DigitalOcean

The following is a step-by-step guide to installing DocNow in DigitalOceean. The instructions use terminology for macOS. You should be able to follow these instructions without prior experience with DigitalOcean or macOS Terminal, but if this is your first time administering an application, fair warning! This may take up to 2 hours to install.

Please follow each step carefully and open an issue on the Github Repository if you find something missing.

1. Install Ansible

Ansible will be used to configure the Virtual Private Server you will be setting up on AWS Lightsail. This server will host the DocNow App.

You will need a Programmers Editors like Microsoft's VSCode to make edits below

Start by opening the Terminal application on your Mac in Applications/Utilities This can be also found by typing terminal' in Spotlight.

Install Homebrew by copying the following into your Terminal:

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

This will take a few minutes

Then copy the following into your Terminal:

git -C /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Taps/homebrew/homebrew-core fetch --unshallow

This will take a few minutes

Then install Ansible by copying the following into your Terminal:

brew install ansible

Now your computer has the tools it needs to interface with DigitalOcean

Create an SSH Key

To host your Docnow Application on Linode you will need SSH (Secure Shell, allows for secure access to remote servers).

SSH uses public and private keys.

Your public SSH key is what you'll provide Linode in order to authorize access to your server.
Your private SSH key remains on your computer and is required to log into your Linode server.

Creating an SSH keypair

Open your computer's Terminal:

On macOS, this can be found by typing terminal' in Spotlight, or under Applications \> Utilities \> Terminal.

If you have never created an SSH keypair before, Type the following command and hit Enter:

ssh-keygen -f ~/.ssh/docnow_id_rsa

This step will save your Linode keys under a hidden directory name /Users/[macOSusername]/.ssh which is the default location of your ssh keys.

Hit Enter without typing anything to save it to the default location. After hitting enter, you will be prompted for an optional passphrase which will encrypt the private SSH key. (This is an added security to protect your keys, should you ever lose your computer.).

You now have a public and private key that you'll use to authenticate with the server you'll create. The screen output will look something like this:

Generating public/private rsa key pair.
Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase):
Enter same passphrase again:
Your identification has been saved in /Users/[macOSusername]/.ssh/docnow_id_rsa
Your public key has been saved in /Users/[macOSusername]/.ssh/docnow_id_rsa.pub
The key fingerprint is:
SHA256:j0QCWjKqsmvUG2OAhlmFGruiLdpMgcqXwWIePlbi5Qs [macOSusername]@YOURMACOS
The key's randomart image is:
+---[RSA 3072]----+
|  oo+            |
|..o= .           |
|+*.   . .        |
|B+.    o         |
|=*+=    S        |
|@oB*o  . o       |
|*Eo++   . .      |
|+*=..            |
|=.o.             |
+----[SHA256]-----+

You can list the contents of the directory by running the following:

ls -alt ~/.ssh/

If this your first time you will see the docnow_id_rsa private key and it's public pair of docnow_id_rsa.pub

If you already have keys you will also see id_rsa private key and id_rsa.pub public pair.

Obtaining your public SSH key

After generating an SSH keypair, run the following command in your terminal to display your public key:

cat ~/.ssh/docnow_id_rsa.pub*

Copy all the output to a text file, as we'll use it when creating a DigitalOcean droplet in the next steps.

Your machine will connect to a server and admin that you alone have access to, and from which you control the machine's settings.

Create an account

To begin, sign up for a DigitalOcean account here: https://cloud.digitalocean.com/registrations/new

Provide them with your billing information.

⚠️ IMPORTANT:

You must set up two-factor authentication (2FA) on your Digital Ocean account, and securely store the backup codes, to protect your crypto and cash.

Use only the authenticator app (HOTP) option, and not SMS-based authentication: https://cloud.digitalocean.com/settings/security

Droplet creation (image & size)

After setting up your DigitalOcean account, click Create > Droplets in the top right corner to start a new server:

Click the dropdown box under Ubuntu and choose 18.04 x64 as the distribution (instead of the default 20.04):

Select the 4 GB / 2 CPUs option for your droplet size:

Do not click the green create button yet, as we'll continue to additional options in the next steps.

Droplet creation (options & SSH key)

After choosing the droplet size, and location closest to you, consider checking the box for Monitoring in the additional options section:

The monitoring option will allow you to later track your droplet's resource usage from your DigitalOcean account.

Then, under the Authentication section, choose SSH keys and click New SSH Key.

In the dialogue box, paste the public SSH key you obtained earlier during key creation, name it, and click add:

Enter a hostname of your choosing, then click the green Create button:

Logging into your server

After creating the droplet, note its IP Address shown on the following DigitalOcean screen:

Open your computer's Terminal again if it's not still open. On macOS, this can be found by typing terminal in Spotlight, or under Applications \> Utilities \> Terminal.

Then, run the following, but replacing 1.2.3.4 with the IP address of your droplet, and hit Enter:

ssh root@1.2.3.4*

You'll be asked if you're sure you want to continue connecting. Type yes and hit Enter.

Then, you'll be prompted to enter the password you protected your SSH key with when creating it. Do so, and hit Enter.

⚠️Note: Nothing will appear in the terminal as you enter your passphrase. This is intentional. You're still typing though.

When you see the prompt

root@your-droplet:~#

instead of

your-name@your-mac ~ %

you've logged into your server. You are now ready to install the docnow software

3. Installing the Docnow software

Download and unzip the docnow-ansible zip file or, if you are a GitHub user, clone the repository to a location on your computer.
Move the docnow-ansible folder to your Documents folder
Modify the hosts.example to have the IP address from the steps above.
rename the file hosts.example file to hosts

 ansible-playbook -i hosts playbooks/do_install.yml

When your playbook runs you will be able to access your docnow application the the DigitalOcean IP address above. Point your browser to http://1.2.3.4 (substituting the 1.2.3.4 with your DigitalOcean IP address)