How to install Etherpad on Ubuntu 20.04

Etherpad is a free, open-source, web-based, and multi-user collaboration tool. It is used for editing a document through a web browser in real-time. It allows you to edit, review, and type documents simultaneously. It comes with tons of plugins that help you to customize your instance to suit your needs. With Etherpad, you can write articles, press releases, and to-do lists with your friends, students, or colleagues at the same time.

In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Etherpad on Ubuntu 20.04.

Table of Contents

Prerequisites

An Ubuntu 20.04 VPS (we’ll be using our SSD 2 VPS plan)
Access to the root user account (or access to an admin account with root privileges)

Step 1: Log in to the Server & Update the Server OS Packages

First, log in to your Ubuntu 20.04 server via SSH as the root user:

ssh root@IP_Address -p Port_number

You will need to replace ‘IP_Address‘ and ‘Port_number‘ with your server’s respective IP address and SSH port number. Additionally, replace ‘root’ with the username of the admin account if necessary.

Before starting, you have to make sure that all Ubuntu OS packages installed on the server are up to date. You can do this by running the following commands:

apt-get update -y
apt-get upgrade -y

Step 2: Install the Required Packages

First, you will need to install all dependencies required to install Etherpad in your server. You can install all of them with the following command:

apt-get install libssl-dev pkg-config git gcc g++ make build-essential gnupg2 -y

Once all the packages are installed, you will need to install Node.js in your system. At the time of writing this tutorial, the latest version of Node.js is 14.15.0. By default, Node.js is not available in the Ubuntu 20.04 standard repository. So you will need to install the Node.js repository to your system. You can add the Node.js repository with the following command:

curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_14.x -o nodesource_setup.sh
bash nodesource_setup.sh

Once the repository is added, install the Node.js with the following command:

apt-get install nodejs -y

After installing Node.js, verify the installed version of Node.js with the following command:

node -v

You should get the following output:

v14.15.0

Step 3: Install and Configure MariaDB Database

Etherpad uses MySQL/MariaDB to store its data. So MariaDB server must be installed in your server. If not installed, you can install it with the following command:

apt-get install mariadb-server -y

Once installed, log in to the MariaDB console with the following command:

mysql

Once login, create a database and user with the following command:

MariaDB [(none)]> create database etherpaddb;
MariaDB [(none)]> grant all privileges on etherpaddb.* to etherpad@localhost identified by 'secure-password';

Next, flush the privileges and exit from the MariaDB with the following command:

MariaDB [(none)]> flush privileges;
MariaDB [(none)]> exit;

Step 4: Install and Configure Etherpad

First, create a separate user to run the Etherpad:

adduser --home /opt/etherpad --shell /bin/bash etherpad

Next, provide proper permissions to the Etherpad home directory with the following command:

install -d -m 755 -o etherpad -g etherpad /opt/etherpad

Next, login with Etherpad user and verify the Node.js version as a Etherpad user with the following command:

su - etherpad
node -v

Output:

v14.15.0

Next, download the latest version of Etherpad from the Git repository using the following command:

git clone --branch master https://github.com/ether/etherpad-lite.git

Next, change the directory to the downloaded directory and run the Etherpad using the following command:

cd etherpad-lite
bin/run.sh

Once the Etherpad server started successfully, press CTRL + C to stop the server.

Next, edit the settings.json file and make some changes:

nano settings.json

Remove the following lines:

"dbType" : "dirty",
  "dbSettings" : {
                   "filename" : "var/dirty.db"
                 },

Change the MySQL settings as shown below:

  "dbType" : "mysql",
  "dbSettings" : {
    "user":     "etherpad",
    "host":     "localhost",
    "port":     3306,
    "password": "secure-password",
    "database": "etherpaddb",
    "charset":  "utf8mb4"
  },

Change the line trustProxy to true:

  "trustProxy": true,

Define a password for the admin user:

  "users": {
    "admin": {
      "password": "secure-password",
      "is_admin": true
    },

Save and close the file then install the required dependencies with the following command:

./bin/installDeps.sh

Next, exit from the Etherpad user with the following command:

exit

Step 5: Create a Systemd Service File for Etherpad

Next, you will need to create a systemd service file to manage the Etherpad service.

nano /etc/systemd/system/etherpad.service

Add the following lines:

[Unit]
Description=Etherpad-lite, the collaborative editor.
After=syslog.target network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
User=etherpad
Group=etherpad
WorkingDirectory=/opt/etherpad/etherpad-lite
Environment=NODE_ENV=production

ExecStart=/usr/bin/node /opt/etherpad/etherpad-lite/src/node/server.js

Restart=always

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Save and close the file then reload the systemd daemon to apply the changes:

systemctl daemon-reload

Next, start the Etherpad service and enable it to start at system reboot with the following command:

systemctl start etherpad
systemctl enable etherpad

At this point, Etherpad is started and listening on port 9001. You can verify it with the following command:

ss -plntu | grep 9001

Output:

tcp   LISTEN 0      511                             0.0.0.0:9001        0.0.0.0:*                                                                                users:(("node",pid=14889,fd=27))

Step 6: Configure Nginx as a Reverse Proxy

Next, you will need to install and configure Nginx as a reverse proxy to access the Etherpad.

First, install the Nginx with the following command:

apt-get install nginx -y

Once installed, create a new Nginx virtual host configuration file:

nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/etherpad.conf

Add the following lines:

upstream etherpad {
   server localhost:9001;
   keepalive 32;
}

server {
   listen 80;
   server_name etherpad.example.com;

   location / {
       client_max_body_size 50M;
       proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
       proxy_http_version 1.1;
       proxy_pass http://etherpad;
   }
}

Save and close the file then activate the Nginx virtual host configuration file with the following command:

ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/etherpad.conf  /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/

Next, restart the Nginx service to apply the changes:

systemctl restart nginx

Step 7: Access Etherpad

Now, open your web browser and access the Etherpad web interface using the URL http://etherpad.example.com. You will be redirected to the Etherpad dashboard:

guides on installing etherpad to ubuntu 20.04

Provide your pad name and click on the OK button. You will be redirected to the Etherpad editor as shown below:

guides on how to install etherpad to ubuntu 20.04

Congratulations! you have successfully installed and configured Etherpad with Nginx as a reverse proxy on Ubuntu 20.04.

Of course, you don’t have to install and configure Etherpad on Ubuntu 20.04, if you use one of our Managed Ubuntu Hosting solutions, in which case you can simply ask our expert Linux admins to set up and configure Etherpad on Ubuntu 18.20 for you. They are available 24×7 and will take care of your request immediately.

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