Apache

1. Install Packages

PostgreSQL is installed from its upstream repos to get a much more recent version.

apt install -y lsb-release wget curl gnupg
echo "deb http://apt.postgresql.org/pub/repos/apt/ $(lsb_release -cs)-pgdg main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pgdg.list
wget --quiet -O - https://www.postgresql.org/media/keys/ACCC4CF8.asc | apt-key add -
apt update
apt install -y --install-recommends postgresql-13 libpq-dev apache2 libapache2-mod-proxy-uwsgi libapache2-mod-xsendfile libxslt1-dev libxml2-dev libffi-dev libpcre3-dev libyaml-dev libssl-dev zlib1g-dev libbz2-dev libreadline-dev libsqlite3-dev libncurses5-dev libncursesw5-dev xz-utils liblzma-dev uuid-dev build-essential redis-server

If you use Debian, run this command:

apt install -y libjpeg62-turbo-dev

If you use Ubuntu, run this instead:

apt install -y libjpeg-turbo8-dev zlib1g-dev

Afterwards, make sure the services you just installed are running:

systemctl start postgresql.service redis-server.service

2. Create a Database

Let’s create a user and database for indico and enable the necessary Postgres extensions (which can only be done by the Postgres superuser).

su - postgres -c 'createuser indico'
su - postgres -c 'createdb -O indico indico'
su - postgres -c 'psql indico -c "CREATE EXTENSION unaccent; CREATE EXTENSION pg_trgm;"'

Warning

Do not forget to setup a cronjob that creates regular database backups once you start using Indico in production!

3. Configure uWSGI & Apache

The default uWSGI and Apache configuration files should work fine in most cases.

cat > /etc/uwsgi-indico.ini <<'EOF'
[uwsgi]
uid = indico
gid = www-data
umask = 027

processes = 4
enable-threads = true
socket = 127.0.0.1:8008
stats = /opt/indico/web/uwsgi-stats.sock
protocol = uwsgi

master = true
auto-procname = true
procname-prefix-spaced = indico
disable-logging = true

single-interpreter = true

touch-reload = /opt/indico/web/indico.wsgi
wsgi-file = /opt/indico/web/indico.wsgi
virtualenv = /opt/indico/.venv

vacuum = true
buffer-size = 20480
memory-report = true
max-requests = 2500
harakiri = 900
harakiri-verbose = true
reload-on-rss = 2048
evil-reload-on-rss = 8192
EOF

We also need a systemd unit to start uWSGI.

cat > /etc/systemd/system/indico-uwsgi.service <<'EOF'
[Unit]
Description=Indico uWSGI
After=network.target

[Service]
ExecStart=/opt/indico/.venv/bin/uwsgi --ini /etc/uwsgi-indico.ini
ExecReload=/bin/kill -HUP $MAINPID
Restart=always
SyslogIdentifier=indico-uwsgi
User=indico
Group=www-data
UMask=0027
Type=notify
NotifyAccess=all
KillMode=mixed
KillSignal=SIGQUIT
TimeoutStopSec=300

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
EOF

Note

Replace YOURHOSTNAME in the next files with the hostname on which your Indico instance should be available, e.g. indico.yourdomain.com

cat > /etc/apache2/sites-available/indico-sslredir.conf <<'EOF'
<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName YOURHOSTNAME
    RewriteEngine On
    RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}$1 [R=301,L]
</VirtualHost>
EOF

cat > /etc/apache2/sites-available/indico.conf <<'EOF'
<VirtualHost *:443>
    ServerName YOURHOSTNAME
    DocumentRoot "/var/empty/apache"
    Protocols h2 http/1.1

    SSLEngine             on
    SSLCertificateFile    /etc/ssl/indico/indico.crt
    SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/ssl/indico/indico.key

    SSLProtocol           all -SSLv3 -TLSv1 -TLSv1.1
    SSLCipherSuite        ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305:ECDHE-RSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305:DHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384
    SSLHonorCipherOrder   off
    SSLSessionTickets     off

    XSendFile on
    XSendFilePath /opt/indico
    CustomLog /opt/indico/log/apache/access.log combined
    ErrorLog /opt/indico/log/apache/error.log
    LogLevel error
    ServerSignature Off

