your file and save:

   ```
   NODE_IP_ADDRESS=127.0.0.1
   NODE_PORT=5672
   ```

1. Make sure you are inside the WSL disk and not in a Windows mounted disk.
   You will run into permission issues if you run `provision` from `zulip`
   in a Windows mounted disk.
   ```
   cd ~  # or cd /home/USERNAME
   ```

1. [Clone your fork of the Zulip repository][zulip-rtd-git-cloning]
   and [connecting the Zulip upstream repository][zulip-rtd-git-connect]:

   ```
   git clone --config pull.rebase git@github.com:YOURUSERNAME/zulip.git ~/zulip
   cd zulip
   git remote add -f upstream https://github.com/zulip/zulip.git
   ```

1. Run the following to install the Zulip development environment and
   start it (click `Allow access` if you get popups for Windows Firewall
   blocking some services)

   ```
   # Start database, cache, and other services
   ./tools/wsl/start_services
   # Install/update the Zulip development environment
   ./tools/provision
   # Enter the Zulip Python environment
   source /srv/zulip-py3-venv/bin/activate
   # Start the development server
   ./tools/run-dev.py
   ```

   ```eval_rst
   .. note::
       If you shutdown WSL, after starting it again, you will have to manually start
       the services using ``./tools/wsl/start_services``.
   ```

1. If you are facing problems or you see error messages after running `./tools/run-dev.py`,
   you can try running `./tools/provision` again.

1. [Visual Studio Code Remote - WSL](https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/remote/wsl) is
   recommended for editing files when developing with WSL.

1. You're done!  You can pick up the [documentation on using the
   Zulip development
   environment](../development/setup-vagrant.html#step-4-developing),
   ignoring the parts about `vagrant` (since you're not using it).

## Installing manually on Unix

We recommend one of the other installation methods, since they are
extremely well-tested and generally Just Work.  But if you know what
you're doing, these instructions can help you install a Zulip
development environment on other Linux/UNIX platforms.

* [Newer versions of supported distributions](#newer-versions-of-supported-distributions)
* [OpenBSD 5.8 (experimental)](#on-openbsd-5-8-experimental)
* [Common steps](#common-steps)

Because copy-pasting the steps documented here can be error-prone, we
prefer to extend `tools/provision` to support additional platforms
over adding new platforms to this documentation (and likely will
eventually eliminate this documentation section altogether).

### Newer versions of supported distributions

You can use
[our provisioning tool](#installing-directly-on-ubuntu-debian-centos-or-fedora)
to set up the Zulip development environment on current versions of
these platforms reliably and easily, so we no longer maintain manual
installation instructions for these platforms.

If `tools/provision` doesn't yet support a newer release of Debian or
Ubuntu that you're using, we'd love to add support for it.  It's
likely only a few lines of changes to `tools/lib/provision.py` and
`scripts/lib/setup-apt-repo` if you'd like to do it yourself and
submit a pull request, or you can ask for help in
[#development help](https://chat.zulip.org/#narrow/stream/49-development-help)
on chat.zulip.org, and a core team member can help add support for you.

### On OpenBSD 5.8 (experimental):

These instructions are experimental and may have bugs; patches
welcome!

Start by [cloning your fork of the Zulip repository][zulip-rtd-git-cloning]
and [connecting the Zulip upstream repository][zulip-rtd-git-connect]:

```
git clone --config pull.rebase git@github.com:YOURUSERNAME/zulip.git
cd zulip
git remote add -f upstream https://github.com/zulip/zulip.git
```

```
doas pkg_add sudo bash gcc postgresql-server redis rabbitmq \
    memcached py-Pillow py-cryptography py-cffi

# Point environment to custom include locations and use newer GCC
# (needed for Node modules):
export CFLAGS="-I/usr/local/include -I/usr/local/include/sasl"
export CXX=eg++

# Create tsearch_data directory:
sudo mkdir /usr/local/share/postgresql/tsearch_data


# Hack around missing dictionary files -- need to fix this to get the
# proper dictionaries from what in debian is the hunspell-en-us
# package.
sudo touch /usr/local/share/postgresql/tsearch_data/english.stop
sudo touch /usr/local/share/postgresql/tsearch_data/en_us.dict
sudo touch /usr/local/share/postgresql/tsearch_data/en_us.affix
```

Finally continue with the [Common steps](#common-steps) instructions below.

### Common steps

Make sure you have followed the steps specific for your platform:

* [OpenBSD 5.8 (experimental)](#on-openbsd-5-8-experimental)

For managing Zulip's python dependencies, we recommend using
[virtualenvs](https://virtualenv.pypa.io/en/stable/).

