Tella Web

Tella Web is an open-source tool that enables individuals and organizations to centralize and manage reports sent by Tella users, including photos, videos, and audio files.

This repository covers instructions for deploying a Tella Web instance (frontend and backend).

This documentation only covers instructions to deploy a Tella Web instance. To learn about Tella features see here and to learn about how to manage and operate your Tella Web instance see here

System requirements (recommended)

These are our recommended system requirements.

• RAM: 4GB
• DISK: 10GB

For disk space, the data stored in Tella Web is in the same server, so consider monitoring server storage and adding space if needed. Tella Web should still function on less resources. If you are running Tella Web on a server with less resources than our recommended set up, we would love to hear about your experience :D

We don't have any particular recomendation about hosting providers for Tella Web: this is a pretty straightforward application so it should work anywhere you can install Docker. If you experience any issues please contact us.

Prerequisites

• Docker (including the compose module).

• Two domains (or subdomains), one for the admin and one for the api. The domains should point to the desired server.

• Credentials for an SMTP server.

NGINX Configuration

To make Tella Web ready to use out of the box, we added to the Docker Compose file an nginx container and a Let's Encrypt container that creates a ssl certificate for the domains. As a result, by default, the site is served in the :443 port.

To use a different nginx installation or use custom ports, please install and configure nginx manually. However, please note that we have configured Tella Web's default nginx configuration to improve files streaming and that these improvements will be lost in a manual nginx setup.

Deploy

1. Clone this repo in the server you want to deploy Tella Web.
2. Copy the .env.example and create a .env with your own credentials (credentials are explained at the .env).
   • You can see what each variable means in the environment variables table.
3. Create the docker network docker network create net.
4. In docker-compose.yml, specify what version of Tella Web you want to install.
   • You can find the latest releases on our releases page.
   • For example: in the image variable of the api container instead of "horizontalorg/tellaweb-api", input "horizontalorg/tellaweb-api:1.3.1" and the same with the app container image
5. Pull the docker images as this: docker compose pull
6. Then docker compose up -d
7. The first deployment will take a few minutes. You can see the progress with docker logs.

Last steps

• Run migrations docker compose exec api npm run typeorm migration:run

• Create an admin user docker compose exec api npm run console -- users create -a youruser@someemail.com

• Finally, you can read here about finalizing the setup, configuring the instance, and Tella Web features.

Updating and Maintainance

We recommend monitoring our releases page and updating Tella Web when possible to ensure you get the latest security improvements and new features.

To update Tella Web, we recommend:

1. Doing a backup of the database.

2. Changing the image name with the release number you want to use both for the api and app containers.

3. Pulling and upping the new images.

4. Running migrations with npm run typeorm migration:run inside the api container or as a one line command docker compose exec api npm run typeorm migration:run.

5. Checking the logs with docker logs to ensure that everything is working properly.

6. Removing old images to optimize space with docker prune.

Environment variables table

For passwords variables, please remember to create strong passphrasaes

Key	Description	Notes
JWT_SECRET	a secret phrase that acts as the seed for all of the jwt tokens we use	required
VIRTUAL_HOST	admin domain without any prefix	required
API_VIRTUAL_HOST	api domain without any prefix	required
COOKIE_DOMAIN	admin domain without any prefix	required
PUBLIC_DOMAIN	api domain with 'https://' prefix	required
ADMIN_DOMAIN	admin domain with 'https://' prefix	required
MYSQL_HOST	host to connect api to db, should be 'db'	required
MYSQL_DATABASE	name of the database	required
MYSQL_USER	name of the user for mysql	required
MYSQL_PASSWORD	password of the user for mysql	required
MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD	password for the root mysql user	required
REDIS_PASSWORD	password for accesing redis container	required
REDIS_HOST	host to connect api to redis, should be 'redis'	required
SMTP_HOST	host of the email server you are using	optional
SMTP_PORT	port for the connection, should be '25'	optional
SMTP_USER	credentials of your smtp server	optional
SMTP_PASS	credentials of your smtp server	optional
SMTP_GLOBAL_FROM	credentials of your smtp server	optional
IP_LOCATION_KEY	constant for a service we use, shoudn't be overwritten	optional
NEXT_PUBLIC_MAPBOX_TOKEN	constant for a service we use, shoudn't be overwritten	optional

• The Suspicious Login detection feature won't work if the SMTP server and the ip location services are not working. If won't use those services you need to turn off the feature on the Tella Web Admin Center.