Rocket.Chat

Deploy Rocket.Chat, the ultimate open source web chat platform, with Ansible!

Features

• Optional full stack deployment:
  Fully deploy Rocket.Chat, including MongoDB & an Nginx reverse SSL proxy.
  Or, deploy Rocket.Chat and integrate with your existing MongoDB and/or Nginx instances/deployment methods.

• Optional automatic SSL cert generation:
  Automatically generate SSL certs for HTTPS connectivity via an Nginx reverse proxy.
  Or, deploy your own SSL certs!

• Optional automatic upgrades [requires Ansible 2.0]:
  If a new version of Rocket.Chat is released, or if you want to follow development for testing purposes, simply update the rocket_chat_version to whichever release you wish to deploy (see the Rocket.Chat releases page, set rocket_chat_automatic_upgrades to true and let this role do the rest! If there's a change to the code deployed to your Rocket.Chat server (either because of a remote change to the rocket_chat_version you're following, 'latest' or 'develop' for instance, or because you set a new rocket_chat_version to fetch), this role will handle the upgrade and redeployment of the Rocket.Chat service, keeping your data in tact.
  Note: This functionality requires Ansible 2.0. See how to fetch the 2.0 version of this role in the Install from Ansible Galaxy secion

Supported Platforms

Debian

• Jessie (8)

Ubuntu

• Trusty: 14.04
• Vivid: 15.04

EL (RHEL/CentOS)

• 7

Support for other distributions/operating systems is planned for the near future. If you'd like to see your distribution/operating system supported, please raise an issue!

Running into problems?

Please be sure you've read the FAQ and all documentation before raising an issue.

Role Variables

All variables have sane defaults set in defaults/main.yml

Defaults

Name	Default Value	Description
rocket_chat_automatic_upgrades	false	A boolean value that determines whether or not to upgrade Rocket.Chat upon source code changes
rocket_chat_upgrade_backup	true	A boolean value that determines whether or not to back up the current Rocket.Chat version when upgrading
rocket_chat_upgrade_backup_path	"{{ rocket_chat_application_path }}"	The path to store the back up of Rocket.Chat when rocket_chat_upgrade_backup is true
rocket_chat_application_path	/var/lib/rocket.chat	The destination on the filesystem to deploy Rocket.Chat to
rocket_chat_version	latest	The version of Rocket.Chat to deploy; see the Rocket.Chat releases page for available options
rocket_chat_tarball_remote	See defaults/main.yml	The remote URL to fetch the Rocket.Chat tarball from (uses rocket_chat_version)
rocket_chat_tarball_sha256sum	See defaults/main.yml	The SHA256 hash sum of the Rocket.Chat tarball being fetched
rocket_chat_tarball_fetch_timeout	100	The time (in seconds) before the attempt to fetch the Rocket.Chat tarball fails
rocket_chat_tarball_validate_remote_cert	true	A boolean value that determines wether or not to validate the SSL certs for the Rocket.Chat tarball remote
rocket_chat_service_user	rocketchat	The name of the user that will run the Rocket.Chat server process
rocket_chat_service_group	rocketchat	The name of the primary group for the rocket_chat_service_user user
rocket_chat_service_host	"{{ ansible_fqdn }}"	The FQDN of the Rocket.Chat system
rocket_chat_service_port	3000	The TCP port Rocket.Chat listens on
rocket_chat_node_10_40_path	/usr/local/n/versions/node/0.10.40/bin	The path to the node binary directory that n installs
rocket_chat_original_npm	/usr/bin/npm	The path to the original npm binary, before n installs any Node versions
rocket_chat_include_mongodb	true	A boolean value that determines whether or not to deploy MongoDB
rocket_chat_mongodb_keyserver	keyserver.ubuntu.com	The GPG key server to use when importing the MongoDB repo key
rocket_chat_mongodb_gpg_key	7F0CEB10	The GPG key fingerprint to import for the MongoDB repo
rocket_chat_mongodb_server	127.0.0.1	The IP/FQDN of the MongoDB host
rocket_chat_mongodb_port	27017	The TCP port to contact the MongoDB host host via
rocket_chat_mongodb_packages	mongodb	The name of the MongoDB package(s) to install (differs for different distros - see vars/)
rocket_chat_mongodb_config_template	mongod.conf.j2	The /etc/mongod.conf template to deploy
rocket_chat_include_nginx	true	A boolean value that determines whether or not to deploy Nginx
rocket_chat_ssl_generate_certs	true	A boolean value that determines whether or not to generate the Nginx SSL certs
rocket_chat_ssl_key_path	/etc/nginx/rocket_chat.key	The destination path for the Nginx SSL private key
rocket_chat_ssl_cert_path	/etc/nginx/rocket_chat.crt	The destination path for the Nginx SSL certificate
rocket_chat_ssl_deploy_data	false	A boolean value that determines whether or not to deploy custom SSL data (cert/key files)
rocket_chat_ssl_key_file	~	If not using SSL cert generation, this is the path to the Nginx SSL private key on the Ansible control node, for deployment
rocket_chat_ssl_cert_file	~	If not using SSL cert generation, this is the path to the Nginx SSL cert on the Ansible control node, for deployment
rocket_chat_nginx_enable_pfs	true	A boolean value that determines whether or not to enable PFS when deploying Nginx
rocket_chat_nginx_generate_pfs_key	true	A boolean value that determines whether or not to generate a PFS key file
rocket_chat_nginx_pfs_key_numbits	2048	Numbits to pass to OpenSSL when generating a PFS key file
rocket_chat_nginx_pfs_key_path	/etc/nginx/rocket_chat.pem	The destination path for the Nginx PFS key file
rocket_chat_nginx_pfs_file	~	If not using PFS key generation, this is the path to the Nginx PFS key on the Ansible control node, for deployment

