Running Bot Libre on Amazon EC2 using the Bot Libre Community Edition AMI

You can host your own server running the Bot Libre platform using Amazon EC2. Bot Libre provides a free AMI (Amazon Machine Image) that makes it easy to install and configure the open source Bot Libre Community Edition platform.

The EC2 instance can be launched from either the AWS Marketplace page or the EC2 page.

Launching from the AWS Marketplace:

1. Search the AWS Marketplace for the Bot Libre Community Edition AMI, and open the page.
   https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/pp/B08DG88ZSV?qid=1595956177307
2. Click on "Continue to Subscribe".
3. Read the Terms and Conditions, and click on "Continue to Configuration".
4. Select the latest software version, and any region of your choosing. Then, click on "Continue to Launch".
5. Under "Choose Action", select "Launch through EC2", and click on "Launch". This will take you to the EC2 configuration page.

Launching from the EC2 home page:

1. Click on "Launch Instance".
2. Select the "AWS Marketplace".
3. Search for the Bot Libre Community Edition AMI.
   https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/pp/B08DG88ZSV?qid=1595956177307
4. Select it, and click on "Continue". This will take you to the EC2 configuration page.

EC2 configuration:

1. Select an instance type of your choosing. We recommend having 8 GB of RAM at minimum (e.g. t3a.large). Click on "Next: Configure Instance Details".
2. Configure your instance details, and click on "Next: Add Storage".
3. The amount of storage required depends on the amount of content your users will generate. The size of the storage volume can be modified later, if required. Once you have the storage configured, click on "Review and Launch".
4. Review the instance details, and click on "Lanch".
5. Select an existing key pair or create a new key pair. This will be used to connect to the instance via SSH.

Retrieving the admin password:

1. Go to the EC2 Instances page, and find the Public DNS or Public IP of the Bot Libre instance. Note that the DNS and IP will not persist if the instance is stopped.
2. Copy the DNS or IP into a web browser to load the Bot Libre home page. It can take up to 3 mins for the page to load when launching for the first time.
3. Once the webpage has loaded for the first time, connect to the instance with SSH using either the DNS or the IP. To log in, use "centos" as the username and use the key you selected during the EC2 configuration. For more information on connecting to an EC2 instance, see this page: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/AccessingInstances.html.
• To get the admin password, use the following command:
• $ sudo cat /usr/local/tomcat8/logs/catalina.out | grep "ADMIN PASSWORD" 
• This password will only be available the first time the instance is run.
4. Log in to Bot Libre on your web browser by using the username "admin" and the password you have just retrieved.

For more information on the Bot Libre Community Edition see Bot Libre Community Edition

Running the Bot Libre platform on-premise using Docker

The Bot Libre Community Edition web platform is now available as a Docker container. This means that getting Bot Libre up and running on your server has never been easier!

• Bot Libre docker on GithHub
• Bot Libre on DockerHub

What is Docker?

Docker is a platform that allows you to run “containers” using OS level virtualization. A container is a software package that is bundled with its required libraries and configuration, so you do not have to perform any additional configuration/installation yourself.

Software You Will Need:

• Docker
  • Installation instructions: https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/
  • Check that Docker is working by using the following command:
    • $ sudo docker version
• Docker Compose
  • Installation instructions: https://docs.docker.com/compose/install/#install-compose
  • Check that Compose is working by using the following command:
    • $ sudo docker-compose version

Firewall:

Before starting up the server, make sure to set up your firewall correctly for Bot Libre.

Bot Libre Community Edition requires the following ports to be open:

• 80 – HTTP
• 443 – HTTPS
• 25 – SMTP
• 465 – SMTPS
• 110 – POP3
• 995 – POP3S
• 143 – IMAP
• 993 – IMAPS
• 6665 – IRC

The procedure for how to set up the firewall depends on the firewall you are using. For example, an Amazon EC2 instance would use security groups. For a typical Linux server, iptables can be used.

Deploying Bot Libre using Docker Compose:

First, you will need to download the docker-compose.yml file from our GitHub.

This can be done with the following command:

• $ wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/BotLibre/BotLibre/master/botlibre-web/docker/docker-compose.yml

To build and create the containers for Bot Libre, run the following command:

• $ sudo docker-compose up --no-start

Running Bot Libre using Docker Compose:

To start the containers, run the following command:

• $ sudo docker-compose start

To gracefully stop the containers, run the following command:

• $ sudo docker-compose stop

To view the logs, run the following command:

• $ sudo docker-compose logs

If you need to run bash on the Tomcat web server container (app-web), first get the name of the container with this command:

• $ sudo docker ps

Then, use the following command with the container name:

• $ sudo docker exec -it container_name bash