Technical installation

This page is for an IT person

Normally I perform the installation as part of the deployment. These instructions are for companies with their own IT person who prefer to set it up themselves.

Requirements

• A server with Podman or Docker (amd64 or arm64), permanently on
• A reverse proxy with a TLS certificate — the app marks its session cookie as Secure, so login will not work over plain HTTP
• The application image, which I provide after purchase (a .tar file)

Starting it

# 1. Load the image you were given
podman load -i aledrogi-chat-amd64.tar

# 2. A volume for the database — it survives image updates
podman volume create shop-data

# 3. Start (port bound locally; the outside world goes through the TLS proxy)
podman run -d --name aledrogi --restart unless-stopped \
  -v shop-data:/data \
  --env-file .env \
  -p 127.0.0.1:3000:3000 \
  localhost/aledrogi-chat:latest

The entire application state is a single SQLite file under /data on the volume. A backup of that volume is a backup of the whole application.

First login

The starting account’s password is generated at first start and printed once to the log:

podman logs aledrogi

At first login the app forces a change. The minimum length is 12 characters.

The order matters on a fresh install

The licence binds to your Allegro account, so:

1. Log in and change the starting password.
2. Configuration → Allegro account → Connect and complete the authorisation.
3. Configuration → Licence — paste the key you received and click “Activate”.

Updating

podman load -i aledrogi-chat-amd64.tar   # new image
podman stop aledrogi && podman rm aledrogi
# run again with the same parameters — the volume stays

Data survives, because the database lives on the volume rather than in the container.

Test mode

The app can run on sample data without connecting to Allegro — useful for clicking through the panel before a real account is attached. The mode is set in the configuration provided at deployment.