Some variables differ between operating systems/distributions. These are set in the vars/ directory, typically in a file named after the distribution.

RHEL/CentOS variables

Set in vars/RedHat.yml

Name	Default Value	Description
rocket_chat_dep_packages	- git	A list of Rocket.Chat dependencies to install
	- GraphicsMagick
	- nodejs
	- npm
	- make
rocket_chat_mongodb_packages	- mongodb	A list of MongoDB server packages to install
	- mongodb-server
rocket_chat_mongodb_repl_lines	'replSet=001-rs'	The value for the MongoDB replica set
rocket_chat_mongodb_fork	true	A boolean value that sets whether or not to fork the MongoDB server process
rocket_chat_mongodb_pidfile_path	/var/run/mongodb/mongodb.pid	The path to the pidfile for the MongoDB server process
rocket_chat_mongodb_logpath	/var/log/mongodb/mongod.log	The log file path for the MongoDB server
rocket_chat_mongodb_unixsocketprefix	/var/run/mongodb	The path for the MongoDB UNIX socket prefix
rocket_chat_mongodb_dbpath	/var/lib/mongodb	The path for MongoDB to store its databases
rocket_chat_nginx_process_user	nginx	The user for that will be used to spawn the Nginx server process

RHEL/CentOS 7 variables

Set in vars/RedHat_7.yml

Name	Default Value	Description
rocket_chat_service_update_command	systemctl daemon-reload ; systemctl restart rocketchat	The command to use to inform the service management system when a service manifest has changed
rocket_chat_service_template
src	rocketchat.service.j2	The source template to deploy for the Rocket.Chat service manifest
dest	/usr/lib/systemd/system/rocketchat.service	The destination to deploy the Rocket.Chat service manifest to
rocket_chat_tarball_validate_remote_cert	false	A boolean value that determines wether or not to validate the SSL certs for the Rocket.Chat tarball remote

Debian variables

Set in vars/Debian.yml

Name	Default Value	Description
rocket_chat_dep_packages	- git	A list of Rocket.Chat dependencies to install
	- graphicsmagick
	- nodejs
	- npm
	- make
rocket_chat_mongodb_packages	- mongodb-server	A list of MongoDB server packages to install
	- mongodb-shell
rocket_chat_mongodb_repl_lines	replication:	The value for the MongoDB replica set
	replSetName: "001-rs"
rocket_chat_nginx_process_user	www-data	The user for that will be used to spawn the Nginx server process

Debian 8 variables

Set in vars/Debian_8.yml

Name	Default Value	Description
rocket_chat_service_update_command	systemctl daemon-reload ; systemctl restart rocketchat	The command to use to inform the service management system when a service manifest has changed
rocket_chat_service_template
src	rocketchat.service.j2	The source template to deploy for the Rocket.Chat service manifest
dest	/etc/systemd/system/rocketchat.service	The destination to deploy the Rocket.Chat service manifest to
rocket_chat_mongodb_apt_repo	deb http://repo.mongodb.org/apt/debian wheezy/mongodb-org/3.0 main	The APT repository for MongoDB

Ubuntu variables

Set in vars/Ubuntu.yml

Name	Default Value	Description
rocket_chat_dep_packages	- git	A list of Rocket.Chat dependencies to install
	- graphicsmagick
	- nodejs
	- npm
	- make
rocket_chat_mongodb_packages	- mongodb-server	A list of MongoDB server packages to install
	- mongodb-shell
rocket_chat_mongodb_repl_lines	replication:	The value for the MongoDB replica set
	replSetName: "001-rs"
rocket_chat_nginx_process_user	www-data	The user for that will be used to spawn the Nginx server process

