How To Install Zulip on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

Install Zulip on Ubuntu 16

Zulip is a free, open source and powerful group chat Program and collaborative software. It is written in Python and uses Django, Python, JavaScript, and PostgreSQL database. Zulip comes with lots of features Such as personal messaging, group chats, drag-and-drop file uploads, Picture previews, missed-message emails, desktop programs, and much more.

This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo’ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you through the step by step installation Zulip on a Ubuntu 16.04 (Xenial Xerus) server.

Install Zulip on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

Step 1. First make sure that all your system packages are up-to-date by running these following apt-get commands in the terminal.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

Step 2. Installing Required Packages.

First, you will need to install required packages on your system. You can install it with the following command:

apt-get install python-dev python-pip openssl nano wget openssl

Step 3. Generate SSL Certificate.

To generate a self signed SSL certificate run the following commands:

openssl genrsa -des3 -passout pass:x -out zulip.pass.key 4096
openssl rsa -passin pass:x -in zulip.pass.key -out /etc/ssl/private/zulip.key
rm -f zulip.pass.key
openssl req -new -key /etc/ssl/private/zulip.key -out zulip.csr
openssl x509 -req -days 365 -in zulip.csr -signkey /etc/ssl/private/zulip.key -out /etc/ssl/certs/zulip.combined-chain.crt

Step 4. Installing Zulip.

First, download the latest stable version of the Zulip from their official website with the following command:

wget https://www.zulip.com/dist/releases/zulip-server-latest.tar.gz
mkdir -p /root/zulip 
tar -xvf zulip-server-latest.tar.gz --directory=/root/zulip --strip-components=1

Run the install script to start the installation with the following command:

sudo /root/zulip/scripts/setup/install

After the installation is complete edit the /etc/zulip/settings.py file and fill all mandatory values:

nano /etc/zulip/settings.py

Change the file as shown below:

EXTERNAL_HOST localhost
ZULIP_ADMINISTRATOR [email protected]
ADMIN_DOMAIN wpcademy.com
DEFAULT_FROM_EMAIL [email protected]
NOREPLY_EMAIL_ADDRESS [email protected]

Save and close the file when you are finished, then initialize the postgresql database using the following command:

su zulip -c /home/zulip/deployments/current/scripts/setup/initialize-database

Once everything is setup correctly, restart zulip to check for any errors by running the following command:

su zulip -c /home/zulip/deployments/current/scripts/restart-server

Step 5. Accessing Zulip.

Zulip will be available on HTTP port 80 by default. Open your favorite browser and navigate to http://yourdomain.com/ or http://server-ip/ and complete the required the steps to finish the installation. If you are using a firewall, please open port 80 to enable access to the control panel.

Congratulation’s! You have successfully installed Zulip. Thanks for using this tutorial for installing Zulip Chat on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) system. For additional help or useful information, we recommend you to check the official Zulip web site.