Deploy Waline on Self Host

Waline is derived from Valine and is a very simple and secure comment system. With rich features, Waline is an excellent choice as a blog comment system. There are various deployment methods available for Waline, but if you have your own server, it is preferable to deploy Waline on it with a local database. This article mainly shares the experience of deploying Waline with a local database on a self host.

Here are all the deploy methods supported by Waline. On a self host, you can choose to install it directly or in a Docker container. Waline supports various types of databases, including MongoDB, MySQL/MariaDB, TiDB, and PostgreSQL. This article mainly introduces the deploy procedure using MySQL/MariaDB as the database. (deploy with other databases is similar)

Prepare Database

Open a MySQL prompt and create a new user for Waline to access the database (or use an existing user), then create a database for Waline. Grant the user all privileges for that database.

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# Create user
CREATE USER <user> IDENTIFIED BY mysql_native_password BY '<password>';

# Create daabase
CREATE DATABASE <database_name> DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8mb4 DEFAULT COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci;

# Grant user privilleges
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON <database_name>.* TO <user>;

# flush user data
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Note：If the database name contains special characters such as “.” or “-”, you need to enclose it in “``”.

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ALTER USER <user> IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY '<password>';

Start a MySQL prompt with Waline’s MySQL account, and import waline.sql to create the Waline data structure.

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USE <database_name>
SOURCE <path_to_waline.sql>

Install Waline

Install Waline directly using npm

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npm install --prefix <waline_install_dir> @waline/vercel

Note：Without –prefix <waline_install_dir> option, Waline will be installed to the current working directory by default.

Configure Waline

Currently, almost all the Linux distributions use systemd, so we will use systemd to manage the Waline service. First, you need to create a systemd unit file, create the waline.service file under the path /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/, and fill in the your configurations. Here is an example using MySQL:

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[Unit]
Description=A simple comment system with backend support fork from Valine.

[Service]
User=<service_user>
Group=<service_user_group>
Restart=always
Type=simple
WorkingDirectory=<waline_work_fdir>
ExecStart=/usr/bin/node <waline_install_dir>/node_modules/@waline/vercel/vanilla.js
Environment=PATH=/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin
Environment=NODE_ENV=production
Environment=MYSQL_HOST=127.0.0.1
Environment=MYSQL_PORT=3306
Environment=MYSQL_PREFIX=wl_
Environment=MYSQL_CHARSET=utf8mb4
Environment=MYSQL_SSL=false
Environment=MYSQL_DB=<waline_database_name>
Environment=MYSQL_USER=<waline_database_user>
Environment=MYSQL_PASSWORD=<waline_database_user_password>

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

systemd supports the syntax Environment=<param1>=<value1> "<param2>=<value2> <value3>" to add environment variables. systemd also supports using EnvironmentFile=<file_path> to specify the environment configure file. Adding a prefix “-” before the <file_path> ignores the read error if the file does not exist. Other database environment variables configuration can be found in the Official Documentation.

After creating the unit file, use sudo systemctl daemon-reload to reload the systemd unit and then start Waline.

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sudo systemctl start waline  # Start Waline Service
sudo systemctl enable waline # Configure Waline to start automatically on boot

You can use sudo systemctl status waline to check the current running status of Waline. If Active is shown, it indicates Waline is now running.

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sudo systemctl status waline
● waline.service - A simple comment system with backend support fork from Valine.
     Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/waline.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Fri 2023-04-21 15:25:49 BST; 1h 58min ago
   Main PID: 43772 (node)
      Tasks: 18 (limit: 882)
     Memory: 150.8M
     CGroup: /system.slice/waline.service
             ├─43772 /usr/bin/node /path_to_waline/node_modules/@waline/vercel/vanilla.js
             └─43788 /usr/bin/node /path_to_waline/node_modules/@waline/vercel/vanilla.js

Apr 21 15:25:50 my_server node[43772]: [2023-04-21T15:25:50.976] [43772] [INFO] - ThinkJS version: 3.2.14
Apr 21 15:25:50 my_server node[43772]: [2023-04-21T15:25:50.977] [43772] [INFO] - Environment: production

If error occurs, you can use sudo journalctl -u waline to view the complete Waline running log for debugging.

If Waline is running properly, you can access http://<server IP or domain name>:8360/ui/register to register a user account. The first registered user will automatically become an administrator.

Traffic of port 8360 needs to be allowed for Waline web accessing. If you don’t want to use a port to access Waline, you can refer to Nginx Reverse Proxy.