lemmyBB

A Lemmy frontend based on phpBB 3.3.

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Screenshots

Instances

Here is a list of known lemmyBB instances:

Please open a pull request if you know another instance.

Installation

New installation (docker-compose)

Follow these instructions to setup a new Lemmy installation on your server, with both lemmybb (for users) and lemmy-ui (mainly for moderation features which are not supported in lemmybb yet).

Install dependencies and create folders:

apt install docker-compose docker.io nginx certbot python3-certbot-nginx
mkdir /srv/lemmybb
cd /srv/lemmybb
mkdir volumes/pictrs
chown 991:991 volumes/pictrs/

Download config files, edit lemmy.hjson with your actual domain and make other changes if desired:

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/LemmyNet/lemmyBB/main/docker/docker-compose.yml
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/LemmyNet/lemmyBB/main/docker/lemmy.hjson
nano lemmy.hjson

Start docker-compose services

docker-compose up -d

Request tls certificates (use your actual domains and email)

certbot certonly --nginx -d lemmybb.com -m [email protected]
certbot certonly --nginx -d lemmyui.com -m [email protected]

Install nginx config and set correct domains. Note that this config by default doesn't allow direct access to the API nor pictrs. This makes it harder for spam bots, but also means that Lemmy clients cant be used. The nginx config includes instructions for putting lemmy-ui behind HTTP Auth, so that only admins can access it.

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/LemmyNet/lemmyBB/main/docker/nginx.conf -O /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/lemmybb.conf
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/main/docker/prod/nginx.conf -O /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/lemmyui.conf
sed -i -e 's/$lemmybb_domain/lemmybb.com/g' /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/lemmybb.conf
sed -i -e 's/$lemmyui_domain/lemmyui.com/g' /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/lemmyui.conf
nginx -s reload

Add these lines to daily cronjob (sudo crontab -e) to renew tls certificates

@daily certbot certonly --nginx -d lemmybb.com --deploy-hook 'nginx -s reload'
@daily certbot certonly --nginx -d lemmyui.com --deploy-hook 'nginx -s reload'

Alongside existing Lemmy instance (native)

Follow the Lemmy installation instructions to install Lemmy backend and lemmy-ui first. You will need one (sub)domain for LemmyBB, and another for lemmy-ui.

Then install lemmyBB itself. First, ssh into your server and prepare by cloning the code repository.

cd /opt
git clone https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmyBB.git --recursive

Change to the folder and compile Lemmy.

cd lemmyBB
LEMMYBB_VERSION=$(git describe --tag --always) cargo build --release

Copy the nginx config into the sites-enabled folder

cp docker/nginx.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/lemmybb.conf

replace the variable lemmybb.com with your domain for lemmybb instead of lemmybb.com

sed -i -e 's/$lemmybb_domain/lemmybb.com/g' /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/lemmybb.conf

create systemd service file

nano /etc/systemd/system/lemmy_bb.service

and insert the following content

[Unit]
Description=lemmy_bb
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
WorkingDirectory=/opt/lemmyBB/
Environment="LEMMYBB_BACKEND=http://127.0.0.1:8536"
Environment="LEMMYBB_LISTEN_ADDRESS=127.0.0.1:8703"
Environment="LEMMYBB_INCREASED_RATE_LIMIT=1"
Environment="LD_PRELOAD=libjemalloc.so"
ExecStart=/opt/lemmyBB/target/release/lemmy_bb
Restart=always

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

if your lemmy instance is running on different machine change

LEMMYBB_BACKEND=http://127.0.0.1:8536

to

LEMMYBB_BACKEND=https://yourdomain

then activate and start the service and check the status

systemctl enable --now lemmy_bb.service
systemctl status lemmy_bb.service

Run the following commands to update lemmyBB to the latest development version.

cd /opt/lemmyBB
git pull
LEMMYBB_VERSION=$(git describe --tag --always) cargo build --release
systemctl restart lemmy_bb.service

Configuration

Environment variables

Frontpage

Create a file lemmybb_categories.hjson with content like the following:

[
  [
    "General"
    [
      "[email protected]"
      "[email protected]"
    ]
  ]
  [
    "Open Source"
    [
      "https://lemmy.ml/c/opensource"
      "https://lemmy.ml/c/linux"
      "https://lemmy.ml/c/rust"
    ]
  ]
]

Note, you must subscribe manually to remote communities, so that new activities are federated to your instances.

Development

First install dependencies and setup the database.

sudo apt install git cargo postgresql libssl-dev pkg-config
sudo systemctl start postgresql
sudo -u postgres psql -c "create user lemmy with password 'password' superuser;" -U postgres
sudo -u postgres psql -c 'create database lemmy with owner lemmy;' -U postgres

Then start LemmyBB with embedded Lemmy instance.

git clone https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmyBB.git --recursive
cd lemmyBB
cargo run --features embed-lemmy

Then open http://127.0.0.1:1244 in your browser.

It can also be useful to use a production instance as backend, for example if you notice a bug on a specific instance but don't know what causes it. To do this, run the following command with an instance of your choice.

LEMMYBB_BACKEND=https://lemmy.ml cargo run

License

The project is licensed under AGPLv3.

Theme files from phpBB are licensed under GPLv2.