Installation

This document provides setup instructions for Enterprise, self-hosted installations of Tines.

Prerequisites​ 

Self-hosted installations of Tines require a host machine with the following minimum specifications:

  • 8GB RAM, 60GB HDD, 2 CPUs.

  • Docker and docker-compose should be installed on the host machine.

Downloading install package​ 

Visit the /admin/upgrade page on a cloud tenant to download install packages. The file will be a zip archive named as follows: tines_<build id>.zip.

  • If you are visiting the page for the first time, the Tines support team may have to enable the downloads for you.

  • If you don't have an existing cloud tenant, you can sign up for a free Community Edition tenant at tines.com.

Unzip the archive and upload it to the host machine where Docker and Docker Compose are installed.

The install package contains the following files:

Tines self-hosted install package files 

Preparing installation​ 

Creating installation directory​ 

Create a directory for the Tines installation to live, for example /opt/tines:

sudo mkdir /opt/tines

Move files to installation directory​ 

Unzip the installation package and move all files to the installation directory:

unzip tines_<build_id>.zip

cp -rT tines_<build_id>/ /opt/tines

Edit .env.tmpl file​ 

The .env file contains Tines environment variables and is used to configure the Tines instance. Open the .env.tmpl file using a text editor. There are three sections that need to be updated to reflect your environment.

  • Tenant Configuration Enter basic information about the tenant, including its name, seed user details (the first user account that will be created) and domain (the FQDN).

  • Email Configuration Enter SMTP server details. Tines will use these when sending emails.

Here's an example of those parts of a configured .env file:

#############################
# Required: Tenant Configuration #
#############################

# A human friendly identifier for this instance of Tines, e.g. your company name:
TENANT_NAME=company_name
# Company name and stack name (eg. tines_prod). This is used to identify your tenant's telemetry data,
# if you have enabled that feature.
TELEMETRY_ID=company_name_prod

# This will be the first user to be created and get invited to this Tines instance:
SEED_EMAIL=alice@example.com
SEED_FIRST_NAME=Alice
SEED_LAST_NAME=Smith

# The domain that you ultimately want your Tines installation to be accessible at in your browser.
# This should match the SSL certificate installed into your tines-nginx container.
DOMAIN=tines.example.com
# This should match the port that you use to access the Tines UI.
# Unless you have chosen a custom port, you should use 443 as typical for HTTPS.
PORT=443

# This should be set to a random 128 character string to ensure security for your installation.
# Changing this value may force users to log in again.
# You can generate a value for this by running: openssl rand -hex 64
APP_SECRET_TOKEN=__SET_YOUR_SECRET_TOKEN__

#############################
# Required: Email Configuration #
#############################
# Outgoing email settings. This must be configured correctly in order for the invite email
# to be sent to the first user.
#
# To use Gmail or Google Apps, put your Google Apps domain or gmail.com
# as the SMTP_DOMAIN and your Gmail username and password as the SMTP_USER_NAME and SMTP_PASSWORD.
#
# If you have trouble with port 587 on Gmail, you can also try setting
# SMTP_AUTHENTICATION to login and the SMTP_PORT to 465.

SMTP_DOMAIN=mail.example.com
SMTP_USER_NAME=tines_smtp
SMTP_PASSWORD=...
SMTP_SERVER=smtp.example.com
SMTP_PORT=465
SMTP_AUTHENTICATION=login
SMTP_ENABLE_STARTTLS_AUTO=true

# This address will be the sender for all emails from this Tines instance:
EMAIL_FROM_ADDRESS=Example Support <support@example.com>

After updating the file, save it as .env.

Uploading SSL/TLS cert and key​ 

Upload a SSL/TLS certificate file and corresponding key file to the installation directory. These files should be named tines.crt and tines.key.

Run setup script​ 

Your installation directory should now contain the following files:

  • docker-compose.yml

  • .env (updated and renamed)

  • postgres.tar

  • redis.tar

  • tines-app.tar

  • tines-nginx.tar

  • tines.crt

  • tines.key

  • upgrade.sh

  • setup.sh

Use the following command to run the Tines setup script:

sh setup.sh

Updating tenant limits​ 

Your tenant will have some default limits set based on the Teams plan. Admin users can update these to the correct limits for your plan by visiting /admin/configuration in the app.

Restarting Tines​ 

If you need to restart Tines, for example, after modifying the env file, use the following command:

docker-compose down && docker-compose up -d

Troubleshooting​ 

If Tines did not start after running docker-compose up, check the console for relevant errors. Contact support@tines.io with the output of docker-compose logs.

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