GNet Solutions » GNU/Linux Administration

This guide is to document setting up a self-hosted HabitRPG node. It is assumed that the node is setup and configured as an ISPConfig web server node, as covered in Issue #177.

Install and set up MongoDB¶

apt-get install mongodb

Install and set up NodeJS and NPM¶

Because Ubuntu's software repositories may run a few months behind the latest revisions, Ubuntu users will want to install node from an updated repository:

apt-get update
apt-get install python-software-properties
apt-add-repository ppa:chris-lea/node.js
apt-get update
apt-get install nodejs

(Optional) Building NodeJS from source¶

Since I am not running an Ubuntu system, I had to resort to compiling the latest NodeJS from source.

Resolve prerequisite packages¶

apt-get install python g++ make checkinstall

Make, then change into a temporary build folder¶

src=$(mktemp -d) && cd $src

Get latest NodeJS source¶

wget -N http://nodejs.org/dist/node-latest.tar.gz

Extract NodeJS source¶

tar xzvf node-latest.tar.gz && cd node-v*

Configure build variables¶

./configure

Build a .deb package¶

fakeroot checkinstall -y --install=no --pkgversion $(echo $(pwd) | sed -n -re's/.+node-v(.+)$/\1/p') make -j$(($(nproc)+1)) install

• Install the NodeJS .deb
  

  sudo dpkg -i node_*
  

Install and set up Git¶

Fork the repository on your computer

git clone https://github.com/HabitRPG/habitrpg.git

Make sure you are on the develop branch where all the development, this should be the default branch if you are forking from github. You can check with git branch, the branch with a star next to it is the branch you are currently on. If you are not on the develop branch switch to it

cd /path/to/habitrpg
git checkout develop

Install grunt-cli npm package globally¶

Note: On some systems you may need to add sudo in front of this command

npm install -g grunt-cli bower

Install the npm and bower packages:¶

npm install

Create a config file from the example one:¶

cp config.json.example config.json

Edit config.json with your values for:

• ADMIN_EMAIL
• SMTP_USER
• SMTP_PASS
• SMTP_SERVICE

Ensure that Mongo is running:

service mongodb start

Then seed the database with initial settings:

node ./src/seed.js

Run HabitRPG¶

There are two ways to start the web application:

1. Using grunt
   

   grunt run:dev
   

2. OR Using NPM
   

   npm start
   

Autostart HabitRPG at boot time¶

I wanted to have HabitRPG start at boot, and unfortunately there wasn't any documentation on how to do this. Nevertheless, I found that adding the following line to /etc/rc.local started the server at boot time:

cd /usr/local/habitrpg && npm start &

This will start an HTTP server on port 3000, so pointing a web browser there will access the HabitRPG site

Troubleshooting¶

I encountered a couple of errors while starting the web application.

Failure to start grunt¶

failed to locate @import file ../bower_components/angular-loading-bar/build/loading-bar.css Warning: Stylus failed to compile. Used --force, continuing.

You need to update bower and restart the command:

bower update
grunt run:dev

bower update fails¶

Error: EEXIST, rename '.bower-cache/ef2188def21eb1bbd1f1792311942a53/1.2.15-build.2360%2Bsha.6b18a56'

If you encounter this or a similar error when issuing a bower update, perform the following:

cd .bower-cache/ef2188def21eb1bbd1f1792311942a53/
rm -rf 1.2.15-build.2360%2Bsha.6b18a56

The actual names of these directories may differ on your system.

Resources¶

• http://habitrpg.wikia.com/wiki/Setting_up_HabitRPG_locally
• http://habitrpg.wikia.com/wiki/Guidance_for_Blacksmiths#Git
• http://habitrpg.wikia.com/wiki/Installation_troubleshooting
• https://github.com/joyent/node/wiki/Installing-Node.js-via-package-manager