You must create a Python 3 virtualenv.  You must also install appropriate
python packages in it.

You should either install the virtualenv in `/srv`, or put a symlink to it in
`/srv`.  If you don't do that, some scripts might not work correctly.

You can run `python3 tools/setup/setup_venvs.py`.  This script will create a
virtualenv `/srv/zulip-py3-venv`.

If you want to do it manually, here are the steps:

```
sudo virtualenv /srv/zulip-py3-venv -p python3 # Create a python3 virtualenv
sudo chown -R `whoami`: /srv/zulip-py3-venv
source /srv/zulip-py3-venv/bin/activate # Activate python3 virtualenv
pip install --upgrade pip # upgrade pip itself because older versions have known issues
pip install --no-deps -r requirements/dev.txt # install python packages required for development
```

Now run these commands:

```
sudo ./scripts/lib/install-node
yarn install
./tools/setup/emoji/build_emoji
./scripts/setup/inline_email_css.py
./tools/setup/build_pygments_data
./tools/setup/generate_zulip_bots_static_files.py
./scripts/setup/generate_secrets.py --development
if [ $(uname) = "OpenBSD" ]; then
    sudo cp ./puppet/zulip/files/postgresql/zulip_english.stop /var/postgresql/tsearch_data/
else
    sudo cp ./puppet/zulip/files/postgresql/zulip_english.stop /usr/share/postgresql/*/tsearch_data/
fi
./scripts/setup/configure-rabbitmq
./tools/setup/postgresql-init-dev-db
./tools/rebuild-dev-database
./tools/setup/postgresql-init-test-db
./tools/rebuild-test-database
./manage.py compilemessages
```

To start the development server:

```
./tools/run-dev.py
```

… and visit <http://localhost:9991/>.

If you're running your development server on a remote server, look at
[the remote development docs][port-forward-setup] for port forwarding
advice.

#### Proxy setup for by-hand installation

If you are building the development environment on a network where a
proxy is required to access the Internet, you will need to set the
proxy in the environment as follows:

- On Ubuntu, set the proxy environment variables using:
 ```
 export https_proxy=http://proxy_host:port
 export http_proxy=http://proxy_host:port
 ```

- And set the yarn proxy and https-proxy using:
 ```
 yarn config set proxy http://proxy_host:port
 yarn config set https-proxy http://proxy_host:port
 ```

## Installing on Cloud9

AWS Cloud9 is a cloud-based integrated development environment (IDE)
that lets you write, run, and debug your code with just a browser. It
includes a code editor, debugger, and terminal.

This section documents how to set up the Zulip development environment
in a Cloud9 workspace.  If you don't have an existing Cloud9 account,
you can sign up [here](https://aws.amazon.com/cloud9/).

* Create a Workspace, and select the blank template.
* Resize the workspace to be 1GB of memory and 4GB of disk
  space. (This is under free limit for both the old Cloud9 and the AWS
  Free Tier).
* Clone the zulip repo: `git clone --config pull.rebase
  https://github.com/<your-username>/zulip.git`
* Restart rabbitmq-server since its broken on Cloud9: `sudo service
  rabbitmq-server restart`.
* And run provision `cd zulip && ./tools/provision`, once this is done.
* Activate the Zulip virtual environment by `source
  /srv/zulip-py3-venv/bin/activate` or by opening a new terminal.

#### Install zulip-cloud9

There's an NPM package, `zulip-cloud9`, that provides a wrapper around
the Zulip development server for use in the Cloud9 environment.

Note: `npm i -g zulip-cloud9` does not work in zulip's virtual
environment.  Although by default, any packages installed in workspace
folder (i.e. the top level folder) are added to `$PATH`.

```bash
cd .. # switch to workspace folder if you are in zulip directory
npm i zulip-cloud9
zulip-dev start # to start the development server
```

If you get error of the form `bash: cannot find command zulip-dev`,
you need to start a new terminal.

Your development server would be running at
`https://<workspace-name>-<username>.c9users.io` on port 8080.  You
dont need to add `:8080` to your URL, since the Cloud9 proxy should
automatically forward the connection. You might want to visit
[zulip-cloud9 repo](https://github.com/cPhost/zulip-cloud9) and it's
[wiki](https://github.com/cPhost/zulip-cloud9/wiki) for more info on
how to use zulip-cloud9 package.

[zulip-rtd-git-cloning]: ../git/cloning.html#step-1b-clone-to-your-machine
[zulip-rtd-git-connect]: ../git/cloning.html#step-1c-connect-your-fork-to-zulip-upstream
[port-forward-setup]: ../development/remote.html#running-the-development-server