Commento

Commento is an open source, fast, privacy-focused commenting platform written in golang.

Note

For this guide you should be familiar with the basic concepts of

supervisord

Prerequisites

Install and configure a Postgresql server.

Installation

Since Commento provides pre-compiled binaries, we can use those:

Warning

Check the releases page before you continue.

[isabell@stardust ~]$ mkdir commento
[isabell@stardust ~]$ cd commento
[isabell@stardust commento]$ wget https://commento-release.s3.amazonaws.com/commento-linux-amd64-v1.7.0.tar.gz
[isabell@stardust commento]$

Extract the tar archive:

[isabell@stardust commento]$ tar -xf commento-linux-amd64-v1.7.0.tar.gz
[isabell@stardust commento]$

We do not need the tarball any longer, so delete it:

[isabell@stardust commento]$ rm commento-linux-amd64-v1.7.0.tar.gz
[isabell@stardust commento]$

You will be left with a single executable binary, called commento as well as supporting files.

Create Commento Start Script

Make sure to have your PostgreSQL credentials ready. You will need an existing database, port, username and password.

Create ~/bin/commento_daemon and add the following content:

Warning

Replace all placeholders <*> with your values!

#!/bin/sh
set -ue

export COMMENTO_ORIGIN=https://isabell.uber.space
export COMMENTO_PORT=31380
export COMMENTO_BIND_ADDRESS="0.0.0.0"
export COMMENTO_POSTGRES=postgres://<username>:<password>@<host>:<port>/<database>?sslmode=disable
exec ~/commento/commento

Make your script executable:

[isabell@stardust ~]$ chmod +x ~/bin/commento_daemon
[isabell@stardust ~]$

Setup Supervisor

Create ~/etc/services.d/commento.ini with the following content:

[program:commento]
command=%(ENV_HOME)s/bin/commento_daemon

After creating the configuration, tell supervisord to refresh its configuration and start the service:

[isabell@stardust ~]$ supervisorctl reread
SERVICE: available
[isabell@stardust ~]$ supervisorctl update
SERVICE: added process group
[isabell@stardust ~]$ supervisorctl status
SERVICE                            RUNNING   pid 26020, uptime 0:03:14
[isabell@stardust ~]$

To stop and start the daemon to perform maintenance tasks, you can use supervisorctl stop and supervisorctl start, respectively:

[isabell@stardust ~]$ supervisorctl stop commento
commento: stopped
[isabell@stardust ~]$

[isabell@stardust ~]$ supervisorctl start commento
commento: started
[isabell@stardust ~]$

Check out the supervisord manual for further details.

Configure Web Backend

Note

Commento is running on port 31380.

To make the application accessible from the outside, configure a web backend:

[isabell@stardust ~]$ uberspace web backend set / --http --port <port>
Set backend for / to port <port>; please make sure something is listening!
You can always check the status of your backend using "uberspace web backend list".
[isabell@stardust ~]$

Now you should be able to access Commento at your defined domain in your browser.

Additional Notes

If you are the only user of the Commento instance, it would be advisable to disable the new owner sign up, after you registered your site. Add this to your commento_daemon above the /home/isabell/commento/commento call:

Note

This does not impact the commenting users of your site!

export COMMENTO_FORBID_NEW_OWNERS=true

Then restart Commento:

[isabell@stardust ~]$ supervisorctl restart commento
commento: stopped
commento: started
[isabell@stardust ~]$

The form to sign up will still be visible, but cannot be submitted.

—

Tested with Commento 1.7.0 / Uberspace 7.3.6.1

Written by: hendrikmaus <https://github.com/hendrikmaus>