Installation of a new BIIGLE instance

This guide describes how to install BIIGLE on a new machine.

Setup

This is an example setup of a machine that should run BIIGLE. It is based on a clean install of Ubuntu 20.04 with the user ubuntu.

  1. Run sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade.

  2. Install Docker. If you are in a cloud environment, add the repository like this so it is not deleted when a new machine is booted:

    echo "deb [arch=amd64] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu \
    $(lsb_release -cs) stable" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list

  3. Run sudo usermod -aG docker ubuntu to add the ubuntu user to the docker group.

  4. Install Docker Compose as a Docker container.

  5. Log out of the machine and back in.

Now you can follow the installation instructions below to install BIIGLE on the machine.

Installation

Perform these steps on the machine that should run BIIGLE.

  1. Clone the biigle/biigle repository to the directory where BIIGLE should be installed (e.g. /mnt/biigle or /var/biigle).

  2. Create a user for BIIGLE and find out the user and group ID:

    $ sudo useradd biigle -U
$ id -u biigle
<user_id>
$ id -g biigle
<group_id>

  3. Change the owner of the storage directory:

    sudo chown -R biigle:biigle storage/

  4. Move .env.example to .env.

  5. Now set the configuration variables in .env:

    • USER_ID should be <user_id>.
    • GROUP_ID should be <group_id>.

  6. Move build/.env.example to build/.env.

  7. Now set the build configuration variables in build/.env:

    • GITHUB_OAUTH_TOKEN is an OAuth token of your GitHub account (with the repo and read:packages scopes).
    • APP_KEY is the secret encryption key. Generate one with: head -c 32 /dev/urandom | base64. Then set APP_KEY=base64:<your_key>.
    • APP_URL is https://<your_domain>. For a local setup without SSL (see below), use http://localhost.
    • MIX_PUSHER_APP_HOST should be <your_domain> (without https://, see above).
    • MIX_PUSHER_APP_TLS should be changed to false if you use a local setup without SSL.
    • PUSHER_APP_SECRET should be a random string. Generate one with pwgen 20 1.
    • ADMIN_EMAIL is the email address of the administrator(s) of the application.

  8. Put the SSL keychain (fullchain.pem) and private key (privkey.pem) to certificate/. See here for a description of the required contents of the keychain file. For a local setup no SSL certificate may be required. Update the web service in docker-compose.yaml as described by the comments in this case.

  9. Now build the Docker images for production: cd build && ./build.sh. You can build the images on a separate machine, too, and transfer them to the production machine using docker save and docker load. build.sh also supports an optional argument to specify the version tag of the Docker images to build (e.g. v2.8.0). Default is latest.

  10. Go back and run the containers: cd .. && docker compose up -d.

  11. Apply the database migrations: ./artisan migrate.

  12. Create the first user: ./artisan user:new.

Configuration

The default configuration of the production setup includes a local storage disk that can be used to store images and videos for new volumes (in build/config/filesystems.php). You can configure more storage disks as well. These storage disks are then offered as an alternative to remote volumes in BIIGLE.

Storage disks must be explicitly allowed for different user roles in BIIGLE. By default, only instance admins are allowed to use the local storage disk for new volumes. This can be changed with the VOLUME_ADMIN_STORAGE_DISKS and VOLUME_EDITOR_STORAGE_DISKS variables in the build/.env file. Each variable contains a comma-separated list of storage disk names that should be allowed for the respective user role. If the variable is empty, no storage disk is allowed.