2.3.1 Configure

The configuration is done through the command

colmena configure environment

This will prompt a text editor. Update the values shown below and exit when ready.

There are a few values that need to be configured before starting the platform:

Domain names: the domain name for the server, the web application and the nextcloud instance.
The domain name for the test SMTP server. This is used to test the platform and should not be used in production. You’ll need to configure your own SMTP server as described below.
SMTP server configuration: the host and credentials to connect to an SMTP instance.

For example, if you own a organization.org domain, you’ll configure your services as follows:

SERVER_URL=server.colmena.organization.org
CLIENT_URL=colmena.organization.org
NEXTCLOUD_URL=nextcloud.colmena.organization.org
SMTP_SERVER_URL=mail.colmena.organization.org

Note that the server, nextcloud and mail, as well as the .colmena subdomain names, are optional, and you can change them to whatever name you want to make your services discoverable at.

Once you determine which are your domains, configure the following security setting:

# Original value, allows any host
# BACKEND_ALLOWED_HOSTS=*
# Change to the following:
# Allows any subdomain under the .organization.org domain.
BACKEND_ALLOWED_HOSTS=.organization.org

You’ll also need to configure your SMTP server credentials to setup the mailing service.

# SMTP Server configuration
EMAIL_FROM=colmena@organization.org
EMAIL_HOST=smtp.organization.org
EMAIL_PORT=465
EMAIL_HOST_USER=admin@organization.org
EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD=some-password

Finally, you’ll need to setup a username and a password for the superadmin user. Please modify the following variables to a value of your preference:

For testing purposes you can leave all this values as they are. Then you’ll use these very same credentials to access each platform service..

# This are the email and password values to access the backoffice
SUPERADMIN_PASSWORD=some-password
SUPERADMIN_EMAIL=superadmin@anything.org
# This are the email and password values to access the nextcloud instance.
NEXTCLOUD_ADMIN_USER=superadmin
NEXTCLOUD_ADMIN_PASSWORD=superadmin
# This are the username and password to access the postgres admin instance. Leave it as it is if you don't care about security.
PGADMIN_DEFAULT_EMAIL=admin@anything.org
PGADMIN_DEFAULT_PASSWORD=admin

Due to a current limitation, the NEXTCLOUD_ADMIN_USER and the left side of the SUPERADMIN_EMAIL should be called the same. In this example both are called superadmin, please respect this constraint.

Configuration for private networks

In case you are installing Colmena on a private network, you can specify the SERVER_PROTOCOL as http (if you do not have the option to use https)

You must also configure the reverse proxy by completing the values of the variables with the IP address where the software is hosted and the corresponding ports for each service.

# Reverse proxy
CADDY_IMAGE_TAG=latest
SERVER_PROTOCOL=http
SERVER_URL=<your-ip>:<port>
CLIENT_URL=<your-ip>
SMTP_SERVER_URL=<your-ip>:<port>
NEXTCLOUD_URL=<your-ip>:<port>