System administrators

This book is for the person who looks after the server a hub runs on: the one with a shell on it, who installs the hub, keeps its code current, and puts it back when something goes wrong. Everything here happens on the server, as www-data or as root. The hub's own administrator interface, at /administrator, is the subject of Hub managers.

• Installation overview — what a hub needs, and how installing goes: prepare the server, then install the hub.
• Preparing the server — a page for each system, and how to choose between them: Debian 12 and 13, Ubuntu 22.04, 24.04 and 26.04 LTS, Enterprise Linux 8, 9 and 10, any Linux in Docker, and any other Linux.
• Installing the hub — on a prepared server: the database, the installer and what comes after, the same on every system.
• Upgrading a hub — bringing an installed hub up to the head of its release branch, with a backup first and the way back.
• A self-contained hub in Docker — the hub built into an image of its own beside MariaDB's, installed on its first start and upgraded by building it again.

On a small hub the system administrator and the hub manager are often the same person. The split is between the work, not the people: what needs a shell is here, what needs a browser is there.