(Using https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy-ansible)

The ansible-playbook command itself connected to the VPS and completed without any errors or warnings. This is on a completely fresh VPS with Ubuntu Server 22.04.

I created all directories needed in the guide, and the only file I modified was the inventory/hosts file - filling in the username/domain for SSH, domain name, contact email and adding the location of the private key for SSH.

The guide didn’t note any changes to config.hjson I needed to make, so I copied that file as requested but left it with the default content. I’m thinking if I missed something it’s most likely there.

I couldn’t access the web UI and with some investigation I found the dessalines/lemmy:0.17.4 (backend) container is continually restarting, apparently because it can’t reach the database - sudo docker container logs <id> returns the following:

thread 'main' panicked at 'Error connecting to postgres://lemmy:PasswordRedacted@postgres:5432/lemmy', crates/db_schema/src/utils.rs:161:56

I’m not sure what to do at this point, so I would be very appreciative of any help with this issue.

    • aranym@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      The postgres container appears to be running.

      sudo docker ps output:

      (postgres is the last container listed)

      CONTAINER ID   IMAGE                        COMMAND                  CREATED          STATUS                            PORTS                                 NAMES
e305af2b91c8   dessalines/lemmy-ui:0.17.4   "docker-entrypoint.s…"   27 minutes ago   Up 27 minutes                     127.0.0.1:12074->1234/tcp             lemmyname_lemmy-ui_1
3978157ef390   dessalines/lemmy:0.17.4      "/app/lemmy"             27 minutes ago   Restarting (101) 34 seconds ago                                         lemmyname_lemmy_1
626d7792534b   asonix/pictrs:0.3.1          "/sbin/tini -- /usr/…"   27 minutes ago   Up 27 minutes                     6669/tcp, 127.0.0.1:21166->8080/tcp   lemmyname_pictrs_1
65eab82adee9   mwader/postfix-relay         "/root/run"              27 minutes ago   Up 27 minutes                     25/tcp                                lemmyname_postfix_1
2ab8c789fdcd   postgres:15-alpine           "docker-entrypoint.s…"   27 minutes ago   Up 27 minutes                     5432/tcp                              lemmyname_postgres_1

      Container logs: …

      PostgreSQL init process complete; ready for start up.

2023-06-18 01:57:16.112 UTC [1] LOG:  starting PostgreSQL 15.3 on x86_64-pc-linux-musl, compiled by gcc (Alpine 12.2.1_git20220924-r10) 12.2.1 20220924, 64-bit
2023-06-18 01:57:16.112 UTC [1] LOG:  listening on IPv4 address "0.0.0.0", port 5432
2023-06-18 01:57:16.112 UTC [1] LOG:  listening on IPv6 address "::", port 5432
2023-06-18 01:57:16.113 UTC [1] LOG:  listening on Unix socket "/var/run/postgresql/.s.PGSQL.5432"
2023-06-18 01:57:16.117 UTC [53] LOG:  database system was shut down at 2023-06-18 01:57:16 UTC
2023-06-18 01:57:16.123 UTC [1] LOG:  database system is ready to accept connections
2023-06-18 02:02:16.215 UTC [51] LOG:  checkpoint starting: time
2023-06-18 02:02:20.329 UTC [51] LOG:  checkpoint complete: wrote 44 buffers (0.3%); 0 WAL file(s) added, 0 removed, 0 recycled; write=4.110 s, sync=0.003 s, total=4.115 s; sync files=12, longest=0.002 s, average=0.001 s; distance=252 kB, estimate=252 kB
      • Veraticus@lib.lgbtEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        Can you log into it using your password? If so, then the network between the two isn’t working properly and you’ll need to check your Docker network config.

        • aranym@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          Yes, I can log into the psql shell on the container and connect to the database with no issue. I guess it is a network issue, I’ll look into it further tomorrow

  • aranym@lemmy.nameEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    I just installed using a different OS (Debian) and it works. Not sure why, but I’ll take it. Posting from my new instance!

    • aranym@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      Yes, I posted the docker status and logs from the container in my reply to Veraticus

      • fuser@quex.ccEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        suggest you check postgres is running, accepting connections and returning results on the container first:

        docker exec -it lemmyname_postgres_1 /bin/bash

        assuming you can connect to the docker container and see a prompt, does this command put you at a sql prompt?

        psql -U lemmy -d lemmy

        if so, let’s confirm that a sql command works.

        select name from person; (will likely be an empty set if you haven’t set up an admin user yet).

        Does all this work OK?

        • aranym@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          docker exec -it lemmyname_postgres_1 /bin/bash returns the bash prompt as expected: 2ab8c789fdcd:/#

          psql -U lemmy -d lemmy successfully opens psql:

          psql (15.3)
Type "help" for help.

lemmy=#

          ran select name from person; from the psql shell, it does look empty (haven’t created any users yet):

          
ERROR:  relation "person" does not exist
LINE 1: select name from person;
          • fuser@quex.ccEnglish
            1·
            1 year ago

            it should return an empty set. It looks like the database is running but the lemmy database tables were not installed. Can you get back to the sql prompt and try

            \dt

            if the database was installed correctly, you should see something like this:

            lemmy-# \dt

                          List of relations

            Schema | Name | Type | Owner

            --------±---------------------------±------±------

            public | __diesel_schema_migrations | table | lemmy

            public | activity | table | lemmy . .

            <more tables>

            . .

            public | person | table | lemmy

            . . .

            can you check that the tables are actually there? My guess is that the tables in the database weren’t created. assuming you don’t see any tables when you do this, again at the sql prompt, please try

            \c lemmy

            and see if it connects? if it does, it will say You are now connected to database “lemmy” as user “lemmy”.

            Let me know what the result of that is and we’ll try to figure out what’s gone wrong with the database setup because it looks like that’s your problem - the database was not populated when it was created.

            • aranym@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
              1·
              1 year ago

              \c lemmy does return “You are now connected to database “lemmy” as user “lemmy””

              Running \dt after connecting returns “Did not find any relations”

              • fuser@quex.ccEnglish
                1·
                1 year ago

                ok thanks - I’m not very familiar with the lemmy installation process so I will need to check if possibly the schema objects in the database aren’t created until the admin user is first set up, which is another possibility, but they definitely aren’t there right now - I’ll set up a fresh install to check in a few minutes.

                Switching gears a bit - when you say you can’t access the web UI, can you elaborate on that? The web server should be running. You are going to https://your.url, presumably and then what do you actually see in the browser? It should show an initial setup screen - do you not see anything or is there some kind of error message? When the ansible script runs to create the instance does it throw any errors at all or everything looks happy in the output, including creation of your ssl certs?

                • aranym@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
                  1·
                  1 year ago

                  No errors of any kind in the ansible script. nginx is running, and it’s at https://lemmy.name - I get some gateway timeout errors once in a while, but that’s all. When I do get error pages, they are served via https at least, so I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that part.

                  I assume this is because the lemmy backend container keeps restarting (as I detailed more in my original post and other replies here) because it can’t access the database.

  • aranym@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Thanks for the help so far y’all, but I’m heading to sleep. Will continue working on this tomorrow.