How to self-host Commento on your server

Note: This post assumes that you are running an Ubuntu machine (VPS) and use Nginx to handle the reverse proxy to your site.

Why I make this?

Sometimes websites and blogs need comments. And sometimes you don’t want to use Disqus because it is bloated and tracks your users. So you use Commento because it is an open source commenting service that is privacy first and lightweight.

Commento++ is a fork that I highly recommend. It has some nifty features like commenting with a name instead of logging in.¹

Here’s how to self-host Commento (or Commento++) it on your server.

The Structure

There are five main steps to this –

1. Setting up PostgreSQL
2. Installing Commento or Commento++
3. Configuring DNS, Nginx and Let’s Encrypt
4. Running Commento as a system service
5. Setting up Commento admin dashboard

0. Housekeeping

First, some cleaning up –

sudo apt update

1. Setting up PostgreSQL

Install the necessary packages –

sudo apt install postgresql postgresql-contrib

Start the postgresql service, check if it’s working correctly and make it run on boot by default –

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sudo systemctl start postgresql
sudo systemctl status postgresql # should return a green light!
sudo systemctl enable postgresql

Now let’s set up the user and database –

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# switching to the default postgres user
sudo -i -u postgres

# calling up the SQL shell
psql

# this creates the user 'commento'
CREATE ROLE commento WITH LOGIN;

# set up a password for the user 'commento'
# please use a secure password and save it in a password manager
\password commento

# create a db to store all commento data
CREATE DATABASE commento;

# check if the database was created
\l

# quit the SQL shell 
\q

# quit the postgres user
exit

Excellent. Your PostgreSQL database and user is now set up and receiving on the default port (5432).

2. Installing Commento

First we create a new user on our machine. You could do this within your normal user (don’t use root please) but that makes cleaning up difficult. With a separate user you can just use sudo deluser --remove-home commento and get rid of most things.

Anyway, the user –

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# create new user and give it a nice and secure password
sudo adduser commento

Time to install Commento –

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# switch to the newly created user
sudo -i -u commento

# make sure you are in the root directory
cd

# download the latest release binary
# these versions are latest as of June 2021
wget https://dl.commento.io/release/commento-v1.8.0-linux-glibc-amd64.tar.gz
# OR if using Commento++
wget https://github.com/souramoo/commentoplusplus/releases/download/v1.8.6/release_1.8.6.tar.gz

# create a new folder where Commento will be installed
mkdir commento-v1.8.0

# unzip the downloaded file into that folder
tar xvf commento-v1.8.0-linux-glibc-amd64.tar.gz -C commento-v1.8.0

# create a new folder with a symlink to the commento folder
# this way when you update commento you just need to symlink it to this folder 
ln -s commento-v1.8.0 commento-latest

Congratulations. You have installed Commento. But it won’t work yet.

We need to define the environment variables first –

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# create a new file that stores the environment variables
nano /home/commento/commento.env

Copy the following configuration –

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# Set binding values
COMMENTO_ORIGIN=https://commento.<YOUR DOMAIN>
COMMENTO_PORT=8081

# Set PostgreSQL settings
COMMENTO_POSTGRES=postgres://commento:<THAT POSTGRES PASSWORD>@127.0.0.1:5432/commento?sslmode=disable

# Set the SMTP credentials when you have them
# COMMENTO_SMTP_HOST=
# COMMENTO_SMTP_PORT=
# COMMENTO_SMTP_USERNAME=
# COMMENTO_SMTP_PASSWORD=
# COMMENTO_SMTP_FROM_ADDRESS=no-reply@<YOUR DOMAIN>

# Uncomment this after creating your first user
# COMMENTO_FORBID_NEW_OWNERS=true

# Set Google OAuth credentials
# COMMENTO_GOOGLE_KEY=YOUR_KEY_HERE
# COMMENTO_GOOGLE_SECRET=YOUR_SECRET_HERE

# Akismet API key
# COMMENTO_AKISMET_KEY=YOUR_API_KEY_HERE

One last step –

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# logout from the commento user
exit

3. Configuring DNS, Nginx and Let’s Encrypt

Find out how you can create a new A record on your domain name provider. It should usually be under the DNS settings somewhere. When you do figure it out, we will create a new subdomain on your site like so –

Create a new A record with the following properties –

• Name: commento
• Type: A
• TTL: 1hr
• IP: <Your VPS’ IP Address>

Now we tell Nginx to direct traffic –

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# Create a new site (eg. commento.myblog.com)
sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/commento.<YOUR DOMAIN NAME>

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# Copy the following configuration
server {
    listen 443 ssl http2;
    listen [::]:443 ssl http2;
    gzip off;
    server_name commento.<YOUR DOMAIN NAME>;
    root /var/www/html;

location / {
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8081;
    }
}

Important: We will use port 8081 for Commento. You can change this if you like but only do it if you know what you are doing. If you do change the port, remember to change the port value in the nginx server configuration above and in the commento.env file defined before.

Good, now we create a symlink to make sure this works –

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/commento.<YOUR DOMAIN NAME> /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/commento.<YOUR DOMAIN NAME>

Just a quick test to ensure that nothing is broken –

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# this should say "test is successful"
sudo nginx -t

Brilliant. Time to get that HTTPS certificate.

If you don’t already use Let’s Encrypt, you should. A quick search online should help you find a tutorial.

When you’ve got certbot on your system, run –

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sudo certbot
# select the commento.<YOUR DOMAIN> option
# choose the redirect to https option for security

Well done. Time to breathe life into Commento.

4. Running Commento as a system service

Create a new systemd service file –

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/commento.service

Copy the following configuration –

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[Unit]
Description=Commento daemon service
After=network.target postgresql.service

[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/home/commento/commento-latest/commento
Environment=COMMENTO_CONFIG_FILE=/home/commento/commento.env

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Tell Ubuntu to run Commento –

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sudo systemctl start commento.service
sudo systemctl status commento.service # check green light here!
sudo systemctl enable commento.service

Now head over to commento.<YOUR DOMAIN NAME> and you should see the login page.

5. Setting up Commento admin dashboard

1. Go to commento.<YOUR DOMAIN NAME> and create a new user by signing up. Don’t lose these credentials.
2. Add your domain.
3. Click through the tabs. Set the relevant settings as you like.
4. Go to the installation guide tab and copy the HTML code.
5. Embed this code wherever you want the comment section to be in your site.

Great success. You have done it.

Appendix

1. If for some reason you would like to investigate the Postgres DB using a GUI you should follow the steps in this guide. Basically, open the traffic to the Postgres server on your VPS to the world, then connect to it using a GUI tool like Table Plus.
2. Commento is highly customisable. Read this page on the official docs. If you want to make some modification that don’t fall in this doc, a nifty way to do it is to write overriding CSS / JS code. I do that on my website to mask the login feature entirely and it works fairly well.