RefractTrack Automated Server Setup
Automated Server Setup
If you don't already have somewhere to host RefractTrack, there's an optional setup script (prereqs.sh) that can do almost all of the heavy lifting for you. Point it at a plain Linux computer with a network connection, answer a handful of questions, and it hands you back a server running RefractTrack, with its own database, over a proper secured (https) connection — ready for the friendly in-browser setup wizard described in Getting Started to take it the rest of the way.
This page is for whoever on your team handles hosting. If that's not you, feel free to skip it — everyone else can jump straight to Projects and Tasks to start learning the board itself.
What kind of computer this needs
The script is happiest on a Linux computer from the Debian/Ubuntu family — that covers most budget cloud servers and small home-server setups. It's also genuinely lightweight: it runs comfortably on very modest hardware, including something as small and old as a Raspberry Pi 3B+. If you've got a spare Pi gathering dust, or a cheap always-on mini PC, that's plenty of computer to run a team's tracker on.
Beyond that, all it needs is:
- An internet connection (to download the handful of pieces of software it installs, and to request a security certificate).
- Administrator (root) access on that computer.
What to have ready before you start
The script will ask a series of plain-English questions as it goes, so nothing here needs to be memorized — but having these ready in advance makes the process quick instead of a scavenger hunt:
- A domain name, with a dedicated address set aside just for the tracker. RefractTrack gets its own address (for example, tracker.yourstudio.com) separate from anything else you might host — this keeps it tidy and avoids clashing with other sites.
- That address already pointed at your server. The script requests a real, trusted security certificate for your tracker's address, and that only works once the address is actually pointed at this computer out on the internet. If you're not sure how to do this, it's a quick setting in wherever you registered or manage your domain.
- An email address, so you get a heads-up if a certificate ever needs attention.
- A decision about where your database will live — most teams are fine letting the script set one up right there on the same computer, which it can do automatically. If your team already runs a database server elsewhere, you can point RefractTrack at that instead; just have its address and an admin login on hand.
- The RefractTrack files themselves, already downloaded onto the computer you're setting up (the script expects the unzipped files in your home directory, with
refracttrack/andrefracttrack_server/sitting as siblings, exactly how the download unzips).
What it takes care of for you
Once you've answered its questions, the script:
- Refreshes and upgrades the computer's existing software first, then checks what's already installed and only adds what's actually missing (Apache, PHP and its extensions, Certbot, and — if you chose a local database — MariaDB).
- Sets up a dedicated address for RefractTrack, so it doesn't interfere with anything else running on the same computer.
- Requests and installs a real security certificate for that address, and keeps it renewed automatically going forward — no reminders needed.
- If you chose a database on the same computer, gets one running with sensible, secure defaults (and walks you through the same basic hardening a security-conscious admin would do by hand).
- If you chose a database elsewhere, skips all of the above and instead explains exactly what needs to already be true on that remote server, with an optional connection test before continuing.
- Puts the RefractTrack files in place and gets everything ready for its own setup wizard to take over.
It's careful not to go further than that — it only prepares the computer itself. It doesn't create your actual RefractTrack database contents, your first project, or your first login; that all happens in the friendly setup wizard covered in Getting Started, the moment you open the site in a browser afterward.
After it finishes
Open your tracker's address in a browser, and you'll land straight in the same step-by-step setup wizard described in Getting Started — pick a theme, name your instance, and create your first project and account. From there, running RefractTrack day to day is exactly the same as on any other hosting.
When a newer version of RefractTrack comes along later, you won't need to run this script again — see Upgrading for the (much simpler) process of moving an existing install forward.