Production NodeJS

How to set up couch2pg on Ubuntu Server 22 with NodeJS

This guide is for NodeJS on Ubuntu. See related Docker Compose on Ubuntu guide.

Assumptions

These instructions assume you’re on Ubuntu server 22.04 and are running both CHT Core and Postgres on other servers.

Prerequisites

• Postgres server with enough free space to sync all of CouchDB data
• Ubuntu server with minimum 4 cores 8GB RAM, 50GB disk
• Credentials for couch2pg to access Postgres
• Credentials for couch2pg to access CHT

Deployment

All commands are run as root unless specified to run as couch2pg:

1. Install all the prerequisites. Note that we’re intentionally installing an old version of NodeJS (12.x LTS):

   apt update && apt -y dist-upgrade && apt -y install postgresql-client curl git jq
   sudo apt update
   sudo apt -y install curl dirmngr apt-transport-https lsb-release ca-certificates
   curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_12.x | sudo -E bash -
   sudo apt -y install nodejs npm
2. Test with psql client on couch2pg server that it can connect and successfully authenticate to Postgres server. Be sure to use the IP of your SQL server (172.18.0.1), user (postgres_root) and database (cht):

   psql -U cht_couch2pg -h 192.168.68.26 cht
3. Test with curl client on couch2pg server that it can connect and successfully authenticate to CHT server. Again, be sure to use the correct CHT Core URL with login and password:

   curl -s https://medic:password@192-168-68-23.local-ip.medicmobile.org:10443/medic/ | jq      
4. Create couch2pg user on the Ubuntu server
5. As couch2pg user, clone couch2pg repo: git clone https://github.com/medic/cht-couch2pg.git
6. As couch2pg user, install couch2pg dependencies: cd cht-couch2pg && npm ci
7. As couch2pg user, test couch2pg. Be sure to use correct values for COUCHDB_URL and POSTGRESQL_URL:

   COUCHDB_URL=https://medic:password@192-168-68-23.local-ip.medicmobile.org:10443/medic \
      POSTGRESQL_URL=postgres://cht_couch2pg:postgres_password@192.168.68.26:5432/cht \
      node .
8. Configure couch2pg in a systemd file at /etc/systemd/system/couch2pg.service be sure that environment variables are updated (Environment=".."):

   [Unit]
   Description=couch2pg
   Documentation=https://docs.communityhealthtoolkit.org/hosting/couch2pg/setup-and-devlopment/
   After=network.target
   
   [Service]
   Environment="POSTGRESQL_URL=postgres://cht_couch2pg:postgres_password@192.168.68.26:5432/cht"
   Environment="COUCHDB_URL=https://medic:password@192-168-68-23.local-ip.medicmobile.org:10443/medic"
   Environment="COUCH2PG_SLEEP_MINS=360"
   Environment="COUCH2PG_DOC_LIMIT=100"
   Environment="COUCH2PG_CHANGES_LIMIT=5000"
   Environment="COUCH2PG_RETRY_COUNT=5"
   Environment="COUCH2PG_USERS_META_DOC_LIMIT=50"
   Type=simple
   User=couch2pg
   ExecStart=/usr/bin/node .
   WorkingDirectory=/home/couch2pg/cht-couch2pg
   Restart=on-failure
   
   [Install]
   WantedBy=multi-user.target
9. Ensure couch2pg runs at boot: systemctl enable couch2pg
10. Reload systemd: systemctl daemon-reload
11. Reboot VM: reboot
12. Check for errors after reboot: systemctl status couch2pg
13. Monitor couch2pg logs for errors. If errors are found, re-run them and update this list to ensure accuracy. Add any new requirements above as well, as needed: journalctl --follow --unit=couch2pg --lines=100