This teaches you how to run a Gaia storage hub on DigitalOcean (DO). DigitalOcean is an affordable and convenient cloud computing provider. This example uses DigitalOcean Spaces for file storage. A space is equivalent to AWS's S3 file storage solution.
DigitalOcean provides you with a compute machines known as a **Droplets** and storage called a **Spaces**. You need both to run a Gaia hub. The Gaia hub setup you create here, requires get a Digital Droplet with Docker pre-installed and a 250 GB Space. Droplets and storage each run for $5/month or a total of $10/month.
<p>This documentation is appropriate for advanced power users who are familiar with command line tools, editing configuration files, and basic configuration of services of DNS or Nginx.</p>
<p>If you are planning on running an <em>open-membership hub</em> or an <em>application-specific hub</em>, you'll should see <ahref="hub-operation.html">the section on Hub Operation</a></p>.
You use DigitalOcean choose and configure assets for running droplets and spaces. To enable this, you must be sure to complete the prerequisites in this section.
You must create an account on <ahref="https://digitalocean.com"target="\_blank">DigitalOcean</a>. DigitalOcean requires you to supply a credit card to create an account. You are only charged for the services you use the Gaia hub as of this writing should cost $10 USD a month.
The easiest way to interact with your droplet is the DigitalOcean Console. Users who are comfortable using the secure shell (SSH) and private keys may prefer to open a local terminal on their home machine instead. To enable this, you should ensure you have the following prerequisites completed.
* Locate an existing SSH key pair on your Mac or <ahref="https://help.dreamhost.com/hc/en-us/articles/115001736671-Creating-a-new-Key-pair-in-Mac-OS-X-or-Linux"target="\_blank">create a new SSH key pair</a>. Your key should have a passphrase, do not use a key pair without one.
* Add the <ahref="https://www.digitalocean.com/docs/droplets/how-to/add-ssh-keys/to-account/"target="\_blank">SSH from your local machine to DigitalOcean</a>.
* Create a <ahref="https://www.digitalocean.com/docs/api/create-personal-access-token/"target="\_blank">personal access token in DigitalOcean</a>.
* Install `doctl` which is the DigitalOcean command line tool. For information on installing these, see which is the DigitalOcean command line utility. Check out their [installation instructions](https://github.com/digitalocean/doctl/blob/master/README.md#installing-doctl) to see how to install it on your computer.
## Task 1: Create a DigitalOcean space
In this task you create a **Space** which is where Gaia stores your files.
1. Choose **Create > Spaces** from the dashboard menu.
2.**Choose a datacenter region** section.
{% include important.html content="Choose a region that is both
geographically close to you and that supports spaces. Currently, <strong>San
In this task, you add a droplet to your account. The droplet is a droplet is a cloud-based server you can use as a compute resource. This server is where you will run the Gaia Storage System service. The droplet you create will be an Ubuntu server with Docker pre-installed.
1. Log into DigitalOcean.
2. Go to your DigitalOcean dashboard.
3. Click the **Create > Droplets** button in the top right.
5. Select the **Docker** app from the options presented.
6. Scroll down to the **Choose a size** section and use the left arrow to display and select the **$5/mo** image.
This size gives you plenty of memory and disk space to run a personal hub.
7. Scroll down to the **Choose a datacenter region** section.
{% include important.html content="Choose a region that is both geographically close to you and that supports spaces. Currently, <strong>San Francisco</strong>, <strong>New York</strong>, <strong>Amsterdam</strong>, and <strong>Singapore</strong> support spaces." %}
The geographical location of your server impacts latency for storing data. You select a region close to you so that when you use Blockstack apps, storing data is quicker.
8. If you are using SSH, scroll to the **Add your SSH key** section and choose an SSH key to use. Otherwise,
9. Scroll down to the **Finalize and create** section.
A droplet console emulates the access you would have if you were sitting down with a keyboard and monitor attached to the actual server. In this section, you open a console on your droplet.
{% include note.html content="If you are an SSH user and have completed the prerequisites, <strong>skip this section</strong>. Instead, use <ahref='https://do.co/2S4HMk1'target='\_blank'>the DigitalOcean instructions for connecting with doctl</a>." %}
1. From the DigitalOcean dashboard, select Droplets.
You should see the droplet you just created.
