How to run your own Moonlapse server [Debian/Ubuntu]

17 Aug 2020 - saltytaro

Interested in playing by your own rules? You can download the code to run your very own MoonlapseMUD server.

To follow along with this tutorial, you will need a machine running an operating system with access to Advanced Package Tool (or APT).

Note for Mac users, you can vaguely follow these instructions with Homebrew.

Prerequisites

Firstly you will need Python 3.6 which should be installed by default on most Debian-based systems.
Update the package list using the following command:
```
sudo apt update
```
Install PIP, the Package Installer for Python, which is what we will use to obtain the rest of our prerequisite Python libraries
```
sudo apt install python3-pip
```
Install the PostgreSQL, the database server the game will need to read from and write to.
```
sudo apt install postgresql
```
Next, the drivers required to let Python and PostgreSQL talk to each other.
```
sudo apt install python3-psycopg2
sudo apt install libpq-dev
sudo pip3 install psycopg2
```
- Note for Mac users, you can instead run the following command (assuming you have homebrew installed):
```
 brew install postgresql
 sudo pip3 install psycopg2
```
  If you get a C compilation error such as library not found for -lssl then run this command and try the pip3 install again.
```
export LIBRARY_PATH=$LIBRARY_PATH:/usr/local/opt/openssl/lib/
```

Install git and clone the MoonlapseMUD source from the current repository

sudo apt install git
git clone https://github.com/trithagoras/MoonlapseMUD

Enter a new shell environment logged in as the postgres user:
```
sudo -iu postgres
```
Set a password for the operating system user postgres, which is created when you install postgresql by default. This will be used to create your database.
```
psql 
\password postgres
```
You’ll see the following prompts at which you enter the desired password:
```
Enter new password:
Enter it again:
```
Now exit from the psql environment:
```
\q
```

While still logged in as the postgres user, create a new user to run the Moonlapse database and create the new database itself.

createuser --interactive --pwprompt
Enter name of role to add: MoonlapseAdmin
Enter password for new role:
Enter it again:
Shall the new role be a superuser? (y/n) y
createdb Moonlapse

Now logout of the shell environment controlled by the postgres user to return to your own shell:
```
exit
```
While logged in as your own user, install Twisted, the networking library for the server.
```
sudo pip install twisted
```
Install Django, the library used for the ORM.
```
sudo pip install django
```

Create the database connection string and place it in the MoonlapseMUD/server directory.

MoonlapseMUD/server/connectionstrings.json

{
   "user": "MoonlapseAdmin",
   "password": "myPassword",
   "host": "localhost",
   "port": "5432",
   "database": "Moonlapse"
}

Initialise the database.

python MoonlapseMUD/server/manage.py makemigrations server
python MoonlapseMUD/server/manage.py migrate
python MoonlapseMUD/server/manage.py flush
python MoonlapseMUD/server/loaddata.py

Run the server!
```
python MoonlapseMUD/server
```