    <If "%{HTTP_HOST} != 'YOURHOSTNAME'">
        Redirect 301 / https://YOURHOSTNAME/
    </If>

    AliasMatch "^/(images|fonts)(.*)/(.+?)(__v[0-9a-f]+)?\.([^.]+)$" "/opt/indico/web/static/$1$2/$3.$5"
    AliasMatch "^/(css|dist|images|fonts)/(.*)$" "/opt/indico/web/static/$1/$2"
    Alias /robots.txt /opt/indico/web/static/robots.txt

    SetEnv UWSGI_SCHEME https
    ProxyPass / uwsgi://127.0.0.1:8008/

    <Directory /opt/indico>
        AllowOverride None
        Require all granted
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>
EOF

Now enable the necessary modules and the indico site in apache:

a2enmod proxy_uwsgi rewrite ssl xsendfile
a2dissite 000-default
a2ensite indico indico-sslredir

4. Create a TLS Certificate

First, create the folders for the certificate/key and set restrictive permissions on them:

mkdir /etc/ssl/indico
chown root:root /etc/ssl/indico/
chmod 700 /etc/ssl/indico

If you are just trying out Indico you can simply use a self-signed certificate (your browser will show a warning which you will have to confirm when accessing your Indico instance for the first time).

Note

Do not forget to replace YOURHOSTNAME with the same value you used above

openssl req -x509 -nodes -newkey rsa:4096 -subj /CN=YOURHOSTNAME -keyout /etc/ssl/indico/indico.key -out /etc/ssl/indico/indico.crt

While a self-signed certificate works for testing, it is not suitable for a production system. You can either buy a certificate from any commercial certification authority or get a free one from Let’s Encrypt.

Note

There’s an optional step later in this guide to get a certificate from Let’s Encrypt. We can’t do it right now since the Apache config references a directory yet to be created, which prevents Apache from starting.

5. Install Indico

Celery runs as a background daemon. Add a systemd unit file for it:

cat > /etc/systemd/system/indico-celery.service <<'EOF'
[Unit]
Description=Indico Celery
After=network.target

[Service]
ExecStart=/opt/indico/.venv/bin/indico celery worker -B
Restart=always
SyslogIdentifier=indico-celery
User=indico
Group=www-data
UMask=0027
Type=simple
KillMode=mixed
TimeoutStopSec=300

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
EOF

systemctl daemon-reload

Now create a user that will be used to run Indico and switch to it:

useradd -rm -g www-data -d /opt/indico -s /bin/bash indico
su - indico

The first thing to do is installing pyenv - we use it to install the latest Python version as not all Linux distributions include it and like this Indico can benefit from the latest Python features.

curl -L https://github.com/pyenv/pyenv-installer/raw/master/bin/pyenv-installer | bash

cat >> ~/.bashrc <<'EOF'
export PATH="/opt/indico/.pyenv/bin:$PATH"
eval "$(pyenv init --path)"
eval "$(pyenv init -)"
EOF

source ~/.bashrc

You are now ready to install Python 3.9:

Run pyenv install --list | egrep '^\s*3\.9\.' to check for the latest available version and then install it and set it as the active Python version (replace x in both lines).

pyenv install 3.9.x
pyenv global 3.9.x

This may take a while since pyenv needs to compile the specified Python version. Once done, you may want to use python -V to confirm that you are indeed using the version you just installed.

You are now ready to install Indico:

python -m venv --upgrade-deps --prompt indico ~/.venv
source ~/.venv/bin/activate
echo 'source ~/.venv/bin/activate' >> ~/.bashrc
pip install wheel
pip install uwsgi
pip install indico

6. Configure Indico

Once Indico is installed, you can run the configuration wizard. You can keep the defaults for most options, but make sure to use https://YOURHOSTNAME when prompted for the Indico URL. Also specify valid email addresses when asked and enter a valid SMTP server Indico can use to send emails. When asked for the default timezone make sure this is the main time zone used in your Indico instance.

indico setup wizard

Now finish setting up the directory structure and permissions:

mkdir ~/log/apache
chmod go-rwx ~/* ~/.[^.]*
chmod 710 ~/ ~/archive ~/cache ~/log ~/tmp
chmod 750 ~/web ~/.venv
chmod g+w ~/log/apache
echo -e "\nSTATIC_FILE_METHOD = 'xsendfile'" >> ~/etc/indico.conf