Ubuntu 15 variables

Set in vars/Ubuntu_15.yml

Name	Default Value	Description
rocket_chat_service_update_command	systemctl daemon-reload ; systemctl restart rocketchat	The command to use to inform the service management system when a service manifest has changed
rocket_chat_service_template
src	rocketchat.service.j2	The source template to deploy for the Rocket.Chat service manifest
dest	/etc/systemd/system/rocketchat.service	The destination to deploy the Rocket.Chat service manifest to
rocket_chat_mongodb_apt_repo	deb http://repo.mongodb.org/apt/debian wheezy/mongodb-org/3.0 main	The APT repository for MongoDB

Ubuntu 14 variables

Set in vars/Ubuntu_14.yml

Name	Default Value	Description
rocket_chat_service_update_command	initctl reload-configuration ; service rocketchat restart	The command to use to inform the service management system when a service manifest has changed
rocket_chat_service_template
src	rocketchat_upstart.j2	The source template to deploy for the Rocket.Chat service manifest
dest	/etc/init/rocketchat.conf	The destination to deploy the Rocket.Chat service manifest to
rocket_chat_mongodb_apt_repo	deb http://repo.mongodb.org/apt/ubuntu trusty/mongodb-org/3.0 multiverse	The APT repository for MongoDB
rocket_chat_tarball_validate_remote_cert	false	A boolean value that determines wether or not to validate the SSL certs for the Rocket.Chat tarball remote

Install this role from Ansible Galaxy

This role is available for download from Ansible Galaxy. To install this role, and track it in your Ansible code-base, use something similar to the following in your requirements.yml:

- src: RocketChat.Server
  version: master
  path: roles/external/

Note: you must specify version as master if you're still using Ansible 1.9.4

Install the Ansible 2.0 version of this role

With the release of Ansible 2.0, this role is officially supported with some performance enhancements and extra features (automatic upgrades, for instance).
To use the Ansible 2.0 version of this role, you can install it using the ansible-galaxy command line tool using a requirements.yml (both mentioned above) to specify the version you wish to use.

Here's an example requirements.yml file to install via ansible-galaxy will fetch the Ansible 2.0 code:

  - src: RocketChat.Server
    version: v2.0
    path: roles/external

Example Playbook

A simple playbook to run this role on all chat_servers systems:

  - hosts: chat_servers
    roles:
     - RocketChat.Server

A playbook to deploy Rocket.Chat to chat_servers but exclude the deployment of MongoDB and use an external instance. Also permit automatic upgrades of Rocket.Chat (Ansible 2.0 required for rocket_chat_automatic_upgrades! See the Install from Ansible Galaxy secion):

  - hosts: chat_servers

    vars:
      rocket_chat_automatic_upgrades: true
      rocket_chat_include_mongodb: false
      rocket_chat_mongodb_server: 10.19.3.24
  
    roles:
      - RocketChat.Server

FAQ

• When I try to deploy using this role, it fails on the Fetch the Rocket.Chat binary tarball task
  If deployment fails with a message similar to the following, this is because the role hasn't been updated to reflect the SHA256 hash sum of the latest Rocket.Chat release tarball

TASK [RocketChat.Server : Fetch the Rocket.Chat binary tarball] ****************
fatal: [chat1]: FAILED! => {"changed": false, "failed": true, "msg": "The checksum for /var/lib/rocket.chat/rocket.chat-latest.tgz did not match e6caca890c86f79595da14398dd3ab0c0d3222932d6a8a1b38c6e5082531acd2; it was 21ef5ee220671e5f514f240d1423514c5780d81d6ffba8720d19660079099925."}

Right now, maintenance of this variable is a manual process. In the meantime you can simply set this variable's value yourself; via host_vars, group_vars, vars in your playbook, or with -e when running ansible-playbook, etc.

Available tags

To run a specific set of plays, with the --tags flag, the available tags are:

• vars
• build
• mongodb
• repo
• nginx
• upgrade
• service

Management of the Rocket.Chat service

This role will deploy a service named rocketchat. You can use your native service management system to start/stop/reload/restart the service.

Testing via Vagrant

To test this role, you'll find a Vagrantfile and provision.yml playbook in the tests/ directory. This is, as you might have guessed, for running test deployments via Vagrant.

If you'd like to test some changes, or simply see how the role works/provision a little play Rocket.Chat server locally, you can cd into tests/ and run vagrant up (provided you have Vagrant & VirtualBox installed).

If you take a look at the Vagrantfile, you'll see there's a deployment for each currently supported platform - simply comment out any you don't want to deploy (don't forget their Ansible config at the bottom, either!).
Once deployment is finished, if you want to try Rocket.Chat out, you can visit http://localhost:4000 in your browser (the port 4000 varies here, based on which platform you're deploying, see the forwarded_port value for your platform).

TODO

• Add service user/group to run the Rocket.Chat process (for security...)
• Move from PM2 to native service management systems
• Use Let's Encrypt for SSL

License

MIT

Issues/Contributions

Feel free to:
Raise an issue
Contribute