SeAT

If you are reading this, it means that you want to install SeAT on a Linux distribution that does not have a dedicated guide. SeAT should be able to run fine on just about any distribution.

This guide is going to assume a very confident level of Linux expertise too and is only recommended for advanced users.

table of contents

  1. Software
  2. Software - PHP
  3. Composer
  4. SeAT - Download
  5. SeAT - Permissions
  6. SeAT - Setup
  7. Supervisor
  8. Crontab
  9. Webserver

software

SeAT needs 3 major components. A MySQL (or MariaDB) database, Redis and supervisord. Using your operating systems package manager (or from source if you wish!), install the services. PHP needs to be at least version 7 and supervisor at least version 3. The following list gives a breakdown of the OS level dependencies needed by SeAT:

  • mysqld
  • redis
  • supervisord
  • git
  • unzip

software - php

There are also a few PHP 7 dependencies needed that should be installed. You can confirm if you are missing any by running php -m and comparing it to the following list:

  • mcrypt
  • intl
  • gd
  • PDO
  • pdo_mysql
  • curl
  • mbstring
  • dom
  • bz2

composer

SeAT makes use of the de-facto PHP dependency manager called Composer. Composer is required to both install and update SeAT at a later stage. It is for this reason that it is recommended that you install composer globally on your server so that you can access it by simply typing composer. Lets set that up by downloading Composer and saving it to /usr/local/bin:

curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | php -- --install-dir=/usr/local/bin --filename=composer && hash -r

seat download

SeAT is downloaded using the previously installed composer tool. Decide where you want to host SeAT (like /var/www/seat) and download it:

NOTE This can take some time, Composer does a ton of magic here :+1: (like recursively resolving all dependencies :O)

composer create-project eveseat/seat seat --no-dev

Successful installation should end with something like:

Writing lock file
Generating autoload files
> Illuminate\Foundation\ComposerScripts::postUpdate
> php artisan optimize
Generating optimized class loader
Compiling common classes
> php artisan key:generate
Application key [base64:WFfzkuIpUGpkDNu0SRtwhPphpM66UvzuZpEML/6dEVQ=] set successfully.

seat permissions

SeAT writes logfiles/cachefiles and other temporary data to the seat/storage/ directory. Ensure that the user your webserver will run as can write to this location. Example permissions configuration is:

chown -R apache:apache /var/www/seat

chmod -R guo+w /var/www/seat/storage/

SeAT is now downloaded and almost ready for use!

seat setup

Next, we need to configure SeAT to know where the database server lives. Do this by editing /var/www/seat/.env and setting the appropriate values:

DB_CONNECTION=mysql
DB_HOST=127.0.0.1
DB_PORT=3306
DB_DATABASE=seat
DB_USERNAME=seat
DB_PASSWORD=s_p3rs3c3r3tp455w0rd
DB_DEBUG=false

Moving on, we should publish the internal databse migrations, css & javasript, and other goodies with:

php artisan vendor:publish --force

Next, run the database migrations to get the SeAT database ready for use:

php artisan migrate

Next, we need to run the seeders to populate som default data for SeAT to use:

php artisan db:seed --class=Seat\\Notifications\\database\\seeds\\ScheduleSeeder
php artisan db:seed --class=Seat\\Services\\database\\seeds\\NotificationTypesSeeder
php artisan db:seed --class=Seat\\Services\\database\\seeds\\ScheduleSeeder

Next, the latest static data export must be downloaded and imported with:

php artisan eve:update-sde -n

And finally, the SeAT admin user needs to have a password set. There is no default SeAT admin password.

php artisan seat:admin:reset

One last thing, an email address is needed for the admin user too.

php artisan seat:admin:email

supervisor

SeAT makes use of workers to actually process the update jobs that get scheduled. Think if the architecture as someone coming and dumping mail at the postoffice, and its up to say 4 workers to dig through the mail and sort it. Those 4 workers need a manager to ensure that they keep working. supervisord is a excellent candidate for the manager job.