7. Create database schema

Finally, you can create the database schema and switch back to root:

indico db prepare
exit

8. Launch Indico

You can now start Indico and set it up to start automatically when the server is rebooted:

systemctl restart apache2.service indico-celery.service indico-uwsgi.service
systemctl enable apache2.service postgresql.service redis-server.service indico-celery.service indico-uwsgi.service

9. Optional: Get a Certificate from Let’s Encrypt

Note

You need to use at least Debian 9 (Stretch) to use certbot. If you are still using Debian 8 (Jessie), consider updating or install certbot from backports.

If you use Ubuntu, install the certbot PPA:

apt install -y software-properties-common
add-apt-repository -y ppa:certbot/certbot
apt update

To avoid ugly TLS warnings in your browsers, the easiest option is to get a free certificate from Let’s Encrypt. We also enable the cronjob to renew it automatically:

apt install -y python-certbot-apache
certbot --apache --rsa-key-size 4096 --no-redirect --staple-ocsp -d YOURHOSTNAME
rm -rf /etc/ssl/indico
systemctl start certbot.timer
systemctl enable certbot.timer

10. Create an Indico user

Access https://YOURHOSTNAME in your browser and follow the steps displayed there to create your initial user.

11. Install TeXLive

Follow the LaTeX install guide to install TeXLive so Indico can generate PDF files in various places.

Optional: Shibboleth

If your organization uses Shibboleth/SAML-based SSO, follow these steps to use it in Indico:

1. Install Shibboleth

apt install -y libapache2-mod-shib2
a2enmod shib2

2. Configure Shibboleth

This is outside the scope of this documentation and depends on your environment (Shibboleth, SAML, ADFS, etc). Please contact whoever runs your SSO infrastructure if you need assistance.

3. Enable Shibboleth in Apache

Add the following code to your /etc/apache2/sites-available/indico.conf right before the AliasMatch lines:

<LocationMatch "^(/Shibboleth\.sso|/login/shib-sso/shibboleth)">
    AuthType shibboleth
    ShibRequestSetting requireSession 1
    ShibExportAssertion Off
    Require valid-user
</LocationMatch>

4. Enable Shibboleth in Indico

Add the following code to your /opt/indico/etc/indico.conf:

# SSO
AUTH_PROVIDERS = {
    'shib-sso': {
        'type': 'shibboleth',
        'title': 'SSO',
        'attrs_prefix': 'ADFS_',
        'callback_uri': '/login/shib-sso/shibboleth',
        # 'logout_uri': 'https://login.yourcompany.tld/logout'
    }
}
IDENTITY_PROVIDERS = {
    'shib-sso': {
        'type': 'shibboleth',
        'title': 'SSO',
        'identifier_field': 'ADFS_LOGIN',
        'mapping': {
            'affiliation': 'ADFS_HOMEINSTITUTE',
            'first_name': 'ADFS_FIRSTNAME',
            'last_name': 'ADFS_LASTNAME',
            'email': 'ADFS_EMAIL',
            'phone': 'ADFS_PHONENUMBER'
        },
        'trusted_email': True
    }
}

The values for attrs_prefix, mapping and identifier_field may be different in your environment. Uncomment and set logout_uri if your SSO infrastructure provides a logout URL (usually used to log you out from all applications).

If you only want to use SSO, without allowing people to login locally using username/password, disable it by setting LOCAL_IDENTITIES = False in indico.conf.

Warning

We assume that emails received from SSO are already validated. If this is not the case, make sure to disable trusted_email which will require email validation in Indico when logging in for the first time. Otherwise people could take over the account of someone else by using their email address!

Note

The example config is rather simple and only accesses data from SSO during login. This is not sufficient for advanced features such as automatic synchronization of names, affiliations and phone numbers or using centrally managed groups. To use these features, you need to use e.g. the LDAP identity provider and use the information received via SSO to retrieve the user details from LDAP. If you need assistance with this, feel free to ask us on IRC (#indico @ Libera.Chat) or the forum.