fresh.md

---
title: "Fresh Installation"
weight: 1100
toc: true
---

Before you start, you really need:

* an always-on machine that can receive connections from the Internet
* a domain name to dedicate to your Sharkey instance, resolving to the
  address(es) of that machine
* a web server running on that machine, with valid TLS certificates
  for the domain name

## With Docker

Prerequisites:

* Docker
* Compose Plugin

Create multiple directories:

```bash
mkdir Sharkey && mkdir Sharkey/.config
```

Fetch all required examples and enter directory:

```bash
wget -O Sharkey/docker-compose.yml https://activitypub.software/TransFem-org/Sharkey/-/raw/stable/docker-compose_example.yml
wget -O Sharkey/.config/default.yml https://activitypub.software/TransFem-org/Sharkey/-/raw/stable/.config/docker_example.yml
wget -O Sharkey/.config/docker.env https://activitypub.software/TransFem-org/Sharkey/-/raw/stable/.config/docker_example.env
cd Sharkey
```

Edit `.config/default.yml`, there are comments explaining what each
option means. In particular, we're going to assume you have:

```yaml
url: https://{YOUR DOMAIN NAME}/
```

(replace `{YOUR DOMAIN NAME}` with the domain name we talked about
at the start).

Edit `docker-compose.yml`, there are multiple comments there as
well. If you want to set up note search with meilisearch, uncomment
all of meilisearch options, otherwise proceed to do the following
changes in the `services:` / `web:` section:

* uncomment the line that starts with `image:`
* remove the line `build: .`

Starting:

```bash
docker compose up -d
```

## Manually

[Same as
Misskey](https://misskey-hub.net/en/docs/install/manual.html).

Prerequisites:

* Node.js version 20.4 or later, with *both* `npm` and `pnpm`
  installed (`corepack enable` should suffice, make sure you run it
  as `root` if you're using your system Node.js)
* PostgreSQL version 15 or later
* Redis
* FFmpeg
* all the various packages to compile and build C code, and Python (on
  Debian-style systems, that's `build-essential` & `python`)

Create a `sharkey` user:

```bash
adduser --disabled-password --disabled-login sharkey
```

start a shell as that user:

```bash
sudo -u sharkey -i
```

(or something like that), then:

```bash
git clone --recurse-submodules -b stable https://activitypub.software/TransFem-org/Sharkey.git
cd Sharkey
pnpm install --frozen-lockfile
cp .config/example.yml .config/default.yml
```

Edit `.config/default.yml`, there are comments explaining what each
option means. In particular, we're going to assume you have:

```yaml
url: https://{YOUR DOMAIN NAME}/
db:
  host: localhost
  port: 5432
  db: sharkey
  user: sharkey
  pass: {YOUR PASSWORD}
```

(replace `{YOUR PASSWORD}` with an actual password you make up for
this, and `{YOUR DOMAIN NAME}` with the domain name we talked about
at the start)

Building:

```bash
pnpm run build
```

Create the PostgreSQL user and database, either with `createuser`
and `createdb` or with `sudo -u postgres psql` and then:

```sql
CREATE DATABASE sharkey WITH ENCODING = 'UTF8';
CREATE USER sharkey WITH ENCRYPTED PASSWORD '{YOUR_PASSWORD}';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON DATABASE sharkey TO sharkey;
ALTER DATABASE sharkey OWNER TO sharkey;
\q
```

(replace `{YOUR PASSWORD}` with the same password as before)

Then create the schema:

```bash
pnpm run init
```

And start it:

```bash
pnpm start
```

you should see a series of colourful lines, ending with something
like:

```text
Now listening on port 3000 on https://example.tld
```

but with a different URL at the end (you *did* change the `url`
setting in the config file, right?). Stop that process (control-C is
enough), and set up a system service for Sharkey.

### With systemd

Create a file `/etc/systemd/system/sharkey.service` containing:

```ini
[Unit]
Description=Sharkey daemon

[Service]
Type=simple
User=sharkey
ExecStart=/usr/bin/pnpm start
WorkingDirectory=/home/sharkey/Sharkey
Environment="NODE_OPTIONS=--max-old-space-size=8192"
Environment="NODE_ENV=production"
TimeoutSec=60
StandardOutput=journal
StandardError=journal
SyslogIdentifier=sharkey
Restart=always

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
```

(you may need to change that `/usr/bin/pnpm` if you're not using
your system Node.js).

Then:

```bash
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable sharkey
sudo systemctl start sharkey
```

After that, `systemctl status sharkey` should show that it's
running.

### With OpenRC

Create a file `/etc/init.d/sharkey` containing:

```bash
#!/sbin/openrc-run

name=sharkey
description="Sharkey daemon"

command="/usr/bin/pnpm"
command_args="start"
command_user="sharkey"

supervisor="supervise-daemon"
supervise_daemon_args=" -d /home/sharkey/Sharkey -e NODE_ENV=production -e \"NODE_OPTIONS=--max-old-space-size=8192\""

pidfile="/run/${RC_SVCNAME}.pid"

depend() {
  need net
  use logger nginx
}
```

(you may need to change that `/usr/bin/pnpm` if you're not using
your system Node.js).

Then:

```bash
sudo rc-update add sharkey
sudo rc-service sharkey start
```

After that, `rc-service sharkey status` should show that it's
running.

## Configure the web server

### NGINX

See [Misskey's
instructions](https://misskey-hub.net/en/docs/admin/nginx.html)

## Update Sharkey

### With Docker

Fetch the latest image, restart.

**NOTE**: if you are upgrading from 2024.3.1 or earlier, and are *not*
using S3 or similar, you will have to `chown -R 991:991
Sharkey/files/`, otherwise uploads won't work anymore. This is because
previous versions ran Sharkey as the root user, but we no longer do that.

### Manually

Very similar to the installation process:

```bash
sudo -u sharkey -i
cd Sharkey
git checkout stable
git pull --recurse-submodules
pnpm install --frozen-lockfile
pnpm run build
pnpm run migrate
```

Then restart the service (`sudo systemctl restart sharkey` or
`rc-service sharkey restart`).

If there's problems with updating, you can run `pnpm run clean`
and/or `pnpm run clean-all` which will remove all the effects of a
previous build, then you can install+build+migrate+restart again.