Installing Etherpad on Debian/Ubuntu

Etherpad is an excellent Open Source web application for collaborative text editing. Like Google Docs, it allows you to share documents with others through a secret URL or to set up private documents for which people need a login.

It's a little tricky to install so here's how I did it.

Build a Debian package

Because the official repository is not kept up to date, you must build the package yourself:

1. Grab the master branch from the official git repository:
   

   git clone git://github.com/ether/pad.git etherpad

2. Build the package:
   

   dpkg-buildpackage -us -uc

Now, install some of its dependencies:

apt-get install --no-install-recommends dbconfig-common python-uno mysql-server

before installing the .deb you built:

dpkg -i etherpad_1.1.deb
apt-get install --no-install-recommends -f

Application configuration

You will likely need to change a few minor things in the default configuration at /etc/etherpad/etherpad.local.properties:

useHttpsUrls = true
customBrandingName = ExamplePad
customEmailAddress = etherpad@example.com
topdomains = etherpad.example.com,your.external.ip.address,127.0.0.1,localhost,localhost.localdomain

Nginx configuration

If you use Nginx as your web server of choice, create a vhost file in /etc/nginx/sites-available/etherpad:

server {
  listen 443;
  server_name etherpad.example.com *.etherpad.example.com;
  add_header Strict-Transport-Security max-age=15768000;

  ssl on;
  ssl_certificate  /etc/ssl/certs/etherpad.example.com.crt;
  ssl_certificate_key  /etc/ssl/certs/etherpad.example.com.pem;

  ssl_session_timeout  5m;
  ssl_session_cache shared:SSL:1m;

  ssl_protocols  TLSv1;
  ssl_ciphers  RC4-SHA:HIGH:!kEDH;
  ssl_prefer_server_ciphers   on;

  access_log /var/log/nginx/etherpad.access.log;
  error_log /var/log/nginx/etherpad.error.log;

  location / {
    proxy_pass http://localhost:9000/;
    proxy_set_header Host $host;
  }
}

and then enable it and restart Nginx:

/etc/init.d/nginx restart

Apache configuration

If you prefer to use Apache instead, make sure that the required modules are enabled:

a2enmod proxy
a2enmod proxy_http

and then create a vhost file in /etc/apache2/sites-available/etherpad:

<VirtualHost *:443>
   ServerName etherpad.example.com
   ServerAlias *.etherpad.example.com

   SSLEngine on
   SSLCertificateFile /etc/apache2/ssl/etherpad.example.com.crt
   SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/apache2/ssl/etherpad.example.com.pem
   SSLCertificateChainFile /etc/apache2/ssl/etherpad.example.com-chain.pem

   SSLProtocol TLSv1
   SSLHonorCipherOrder On
   SSLCipherSuite RC4-SHA:HIGH:!kEDH
   Header add Strict-Transport-Security: "max-age=15768000"

   <Proxy>
       Order deny,allow
       Allow from all
   </Proxy>

   Alias /sitemap.xml /ep/tag/\?format=sitemap
   Alias /static /usr/share/etherpad/etherpad/src/static

   ProxyPreserveHost On
   SetEnv proxy-sendchunked 1
   ProxyRequests Off
   ProxyPass / http://localhost:9000/
   ProxyPassReverse / http://localhost:9000/
</VirtualHost>

before enabling that new vhost and restarting Apache:

a2ensite etherpad
apache2ctl configtest
apache2ctl graceful

DNS setup

The final step is to create these two DNS entries to point to your web server:

• *.etherpad.example.com
• etherpad.example.com

Also, as a precaution against an OpenOffice/LibreOffice-related bug, I suggest that you add the following entry to your web server's /etc/hosts file to avoid flooding your DNS resolver with bogus queries:

127.0.0.1 localhost.(none) localhost.(none).fulldomain.example.com

where fulldomain.example.com is the search base defined in /etc/resolv.conf.

Other useful instructions

Here are the most useful pages I used while setting this up:

• Official installation instructions
• Ubuntu Wiki instructions
• Instructions for Debian Lenny
• Nginx Configuration