Set up your VPS

This page provides a walk-through guide to prepare your VPS to install Open edX.

1. Configure a non-root user with sudo privileges

   This example creates a user called edx

   # This command creates a user called "edx", but you can use any name
   useradd -d /home/edx -m edx -s /bin/bash
   
   # Set the password
   passwd edx
   
   # Add to sudo group
   usermod -aG sudo edx
   

2. Install essential packages

   sudo apt update && sudo apt -y upgrade
   sudo apt -y install zip unzip fail2ban ufw htop python3 python3-pip

3. Configure your firewall to allow ports 22, 80 and 443.

   sudo ufw allow ssh
   sudo ufw allow http
   sudo ufw allow https
   sudo ufw enable

   Verify that UFW is enabled

   sudo ufw status verbose

4. Install Docker and Docker Compose

   • Tutor Software requirements
     • Docker: v18.06.0+
     • Docker Compose: v1.22.0+

   Do not install Docker using apt-get install docker docker-compose.
   Tutor will not install correctly using an older version of Docker.

   1. Install the latest version of Docker (Reference site)

      sudo apt-get update
      sudo apt-get -y install \
        apt-transport-https \
        ca-certificates \
        curl \
        gnupg-agent \
        software-properties-common
      curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg | sudo apt-key add -
      
      sudo add-apt-repository -y \
       "deb [arch=amd64] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu \
       $(lsb_release -cs) \
       stable"
      
      sudo apt update && sudo apt -y install docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io
      

   2. Install Docker Compose (Reference site)

      sudo curl -L "https://github.com/docker/compose/releases/download/1.29.2/docker-compose-$(uname -s)-$(uname -m)" -o /usr/local/bin/docker-compose
      sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/docker-compose
      sudo ln -s /usr/local/bin/docker-compose /usr/bin/docker-compose

5. Add the non-root user to docker group

   Note: This example uses a user named edx

   sudo groupadd docker
   sudo usermod -aG docker edx
   sudo newgrp docker

   Verify that your user can use Docker. You might need to log out and then log back in.

   docker run hello-world