6.4. Isso, A Commenting Server

This Internet app uses a data container, Nginx and Postfix.

Isso is a commenting system which can embed into a static website.

6.4.1. Configure DNS

Add an A record to point the domain you want to use with isso to the IP address of the server.

6.4.2. Configure Isso Options

Create a directory to store isso configuration file:

sudo mkdir -p $DOCKER_SHARE/isso

Download the isso example config file to $DOCKER_SHARE/isso:

sudo wget -O $DOCKER_SHARE/isso/isso.conf \
 https://raw.githubusercontent.com/posativ/isso/cb21af4cc57a197cbe73a63d5bd7a085ef98d85d/share/isso.conf

Now we need to edit the config file to make some changes for the isso container we will use. The following commands switch the working directory to $DOCKER_SHARE/isso and modify some parts of the configuration file (please replace isso@example.com with the email address you want notification to come from and me@example.com to be the address which receives email notification):

cd $DOCKER_SHARE/isso
NOTIFICATION_FROM=isso@example.com
NOTIFICATION_TO=me@example.com
sudo ed isso.conf << EOF
%s/^dbpath =.*/dbpath = \/var\/uwsgi\/comments.db
%s/^notify =.*/notify = smtp
%s/^port =.*/port = 25
%s/^security =.*/security = none
%s/^host = localhost/host = smtp-server
%s/^from =.*/from = ${NOTIFICATION_FROM}
%s/^to =.*/to = ${NOTIFICATION_TO}
wq
EOF
unset NOTIFICATION_FROM NOTIFICATION_TO

Explanation:

• line 5: modifies the path to the comments database file to a location where writable by the uWSGI process(es);
• line 6-11: set the email notification to your email address using the postfix server we have configured on the host system.

Now we can edit this config file manually to customize it for our website:

sudo $EDITOR $DOCKER_SHARE/isso/isso.conf

We probably need to modify the host option in the [general] section. Follow the instructions in the comments above the host option to update the option to the website URL that isso will be used in. If this isso instance need to serve multiple websites, you probably also need to look into the option name in the [general] section. We can also customize some other options, such as enabled in the [moderation] section to turn on or off moderation, etc.

6.4.3. Start the Isso Docker Container

Create a data container for isso:

docker run -v /var/uwsgi --name isso-data busybox /bin/true

Start the isso Docker container:

docker run --restart always -d -v $DOCKER_SHARE/isso:/etc/isso:ro \
 --volumes-from isso-data --name isso \
 --env NUM_PROCESSES=1 --env NUM_THREADS=2 \
 --add-host smtp-server:$HOST_ADDR blober/isso

The Dockerfile from which the image was generated is available. We may adjust NUM_THREADS and NUM_PROCESSES depending on the needs, but for a small website, NUM_THREADS=2 and NUM_PROCESSES=1 should be good enough.

6.4.4. Configure Nginx

Replace comments.example.com with the domain you want to use to serve as an isso server and run the following commands:

cd $DOCKER_SHARE/nginx
ISSO_URL='comments.example.com'
sudo -s <<EOF
sed -e "s/@server_name@/$ISSO_URL/g" \
 -e 's/@uwsgi_server@/isso:9000/g' uwsgi.conf.tmpl >isso.conf
sed -e "s/@server_name@/$ISSO_URL/g" \
 -e 's/@uwsgi_server@/isso:9000/g' uwsgi.tls.conf.tmpl >isso.tls.conf
EOF

The commands above generate two configuration files which pass all requests to the isso instance (comments.example.com in the example above) in the uWSGI protocol. Edit isso.tls.conf to replace the dummy key and certificate with your key and certificate if you do not want to use the dummy one.

Recreate the Nginx container:

docker restart nginx