The current OTP builds available for Linux are unfortunately incompatible with RedHat Linux distributions, like Fedora and Centos Stream. This is due to RedHat maintaining patched versions of certain Erlang libraries, making them incompatible with other Linux distributions.
However, you may compile your own OTP release from scratch. This is particularly useful if you wish to quickly distribute your OTP build onto multiple systems, without having to worry about compiling code on every system. However, if your goal is to simply set up a single instance for yourself, installing from-source might be a simpler option. To install from-source, please follow [this guide](./fedora_based_en.md).
## Pre-requisites
In order to compile a RedHat-compatible OTP release, you will need to run a RedHat Linux distribution. This guide will assume you run Fedora 36, though it should also work on older Fedora releases and other RedHat distributions. It also assumes that you have administrative rights and sufficient knowledge on how to perform common CLI tasks in Linux. If you want to run this guide with root, ignore the `sudo` at the beginning of the lines.
Important: keep in mind that you must build your OTP release for the specific RedHat distribution you wish to use it on. A build on Fedora will only be compatible with a specific Fedora release version.
## Building an OTP release for Fedora 36
### Installing required packages
* First, update your system, if not already done:
```shell
sudo dnf upgrade --refresh
```
* Then install the required packages to build your OTP release:
Note that compiling the OTP release will take some time. Once it completes, you will find the OTP files in the directory `release`.
If all went well, you will have built your very own Fedora-compatible OTP release! You can now pack up the files in the `release` directory and deploy them to your other Fedora servers.
## Installing the OTP release
Installing the OTP release from this point onward will be very similar to the regular OTP release. This guide assumes you will want to install your OTP package on other systems, so additional pre-requisites will be listed below.
Please note that running your own OTP release has some minor caveats that you should be aware of. They will be listed below as well.
### Installing required packages
Other than things bundled in the OTP release Akkoma depends on:
* curl (to download the release build)
* ncurses (ERTS won't run without it)
* PostgreSQL (also utilizes extensions in postgresql-contrib)
* nginx (could be swapped with another reverse proxy but this guide covers only it)
* certbot (for Let's Encrypt certificates, could be swapped with another ACME client, but this guide covers only it)
If that doesn't work the first time, add `--dry-run` to further attempts to avoid being ratelimited as you identify the issue, and do not remove it until the dry run succeeds. A common source of problems are nginx config syntax errors; this can be checked for by running `nginx -t`.
If you're successful with obtaining the certificates, opening your (sub)domain in a browser will result in a 502 error, since Akkoma hasn't been started yet.
# Edit the service file and make any neccesary changes
sudo $EDITOR /etc/systemd/system/akkoma.service
# If you use SELinux, set the correct file context on the pleroma binary
sudo semanage fcontext -a -t init_t /opt/akkoma/bin/pleroma
sudo restorecon -v /opt/akkoma/bin/pleroma
# Start akkoma and enable it on boot
sudo systemctl start akkoma
sudo systemctl enable akkoma
```
If everything worked, you should see a response from Akkoma-BE when visiting your domain. You may need to install frontends like Akkoma-FE and Admin-FE; refer to [this guide](../administration/CLI_tasks/frontend.md) on how to install them.
If that didn't happen, try reviewing the installation steps, starting Akkoma in the foreground and seeing if there are any errrors.
{! support.include !}
## Post installation
### Setting up auto-renew of the Let's Encrypt certificate
Assuming the commands were run successfully, certbot should be able to renew your certificates automatically via the `certbot-renew.timer` systemd unit.
sudo -Hu akkoma ./bin/pleroma_ctl user new joeuser joeuser@sld.tld --admin
```
This will create an account withe the username of 'joeuser' with the email address of joeuser@sld.tld, and set that user's account as an admin. This will result in a link that you can paste into the browser, which logs you in and enables you to set the password.
## Further reading
### Caveats of building your own OTP release
There are some things to take note of when your are running your own OTP builds.
#### Updating your OTP builds
Using your custom OTP build, you will not be able to update the installation using the `pleroma_ctl update` command. Running this command would overwrite your install with an OTP release from the main Akkoma repository, which will break your install.
Instead, you will have to rebuild your OTP release every time there are updates, then manually move it to where your Akkoma installation is running, overwriting the old OTP release files. Make sure to stop the Akkoma-BE server before overwriting any files!
After that, run the `pleroma_ctl migrate` command as usual to perform database migrations.
#### Cross-compatibility between RedHat distributions
As it currently stands, your OTP build will only be compatible for the specific RedHat distribution you've built it on. Fedora builds only work on Fedora, Centos builds only on Centos, RedHat builds only on RedHat. Secondly, for Fedora, they will also be bound to the specific Fedora release. This is because different releases of Fedora may have significant changes made in some of the required packages and libraries.