Configure the actual workers that supervisord will manage. We do this by adding a new configuration file to /etc/supervisord.d/ called seat.ini Note that the number of workers that we want to start is set by the numprocs settings:

[program:seat]
command=/usr/bin/php /var/www/seat/artisan queue:work --queue=high,medium,low,default --tries 1 --timeout=86100
process_name = %(program_name)s-80%(process_num)02d
stdout_logfile = /var/log/seat-80%(process_num)02d.log
stdout_logfile_maxbytes=100MB
stdout_logfile_backups=10
numprocs=4
directory=/var/www/seat
stopwaitsecs=600
user=apache

Save your file and start supervisord so that it is aware of the changes that we have made:

systemctl start supervisord.service

Lastly, check that everything is OK and the workers have started up:

[root@seat seat]# supervisorctl status
seat:seat-8000                   RUNNING    pid 5083, uptime 0:00:28
seat:seat-8001                   RUNNING    pid 5082, uptime 0:00:28
seat:seat-8002                   RUNNING    pid 5085, uptime 0:00:28
seat:seat-8003                   RUNNING    pid 5084, uptime 0:00:28

If you do not have output such as in the above block, check the log files for any possible errors.

crontab

So far, we have SeAT workers running meaning that it is ready to process jobs that enter the Queue. We now need a way to add jobs to that Queue for processing by the workers. SeAT has a build in schedule for when what should run at which interval. With the cronjob, we are simply telling SeAT to check every minute "is there anything we should be doing?". Add the cronjob as the webserver user as this is the user that has had all its permissions configured earlier.

Add the following line to the webserver users crontab (remember to check the path if you chose one other that the one in this guide):

* * * * * /usr/bin/php /var/www/seat/artisan schedule:run 1>> /dev/null 2>&1

webserver

Lastly, configure a webserver to serve the public/ directory from the folder that was downloaded when the composer create-project command was run.

Thats it! SeAT should now be available at http://your-domain-or-ip/

install SeAT in a subfolder

Instead of using a domain or an alias (CNAME) in order to serve your SeAT application, you can use a subfolder (alias directory).

ie : seat.goonswarmfederation.eve - seat is a CNAME, we want to use it in order to serve SeAT - example.com is our domain, we have our main website served from it

ie : example.com/seat - seat is an alias directory, we want to redirect all related requests to a specific path on our server (it can be named seat, but also something else) - seat.example.com is our domain, we want to serve our forum from it

Apache Setup

In order to use an alias directory, we have to change the default SeAT virtual host config file. In fact, instead using the default vhost configuration file, we will alter our existing configuration, adding SeAT rules into it.

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName example.com # put any A/AAAA/CNAME entries here, this is for DNS records only (don't put subfolder here)
    ServerAlias seat.example.com # put any CNAME entries here, please, don't put any subfolder, this is DNS records ONLY
    ServerAdmin postmaster@example.com
    DocumentRoot /var/www/example.com

    # this is our forum rules
    <Directory "/var/www/example.com">
        AllowOverride All
        Order allow, deny
        Allow from all
    </Directory>

    Alias /seat /var/www/html/seat # all goonswarmfederation.eve/seat will be serve with content into /var/www/seat
    # we're using /seat as directory alias which is routing to /var/www/html/seat
    # but it could also work with /myapp /var/www/html/seat, in this case, we will redirect all goonswarmfederation.net/myapp to /var/www/html/seat
    # the important things is that directory should match with bellow <Directory> rull
    # and, the alias should match with RewriteBase rule

    # this is SeAT rules
    <Directory "/var/www/html/seat">
        AllowOverride All
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from all

        # this rule will only be applied if rewrite_mod has been enabled
        <IfModule rewrite_module>
        RewriteBase /seat # put here the alias you want to use, this will enforce url rewritting
        </IfModule>
    </Directory>

    ErrorLog ${APAGE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
    CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

We've seen here http configuration file, but exactly same things apply to https (443). You just have to include certificate rules and replace :80 by :443.