2. Click on the droplet name to open the control panel.
3. Choose **Access** from the control panel.
4. Select **Reset Root Password** to have DigitalOcean send you the root password.
DigitalOcean sends a temporary password to the email attached to your account. It takes a couple of minutes to reset the root password on your droplet.
5. Open your email and copy the password.
6. Switch back to the droplet control panel and choose **Launch Console**.
A new window with the console appears.
7. Enter `root` for the login.
8. Paste the password copied from your email.
The system displays a message telling you to change the `root` password.
And prompts you for the current password.
9. Past the password copied from your email again.
The system prompts you for a new password and ask you to enter it again.
10. Provide and confirm a new password.
The system logins you in and gives you a welcome message. At the conclusion of the message, you are at the console prompt.
```
Welcome to DigitalOcean's One-Click Docker Droplet.
To keep this Droplet secure, the UFW firewall is enabled.
All ports are BLOCKED except 22 (SSH), 2375 (Docker) and 2376 (Docker).
* The Docker One-Click Quickstart guide is available at: https ://do.co/docker1804#start
* You can SSH to this Droplet in a terminal as root: ssh root@138.68.28.100
* Docker is installed and configured per Docker's recommendations: https://docs.docker.com/install/linux/docker-ce/ubuntu/
* Docker Compose is installed and configured per Docker's recommendations: https://docs.docker.eom/compose/install/#install-compose
For help and more information, visit http://do.co/dockerl804
<p>If you run into problems using the console, see <ahref="https://www.digitalocean.com/docs/droplets/resources/console/"target="\_blank">the notes on this page in the DigitalOcean documentation</a>.</p>
<p>If you find the output from ls difficult to read, try enter the following to change the console colors from the command line: <code>LS_COLORS="di=1;31"</code> You can also edit your console <code>.bashrc</code>. file permanently, of course.</p>
You'll find that the `driver` is set to `aws`. The DigitalOcean space API exactly mimics the S3 API. Since Gaia doesn't have a DigitalOcean driver, you can just use the `aws` driver with some special configuration.
If your space URL called `https://meepers-hub-space.sfo2.digitaloceanspaces.com `, the `readURL` name is `https://meepers-hub-space.sfo2.digitaloceanspaces.com`.
7. Set the `bucket` to the name of the DigitalOcean space you just created.
This will allow Blockstack user to write to your Gaia hub, without any social proofs required. You can change this later on, and do other things to lock-down this Gaia hub to just yourself, but that is outside the scope of this document.
This command includes `-d` option to `docker run`. This runs Docker in detached mode, so that it runs in the background. You can run `docker ps` to see your running docker images, and get the `id` of your Gaia server.
CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NAMES
aeca7eea4a86 gaia.hub "npm run start" 11 seconds ago Up 10 seconds 0.0.0.0:3000->3000/tcp musing_payne
```
At this point, your Gaia service is up and running. You can run `docker logs MY_CONTAINER_ID` with your running image's ID to see the logs of this server at any time.
In this task, you set up a simple Nginx reverse proxy to serve your Docker container through a public URL. You do this from the droplet console command line.
1. Install nginx into the droplet.
```
sudo apt-get install nginx
```
2. Enter `y` to confirm the installation.
3. Edit the nginx default configuration file.
```
vi /etc/nginx/sites-available/default
```
4. Inside the `location /` block (line 48), enter the following configuration:
At this point, you can point a domain to your Gaia hub. Although it's not required, it is highly recommended. If you use a domain, you can migrate your Droplet to a different server (or even provider such as Azure or AWS) at any time, and still access it through the domain URL. Simply point your domain at the IP address for your Droplet. Use an `A Record` DNS type.
These instructions assume you have already created a free <ahref="https://www.freenom.com"target="\_blank">domain through the freenom service</a>. To point this freenom domain to your Gaia hub, do the following:
1. Log into your freenom account.
2. Choose the **Manage Freenom Domain** tab.
3. Add an **A** record leave the **Name** field blank.
This record points your entire domain to the hub IP.
4. Save your changes.
5. Create a CNAME record.
For example, you can use the prefix `www` with your domain name. When you are done, your
6. Save your changes.
At this point, your DNS management should look similar to the following except that with your domain rather than the `maryhub.ga` domain.
7. After your changes propagate, visit your new domain at the `hub_info` page.
