Development Enviroment

1. Clone the repository.
   • Terminal Command: git clone https://github.com/hack-chat/main.git hackchat
2. Enter the directory in your terminal.
   • Terminal Command: cd hackchat
3. Install using npm.
   • Terminal Command: npm install
4. Start the application.
   • Terminal Command: npm start

Live Deployment Installation

1. (Follow steps 1 - 3 above)
2. Use PM2 to start the backend server.
   • Terminal Command: pm2 start ./server/main.js --node-args="-r esm" --name hackchat
   • See tips below to make the server start on boot.
3. Migrate the contents of ./hackchat/client into any suitable directory of your webserver. HackChat comes bundled with http-server for development purposes only, it is highly recommended that you use a better web server such as Nginx or Apache.
4. (OPTIONAL) Cleanup; you may delete hackchat/clientSource and hackchat/documentation

Tips

• If you plan on using SSL to serve the client; you will need to use a reverse proxy, as TLS is not natively supported by the hack.chat server software (this may change in future releases).
• Do not use root. Installing while using the root account or installing with root privileges will result in an error similar to the following: npm WARN lifecycle hack.chat-v2@2.1.92~postinstall: cannot run in wd hack.chat-v2@2.1.91 cd ./clientSource && npm install && cd .. & cd ./server && npm install && npm run config (wd='/dir')
• PM2 may be configured to start the backend server on boot, read https://pm2.keymetrics.io/docs/usage/startup/
• Do not install NodeJS using sudo apt install nodejs, instead use: bash cd ~ curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_10.x -o nodesource_setup.sh sudo bash nodesource_setup.sh sudo apt install nodejs
• Quick setup script, tested on Ubuntu 18.
• cd ~
• nano ./hc_install.sh
• Paste: bash #!/bin/bash cd ~ sudo apt update sudo apt install build-essential git curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_10.x -o nodesource_setup.sh sudo bash nodesource_setup.sh sudo apt install nodejs nodejs -v npm -v git --version git clone https://github.com/hack-chat/main.git hackchat cd hackchat npm install
• Ctrl + x
• Y
• chmod u+x ./hc_install.sh
• ./hc_install.sh