ihatemoney/docs/installation.md

Installation

There are multiple ways to install «Ihatemoney» on your system :

1. {ref}docker.
2. Via Yunohost (a server operating system aiming to make self-hosting accessible to anyone)
3. {ref}manual-installation

:::{note} We lack some knowledge about packaging to make Ihatemoney installable on mainstream Linux distributions. If you want to give us a hand on the topic, please check-out the issue about debian packaging. :::

(docker)=

With Docker

Docker images are published on the Docker hub.

This is probably the simplest way to get something running. Once you have Docker installed on your system, just issue :

docker run -d -p 8000:8000 ihatemoney/ihatemoney

Ihatemoney is now available on http://localhost:8000.

All {ref}settings<configuration> can be passed with -e parameters e.g. with a secure SECRET_KEY, an external mail server and an external database:

docker run -d -p 8000:8000 \
-e SECRET_KEY="supersecure" \
-e SQLALCHEMY_DATABASE_URI="mysql+pymysql://user:pass@10.42.58.250/ihm" \
-e MAIL_SERVER=smtp.gmail.com \
-e MAIL_PORT=465 \
-e MAIL_USERNAME=your-email@gmail.com \
-e MAIL_PASSWORD=your-password \
-e MAIL_USE_SSL=True \
ihatemoney/ihatemoney

A volume can also be specified to persist the default database file:

docker run -d -p 8000:8000 -v /host/path/to/database:/database ihatemoney/ihatemoney

To enable the Admin dashboard, first generate a hashed password with:

docker run -it --rm --entrypoint ihatemoney ihatemoney/ihatemoney generate_password_hash

At the prompt, enter a password to use for the admin dashboard. The command will print the hashed password string.

Add these additional environment variables to the docker run invocation:

-e ACTIVATE_ADMIN_DASHBOARD=True \
-e ADMIN_PASSWORD=<hashed_password_string> \

Additional gunicorn parameters can be passed using the docker CMD parameter. For example, use the following command to add more gunicorn workers:

docker run -d -p 8000:8000 ihatemoney/ihatemoney -w 3

(manual-installation)=

Via a manual installation

(system-requirements)=

Requirements

«Ihatemoney» depends on:

• Python: version 3.6 to 3.9 included will work.
• A Backend: to choose among SQLite, PostgreSQL, MariaDB (>= 10.3.2) or Memory.
• Virtual environment (recommended): [python3-venv]{.title-ref} package under Debian/Ubuntu.

We recommend using virtual environments to isolate the installation from other softwares on your machine, but it's not mandatory.

If wondering about the backend, SQLite is the simplest and will work fine for most small to medium setups.

::: {note} If curious, source config templates can be found in the project git repository. :::

(virtualenv-preparation)=

Prepare virtual environment (recommended)

Choose an installation path, here the current user's home directory (~).

Create a virtual environment:

python3 -m venv ~/ihatemoney
cd ~/ihatemoney

Activate the virtual environment:

source bin/activate

::: {note} You will have to re-issue that source command if you open a new terminal. :::

(pip)=

Install

Install the latest release with pip:

pip install ihatemoney

Test it

Once installed, you can start a test server:

ihatemoney runserver

And point your browser at http://localhost:5000.

Generate your configuration

1. Initialize the ihatemoney directories:

   mkdir /etc/ihatemoney /var/lib/ihatemoney
   

2. Generate settings:

   ihatemoney generate-config ihatemoney.cfg > /etc/ihatemoney/ihatemoney.cfg
   chmod 740 /etc/ihatemoney/ihatemoney.cfg
   

You probably want to adjust /etc/ihatemoney/ihatemoney.cfg contents, you may do it later, see {ref}configuration.

(mariadb)=

Configure database with MariaDB (optional)

::: {note} Only required if you use MariaDB. Make sure to use MariaDB 10.3.2 or newer. :::

1. Install PyMySQL dependencies. On Debian or Ubuntu, that would be:

   apt install python3-dev libssl-dev
   

2. Install PyMySQL (within your virtual environment):

   pip install 'PyMySQL>=0.9,<1.1'
   

3. Create an empty database and a database user

4. Configure {ref}configuration:SQLALCHEMY_DATABASE_URI accordingly

(postresql)=

Configure database with PostgreSQL (optional)

::: {note} Only required if you use Postgresql. :::

1. Install python driver for PostgreSQL (from within your virtual environment):

   pip install psycopg2
   

2. Create the users and tables. On the command line, this looks like:

   sudo -u postgres psql
   postgres=# create database mydb;
   postgres=# create user myuser with encrypted password 'mypass';
   postgres=# grant all privileges on database mydb to myuser;
   

3. Configure {ref}configuration:SQLALCHEMY_DATABASE_URI accordingly.

Configure a reverse proxy

When deploying this service in production, you want to have a reverse proxy in front of the python application.

Here are documented two stacks. You can of course use another one if you want. Don't hesitate to contribute a small tutorial here if you want.

1. Apache and mod_wsgi
2. Nginx, Gunicorn and Supervisord/Systemd

With Apache and mod_wsgi

1. Fix permissions (considering www-data is the user running apache):

   chgrp www-data /etc/ihatemoney/ihatemoney.cfg
   chown www-data /var/lib/ihatemoney
   

2. Install Apache and mod_wsgi : libapache2-mod-wsgi(-py3) for Debian based and mod_wsgi for RedHat based distributions

3. Create an Apache virtual host, the command ihatemoney generate-config apache-vhost.conf will output a good starting point (read and adapt it).

4. Activate the virtual host if needed and restart Apache

With Nginx, Gunicorn and Supervisord/systemd

Install Gunicorn:

pip install gunicorn

1. Create a dedicated unix user (here called ihatemoney), required dirs, and fix permissions:

   useradd ihatemoney
   chown ihatemoney /var/lib/ihatemoney/
   chgrp ihatemoney /etc/ihatemoney/ihatemoney.cfg
   

2. Create gunicorn config file :

   ihatemoney generate-config gunicorn.conf.py > /etc/ihatemoney/gunicorn.conf.py
   

3. Setup Supervisord or systemd

   • To use Supervisord, create supervisor config file :

     ihatemoney generate-config supervisord.conf > /etc/supervisor/conf.d/ihatemoney.conf
     

   • To use systemd services, create ihatemoney.service in /etc/systemd/system/ihatemoney.service ¹:

     [Unit]
     Description=I hate money
     Requires=network.target postgresql.service
     After=network.target postgresql.service
     
     [Service]
     Type=simple
     User=ihatemoney
     ExecStart=%h/ihatemoney/bin/gunicorn -c /etc/ihatemoney/gunicorn.conf.py ihatemoney.wsgi:application
     SyslogIdentifier=ihatemoney
     
     [Install]
     WantedBy=multi-user.target
     

     Obviously, adapt the ExecStart path for your installation folder.

     If you use SQLite as database: remove mentions of postgresql.service in ihatemoney.service. If you use MariaDB as database: replace mentions of postgresql.service by mariadb.service in ihatemoney.service.

     Then reload systemd, enable and start ihatemoney:

     systemctl daemon-reload
     systemctl enable ihatemoney.service
     systemctl start ihatemoney.service
     

4. Copy (and adapt) output of ihatemoney generate-config nginx.conf with your nginx vhosts²

5. Reload nginx (and supervisord if you use it). It should be working ;)

---

1. /etc/systemd/system/ihatemoney.service path may change depending on your distribution. ↩︎

2. typically, /etc/nginx/conf.d/ or /etc/nginx/sites-available, depending on your distribution. ↩︎