Intersect

Intersect is a temporary VM running Discourse. This is to test the software as a possible replacement for Google Groups

Discourse

Discourse has been installed as per these instructions. Currently it is relaying outgoing emails through Holly

Notes

Needs to support mailing list functionality. Seems to support send of the messages posted via email, if a little slow. Still need to investigate the following:

• Reply by email
• Start topic by email

Using Amazon S3 for uploads and backups. Keeps space used on the server to a minimum.

Everything runs in the container. Changes to container will be destroyed when it is rebuilt.

enter container (for logs, etc) using

root@server: /var/docker# ./launcher ssh app

logs are at (in the container)

/var/www/discourse/log/

=Rebuild

To rebuild the app, use these commands:

root@server: /var/docker# ./launcher rebuild app
root@server: /var/docker# ssh-keygen -f "/root/.ssh/known_hosts" -R [0.0.0.0]:2222

Admin Changes

This section details the changes made from the default install for each of the admin area sections.

Required

• title: Nottinghack Discussions
• site description: Testing version of Nottinghack's possible future
• contact email: newsletter@nottinghack.org.uk
  • this should probably be info@, but is that checked?
• notification email: group@nottinghack.org.uk
  • Not sure about this. On one hand I want to call the entire thing Intersect, on the other hand, that's a bit geeky!
• site contact username: geeksareforlife
• logo url: default logo size 122x33
• logo small url: default logo size 33x33
• favicon url: favicon from nottinghack.org.uk
• apple touch icon url: apple touch from nottinghack.org.uk
• company full name: Nottingham Hackspace Limited
• company short name: Nottingham Hackspace
• company domain: www.nottinghack.org.uk

Basic Setup

• ga universal tracking code: Tracking code for Google Analytics.
  • saved in info@ google account
• category_colors: Add some more colours in
  • Specifically #663399 - beccapurple

Users

• max username length: 30
• enable google oauth2 logins: true
• google oauth2 client id: Client ID
• google oauth2 client secret: Client Secret
  • See https://meta.discourse.org/t/configuring-google-oauth2-login-for-discourse/15858 for more details

Posting

• min post length: 2
• min private message post length: 2
• body min entropy: 1
• min topic title length: 10
• title min entropy: 5
• title sanitize: ticked
• newuser max images: 1
  • may also want to look at the other newuser maxes.
  • this is all related to the trust levels

Things not changed, but of interest:

• allow uncategorized topics
  • Currently true, but setting to false (with decent categories) would be forum-like
  • How would this affect email-in topics?

Emails

• email time window mins: 1
• default digest email frequency: daily
• reply by email enabled: true
• reply by email address: group+%{reply_key}@nottinghack.org.uk
• pop3s polling enabled: true
• pop3s polling period mins: 1
• pop3s polling host: mail.mjhosting.co.uk
• pop3s polling username: group.nottinghack
• pop3s polling password: **********
• email prefix: Nottinghack
  • This is what is shown on email subject lines: [Nottinghack]

Files

• enable s3 uploads: true
• s3 access key id: key id from S3, should be a restricted user
• s3 secret access key: key from S3, should be a restricted user
• s3 region: region of the bucket we want to use for uploads
• s3 upload bucket: intersect-testing-nottinghack

Spam

There are some interesting settings here that need further investigation and thought

Backups

• backup daily: true
• enable s3 backups: true
• s3 backup bucket: bucket for backups. Must be accessible by the above user and in the same region as the above bucket

Uncategorized

• show create topics notice: false

User Changes

This section details any changes made to user settings to allow Discourse to run as a mailing list (if any)

If we decide to change

• [1]