How can I deploy my Hexabot using NGINX ?

Introduction

This documentation outlines two methods for deploying your Hexabot project in a production environment using NGINX and Let's Encrypt for SSL certificate :

1. Method 1: Using Nginx as a service and Certbot for SSL

2. Method 2: Using Dockerized Nginx and Certbot services

Pre-requisites

Before starting, ensure you have the following:

Step 1: Server Requirements

• A server running a Linux distribution with SSH enabled.

• These instructions are based on Ubuntu, so adapt as needed for other distributions.

Step 2: Install Required Software

• Install Docker

Setting Up Docker for Development and Production

• Install NPM

Setup Node.js with NVM

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Step 3: Setup Hexabot project

1. Install the Hexabot CLI:

npm install -g hexabot-cli

1. Create new project:

 hexabot create my-chatbot
 cd my-chatbot/

Or clone an existing project of yours:

 git clone [e-mail]:YOUR_ORG/my-chatbot.git
 cd my-chatbot/

1. Environment Setup:

To configure the environment variables, use the following command:

hexabot init

This command will copy the .env.example file to .env in the ./docker directory if the file does not already exist

1. Update your .env file for production, especially the following ones:

Variable Name	Example Value	Env variable description
NODE_ENV	production	Environment Mode
APP_DOMAIN	mychatbot.ai	Application Domain Name
API_ORIGIN	https://mychatbot.ai/api	The API endpoint will be used to communicate with the backend
FRONTEND_BASE_URL	https://mychatbot.ai	The API endpoint will be used to communicate with the frontend
FRONTEND_ORIGIN	http://mychatbot.ai, https://mychatbot.ai	The origins that will be accepted by the API. A list of permitted origins for cross-origin requests
NEXT_PUBLIC_API_ORIGIN	https://mychatbot.ai/api	Next.js API endpoint
JWT_SECRET	346998ba1f171f107433	Secret to encrypt JWT token
SESSION_SECRET	27feaf70d2c78892bf49	Secret to encrypt session token
HTTPS_ENABLED	true	Https setting
INVITATION_JWT_SECRET	51c8ea00d82eb10ee226	Secret to encrypt invitation token
PASSWORD_RESET_JWT_SECRET	5ee97916017176d1ca6c	Secret to encrypt reset password token
CONFIRM_ACCOUNT_SECRET	80f74dce70e5385bf80b	Secret to encrypt confirm account token
MONGO_USER	my_mongo_username	Mongodb username
MONGO_PASSWORD	my_mongo_password	Mongodb password
AUTH_TOKEN	c97643c1c1e5e9dc5745	Secret to encrypt NLU token

Note that you can also adjust the default token expirations durations as needed.

To be able to send email you will need to configure SMTP. Learn how to configure SMTP environment variables by following our detailed SMTP setup guide.

Method 1 : Using Nginx as a service and Certbot for SSL

Step 1: Run your Hexabot project in production mode:

If you're starting with a fresh installation and not using a DB backup, it's recommended to run Hexabot in development mode the first time. This allows for automatic seeding of essential data into the DB.

hexabot start
# Or include additional services you may want to use
hexabot start --services ollama,influxdb

Note that this command will start all the services (api, frontend, mongodb, ...) as Docker containers and other optional services that may provide.

Step 2: Install Nginx

Deploying an Hexabot project on production requires you to setup a HTTP Web Server like Apache2, HAProxy or Nginx to secure communications using SSL, establish access per domain name, and a lot of other capabilities such as rate limiting for example to help protect against abuse and prevent server overload. In this guide, we will walk you through a typical HTTP Web Server setup using Nginx and Certbot for SSL certificate generation.

1. Update the system:

sudo apt update

1. Install Nginx:

sudo apt install nginx

1. Verify the Nginx installation:

nginx -v

1. Start Nginx:

sudo systemctl start nginx

1. Check the Nginx status:

sudo systemctl status nginx

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Step 3: Configure Nginx

1. Replace Nginx server configuration with the following : /etc/nginx/sites-available/default.

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name mychatbot.ai; # You will need to update this to use your own domain 
    server_tokens off;
    client_max_body_size 20M;

    location / {
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto https;
        proxy_set_header X-Url-Scheme $scheme;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
        proxy_redirect off;
        proxy_pass http://localhost:8080; # Make sure to use the port configured in .env file
    }

    location /api/ {
        rewrite ^/api/?(.*)$ /$1 break;
        proxy_pass http://localhost:4000; # Make sure to use the port configured in .env file
        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Server $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
        proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
        proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header Connection "Upgrade";
        proxy_set_header X-NginX-Proxy false;
        proxy_pass_request_headers on;
    }

    location ~* \.io {
        rewrite ^/api/?(.*)$ /$1 break;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
        proxy_set_header X-NginX-Proxy false;

        proxy_pass http://localhost:4000; # Make sure to use the port configured in .env file
        proxy_redirect off;

        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
    }
}

Step 4: Generate SSL certificate using Certbot

1. Install Certbot:

sudo apt install certbot python3-certbot-nginx

1. Obtain an SSL certificate:

sudo certbot --nginx

1. (Optional) Automate SSL renewal:

sudo crontab -e

1. Add the following line:

0 12 * * * certbot renew --quiet

Step 5: Reload Nginx with new configuration

1. Test configuration syntax:

sudo nginx -t

If you get an error please make sure you don't have any syntax error in /etc/nginx/sites-available/default

1. Reload Nginx with new configuration:

sudo systemctl reload nginx

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Access your domain using HTTPS (eg. https://mychatbot.ai) to check if you have successfully deployed your Hexabot project using Nginx! 🚀🎉. Feel free to ask for support from the community on our Discord channel.

Method 2: Using Dockerized Nginx and Certbot services :

This guide will help you set up Nginx with SSL using Docker and Certbot for your Hexabot project.

Step 1: Copy Required Files for Dockerized Nginx and Certbot

To use the Dockerized version of Nginx and Certbot:

1. Download the following files from the Hexabot GitHub repository:

   • docker/nginx

   • docker/docker-compose.nginx.yml

   • docker/docker-compose.nginx.prod.yml

   • docker/init-letsencrypt.sh

2. Copy these files under the my-chatbot/docker directory of your project.

Step 2: Initialize SSL with Certbot

1. Navigate to the my-chatbot/docker directory:

cd my-chatbot/docker

1. Optional: If you'd like to test your setup without hitting request limits for SSL certificates, set the staging variable to 1 in the init-letsencrypt.sh script before running it:

staging=1

After confirming the setup, set the staging variable back to 0 to request live certificates.

1. Run the init-letsencrypt.sh script:

Make sure to set the APP_DOMAIN variable to your application domain name in the.env file. It's recommended also to use a valid email address so make sure to set the SSL_EMAIL variable as well.

APP_DOMAIN=mychatbot.ai
SSL_EMAIL=[e-mail]

You can test the DNS configuration by running one of these commands:

nslookup mychatbot.ai

Or

dig mychatbot.ai

Make the init-letsencrypt.sh script executable by granting it execute permissions.

chmod +x init-letsencrypt.sh

Now you will be able to run the script

./init-letsencrypt.sh

Step 3: Verify Deployment

Once the script completes, run docker ps verify that your Nginx and Certbot docker containers are up and running. Access your Hexabot instance via the domain you specified (e.g., https://mychatbot.ai) to check if SSL certificates have been generated and are properly installed.