Deploy to VPS

This guide will walk you through deploying PrivMX Bridge Instance

Prerequisites

This guide requires access to VPS server. You can choose any provider you prefer, e.g.:

• AWS EC2
• Google Cloud Compute Engine
• Digital Ocean Droplets
• Azure Virtual Machine

We recommend choosing an option with at least 1 CPU and 500MB of RAM for PrivMX Bridge itself, and if you decide to host your MongoDB instance on the same machine to increase RAM to 4GB.

You will need also a domain name for your server. This tutorial will guide you through how to generate certificates for it for https connection.

Setup Environment

Installing Docker

1. Add Docker's official GPG key.

 sudo apt-get update
 sudo apt-get install ca-certificates curl
 sudo install -m 0755 -d /etc/apt/keyrings
 sudo curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg -o /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc
 sudo chmod a+r /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc

2. Add the repository to Apt sources.

 echo \
 "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu \
 $(. /etc/os-release && echo "${UBUNTU_CODENAME:-$VERSION_CODENAME}") stable" | \
 
 sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/null
 sudo apt-get update

3. Install docker.

sudo apt-get install docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io docker-buildx-plugin docker-compose-plugin

Setup NGINX

1. Install nginx and certbot

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt install certbot python3-certbot-nginx nginx

2. Create site config

Create files in /etc/nginx/sites-available/YOUR_DOMAIN_NAME

touch /etc/nginx/sites-available/YOUR_DOMAIN_NAME

open it in your favourite text editor and add the following configuration:

server {
listen 80;
server_name YOUR_DOMAIN_NAME;

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://localhost:9111;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header Connection "Upgrade";
    }
}

3. Create a link to sites-enabled

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/YOUR_DOMAIN_NAME /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/YOUR_DOMAIN_NAME

PrivMX Bridge Setup

PrivMX Bridge requires MongoDB instance. You can host it alongside PrivMX Bridge using our docker compose file or provide connection string to external MongoDB instance, for example, from MongoDB Atlas.

1. Start by cloning PrivMX Bridge docker repo containing setup scripts.

git clone https://github.com/simplito/privmx-bridge-docker.git privmx-bridge
cd privmx-bridge

2. Run setup script.

sudo ./setup.sh

This script will pull all necessary docker images, and setup your first Solution and Context. After setup PrivMX Bridge, you will be prompted with variables required for connection.

By default, new instance will be available on http://localhost:9111

Exposing Application

1. Check Nginx config

sudo nginx -t

2. Restart NGINX

sudo systemctl restart nginx

3. Generate certificates using certbot

sudo certbot --nginx -d YOUR_DOMAIN

4. In your firewall settings expose port 80 and 443. During certificate generation, Certbot adds redirects from http connections to https.

You can now open domain URL in your browser. PrivMX Bridge instance should return starting page.

Next Steps

Checkout Tools documentation for guides on how you can use your PrivMX Bridge for E2E encrypted communication.

Learn how to use:

• Threads - for exchanging encrypted messages;
• Stores - for saving and sharing encrypted files;
• Inboxes - for one way communication with external users.