Debian & Ubuntu

System requirements

• Debian 11 or Ubuntu 22.04
• PostgreSQL
• Nodejs

PostgreSQL

Installing PostgreSQL

To install PostgreSQL, first refresh your server’s local package index:

sudo apt update

Then, install the Postgres package along with a -contrib package that adds some additional utilities and functionality:

sudo apt install postgresql postgresql-contrib -y

If you are prompted to restart any services, press ENTER to accept the defaults and continue.

Creating User and Database

You need to create a User and a Database for Planka

Create the user

sudo -u postgres createuser --interactive

The script will prompt you with some choices and, based on your responses, execute the correct Postgres commands to create a user to your specifications.

Output
Enter name of role to add: planka
Shall the new role be a superuser? (y/n) y

Create the Database

Change directory to prevent a sudo permission error

cd /tmp

Now create the database, you are not getting any response from this command.

sudo -u postgres createdb planka

Create a Unix User and test Database acceess and change the password

We need this user later to run planka as non-root user too

sudo adduser planka

Login to the Database as user Planka

sudo -u planka psql

Change the database password

ALTER USER planka PASSWORD 'YOUR_DATABASE_PASSWORD';

Cloese the database with

\q

Nodejs

Installing Node.js with Apt Using a NodeSource PPA

# Download and import the Nodesource GPG key
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y ca-certificates curl gnupg
sudo mkdir -p /etc/apt/keyrings
curl -fsSL https://deb.nodesource.com/gpgkey/nodesource-repo.gpg.key | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/nodesource.gpg

# Create deb repository
NODE_MAJOR=18
echo "deb [signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/nodesource.gpg] https://deb.nodesource.com/node_$NODE_MAJOR.x nodistro main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/nodesource.list

Then run update and install

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nodejs -y

Verify that you’ve installed the new version by running node with the -v version flag:

node -v

Output
v18.X.X

Install Planka

First we have to prepare some stuff our installation directory is /vaw/www/planka

sudo mkdir -p /var/www/planka/
sudo chown -R planka:planka /var/www/planka/

Now we can work as user Planka

sudo -i -u planka

Download the prebuild version of Planka.

cd /var/www/planka
curl -fsSL https://github.com/plankanban/planka/releases/download/v1.16.0/planka-prebuild-v1.16.0.zip -o planka-prebuild.zip
unzip planka-prebuild.zip -d /var/www/
rm planka-prebuild.zip

Install dependencies.

cd planka
npm install

Configure environment variables.

Edit the .env file First we have to copy the .env.sample file

cp .env.sample .env

Before we open the .env file, we need a screct_key you can generate one using the openssl command

openssl rand -hex 64

Note the output down

Edit .env file

nano .env

Your .env file should look like this

## Required
BASE_URL=http://YOUR_DOMAIN_NAME:YOUR_PORT
DATABASE_URL=postgresql://planka:YOUR_DATABASE_PASSWORD@localhost/planka
SECRET_KEY=YOUR_GENERATED_KEY

## Optional

# TRUST_PROXY=0
# TOKEN_EXPIRES_IN=365 # In days

# related: https://github.com/knex/knex/issues/2354
# As knex does not pass query parameters from the connection string we
# have to use environment variables in order to pass the desired values, e.g.
# PGSSLMODE=<value>

# Configure knex to accept SSL certificates
# KNEX_REJECT_UNAUTHORIZED_SSL_CERTIFICATE=false

DEFAULT_ADMIN_EMAIL=YOUR_ADMIN_EMAIL # Do not remove if you want to prevent this user from being edited/deleted
DEFAULT_ADMIN_PASSWORD=YOUR_ADMIN_PASSWORD
DEFAULT_ADMIN_NAME=YOUR_ADMIN_NAME
DEFAULT_ADMIN_USERNAME=YOUR_ADMIN_USERNAME

# OIDC_ISSUER=
# OIDC_CLIENT_ID=
# OIDC_CLIENT_SECRET=
# OIDC_SCOPES=openid email profile
# OIDC_ADMIN_ROLES=admin
# OIDC_ROLES_ATTRIBUTE=groups
# OIDC_IGNORE_ROLES=true

## Do not edit this

TZ=UTC

Start Planka the first Time

in the /var/www/planka/ directory just type

npm run db:init && npm start --prod

Now you can browse to http://YOUR_DOMAIN_NAME:YOUR_PORT and login as YOUR_ADMIN_EMAIL with password YOUR_ADMIN_PASSWORD