How to host Ackee on UpCloud Cloud Server - ServerAvatar

Ackee is an open-source web analytics tool that provides detailed insights into your website’s traffic while prioritizing user privacy. It features a clean and user-friendly interface, displaying real-time data such as visitor metrics, traffic sources, and page views. UpCloud serves as a reliable hosting choice for Ackee, offering scalable infrastructure and straightforward deployment options. ServerAvatar facilitates a user-friendly experience for deploying the Ackee application on the UpCloud platform.

Create a Server in UpCloud

Getting Started with UpCloud:

UpCloud is a high-performance VPS (Virtual Private Server) hosting platform designed for developers, businesses, and IT professionals. Renowned for its speed and reliability, UpCloud features the unique MaxIOPS storage technology, delivering performance significantly faster than traditional SSDs. This makes it an excellent choice for applications with high I/O demands, such as databases and web hosting. With its user-friendly control panel, UpCloud simplifies server management, making it an attractive option for anyone needing superior VPS hosting solutions.

To deploy any application on UpCloud, we must first set up a server. Therefore, our initial step will be to deploy a server and complete its initial setup.

Step 1: Server Deployment

• Log in to your Upcloud account. If you don’t have an account, create an account on UpCloud.
• Then, Navigate to Server → Server List and click on the Deploy Server button, as shown in the image below.

Step 2: Select Location

• The first thing you have to do is select the location for your server. UpCloud provides different options for selecting the location.
• The general rule is to select the region that is closest to your audience. It means that for the majority of your audience, Your sites will load faster due to lower latency.

Step 3: Select the plan for your Server

• Here you have to select the plan of your Droplet. UpCloud offers a variety of plans. Select the one that best meets your requirements.
• The minimum requirement for hosting Ackee is 2GB of RAM, for better performance more is required, and a minimum of 10GB of free disk space is recommended, but more may be needed depending on the volume of analytics data. The exact amount will depend on your usage and data storage needs. So, select the plan based on the complexity and traffic of your sites.
• If your site is new and has low traffic, begin with a smaller plan. As your project gains and attracts more visitors, you can upgrade to a plan to handle the increased traffic.

Step 4: Add New Storage Device

• In the Storage section, you can attach new storage devices as needed. Your initial storage is based on the selected server plan. You can attach up to 16 storage devices, each with a maximum size of 4 TB.
• To add more disks, click the "Add new device" button and adjust the storage size with the slider. You can modify the storage configuration later by adding, removing, or resizing disk devices.

Step 5: Automated Backups

• You can also enable Automated Backups by clicking the toggle button on the right side. You can choose from Day, Week, Month, or Year plans.
• After selecting the appropriate plan, you can set a backup schedule using the drop-down menu below.

Step 6: Choose an Operating System

• In this step, you need to select your server operating system. We recommend selecting Ubuntu 20.04 LTS x64 or Ubuntu 22.04 LTS x64. If you are using ServerAvatar to manage your servers, these operating systems are required.

Step 7: Select Network Configuration

• In this step, by default network configurations are set that include IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, and a private Utility Network connection is set. You can customize these settings and attach your private network by clicking on the “Attach Private Network” option.

Step 8: Additional Options

• In this step, you can enable or disable IPv6 support and metadata service. Also, you can set the desired TimeZone and select between network and display adapters.
• If it suits you, we suggest keeping these options at their default settings.

Step 9: Select Login Method

• Now you have to select the Login method. There are two types of login methods. They are:
  1. Authentication via SSH Keys
  2. Authentication via One-Time Password
• If you are using SSH keys for authentication, It is the best option. You can also click on the “Add New” button to import your keys.
• If you do not know what is SSH key, You can go with the One-Time password method. You have to set a new password after the first time you log into this server.
• Make sure to set a strong password for your root user, which is the most powerful user with all the privileges on Linux OS. You can select the convenient way to have the password.

Step 10: Enter Initialization Script

• The Initialization scripts are user-defined automation scripts supported by all Linux public templates. When you select one of your stored scripts, it will appear in the edit field.
• You can make changes to the scripts or write a new one. The server will execute the script during the first bootup.

Step 11: Finalise Details

• In the last step of this process, We have to enter the Host Name, Server Name, and number of servers you want to deploy. Click on the Deploy button to create a server.

• In a few minutes, You will have the Server up and running.
• Now, We have to perform the initial step to allow the Serveravatar port from the firewall configuration.
• To allow the Serveravatar port from firewall configuration, Click on the Server → Server List Option and then click on the icon next to your server as shown in the below image.

• Now, navigate to the Firewall Section and Click on “Add Rule”.

• Create a rule to allow ServerAvatar Communication Port - 43210 as shown in the below image. Click on the Ok to add the firewall rule.

• Now, click on the “Save Changes” button to save the changes to Firewall Rules as shown in the below image.

Initial Server Configuration

The Initial server configuration includes the installation and configuration of various packages required to host your website. Usually, You have to write commands and modify configuration files. Luckily, With ServerAvatar, Your full server configuration and optimization can be automated.

Here are the three ways to automatically configure your server with ServerAvatar.

wget https://srvr.so/install
chmod +x install
./install

Install and Setup Ackee on Cloud using ServerAvatar

Ackee Application: Step-by-Step Guide

Introduction:

Ackee is a self-hosted, open-source analytics tool that offers privacy-focused insights into website and application usage. It provides features comparable to traditional analytics platforms while prioritizing user privacy.

Here are Some Key Features of Ackee Analytics include:

• Privacy-Focused
• Self-Hosted
• Dashboard and Reporting
• Customizable
• Open Source

Prerequisites:

• Node.js (v14 or higher)
• MongoDB (v4.4 or higher)
• Nginx

Installation:

Step 1: Create an Application

Go to the Applications tab on the ServerAvatar server panel and click on the Create button as shown in the image below.

To proceed with the installation and deployment of Ackee, ensure you have met the prerequisites.

• Enter an Application Name of your choice.
• Specify a Domain (choose between a Test Domain or a Primary Domain).
  • Note: If you're hosting Ackee on your domain, make sure your domain is correctly pointed to your server's current IP address.

Now, Clone Ackee from the available public repository in Github.

• Method: Git
• Service Provider: Github
• Repository Type: Public
• Clone HTTPS URL: https://github.com/electerious/Ackee.git
• Branch: master

To proceed further, provide additional information.

• Select a Rendering Type: Server Side Rendering
• Port: 3000 (Choose an available port to avoid conflicts)
• Package Installation Command: npm install
• Start App Command: npm start

Click on the Create Application button. You will be redirected to the Application Installation Status page, where you can monitor the installation process and view command outputs.

Once, all of your entered commands run successfully you will be redirected to the Application Dashboard.

Step 2: Create Ackee Database

Go to the server panel, navigate to the Databases tab, and click on the Create button as shown in the following image.

On the following screen, complete the database details, including:

• Database Name
• Database Username
• Database Password

Step 3: Setup .env file

• Navigate to the Application Panel tab by clicking on the icon next to the application as shown in the below image.

• Now, go to the FIle Manager option and open the public_html folder.

• Create a new file and name it .env

• Now, open the .env file by clicking on it.

• Add the following configurations into the .env file, replacing placeholders with actual values:

  • ACKEE_MONGODB=mongodb://db_username:db_password@localhost:27017/db_name
  • ACKEE_USERNAME=username
  • ACKEE_PASSWORD=password
  • PORT=port number

• Now, visit your configured domain name and enter the username and password you entered in .env

Congratulations! You have successfully installed and deployed Ackee through ServerAvatar.