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Hosting Live Helper Chat on DigitalOcean

Introduction​

DigitalOcean allows you to easily start a preconfigured Live Helper Chat instance.

You can now host Live Helper Chat directly on DigitalOcean using their marketplace: https://marketplace.digitalocean.com/apps/live-helper-chat

Requirements​

Live Helper Chat runs well on the smallest available DigitalOcean droplet, which costs $5 per month. It is more cost-effective to run it on DigitalOcean than on my own hosting solution 😄. My hosting provides automated updates and directly supports the project.

Configured Extensions​

The following extensions are included and configured in this package:

  • NodeJS-Helper: This extension provides real-time chatting functionality without message delays.
  • lhc-php-resque: This extension runs background workers for external tasks, enabling background Rest API calls.

The snapshot also has the following configured:

Core Software Stack​

  • CentOS 7.6
  • MariaDB 10.4.12-MariaDB
  • NodeJS v10.20.1
  • PHP 7.4.5
  • PHP-FPM 7.4.5 (fpm-fcgi)
  • Nginx 1.16.1

How to Disable Installed Extensions​

If you want to disable any of the installed extensions, follow these steps:

Disabling lhc-php-resque​

Prevent the service from starting again:

sudo rm -f /opt/livehelperchat/resque/.enable-cron

Stop the service:

sudo kill -9 $(ps aux | grep "[0-9] resque-1.2: *" | awk '{print $2}')

Update /var/www/html/settings/settings.ini.php:

From:

...
'extensions' => 
      array (
        0 => 'nodejshelper',
        1 => 'lhcphpresque',
),
...

To:

...
'extensions' => 
      array (
        0 => 'nodejshelper',
),
...

Clear cache from the back office.

Disabling Co-Browsing NodeJS Server​

If you do not plan to use screen sharing, disabling this service can save memory.

sudo systemctl stop nodejscobrowser
sudo systemctl disable nodejscobrowser

Disabling NodeJS-Helper Extension​

If you want to further optimize, you can disable this extension.

sudo systemctl stop nodejshelper
sudo systemctl disable nodejshelper

Update /var/www/html/settings/settings.ini.php:

From:

...
'extensions' => 
      array (
        0 => 'nodejshelper',
        1 => 'lhcphpresque',
),
...

To:

...
'extensions' => 
      array (
        0 => 'lhcphpresque',
),
...

Clear cache from the back office.

Database Logins​

The database root login credentials can be found in this file:

/root/.digitalocean_password

How to Update Live Helper Chat​

I have prepared a shell script for updating. Run this command after logging into the server, but only after you have installed Live Helper Chat.

sudo /opt/livehelperchat/lhc_upgrade.sh

If you are running an older version, you can also run this command:

cd /var/www/git/NodeJS-Helper/ && git pull origin master

If you encounter an issue like this:

Updating nodejs extension
remote: Enumerating objects: 144, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (144/144), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (39/39), done.
remote: Total 118 (delta 72), reused 104 (delta 58), pack-reused 0
Receiving objects: 100% (118/118), 12.58 KiB | 0 bytes/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (72/72), completed with 15 local objects.
From https://github.com/LiveHelperChat/NodeJS-Helper
* branch            master     -> FETCH_HEAD
  Updating 636aeb4..5631e10
  error: Your local changes to the following files would be overwritten by merge:
  nodejshelper/serversc/lhc/server.js
  Please, commit your changes or stash them before you can merge.
  Aborting
  Redirecting to /bin/systemctl restart nodejshelper.service

Run this command:

cd /var/www/git/NodeJS-Helper && git checkout -f && git pull origin master

After that, modify /var/www/git/NodeJS-Helper/nodejshelper/serversc/lhc/server.js and replace <use_your_secret_hash> with the value of the secrethash variable found in /var/www/html/settings/settings.ini.php.

Then, restart the NodeJS-Helper service:

service nodejshelper restart

Finally, clear the cache in the back office.

To-Dos After Installation​

  • Generate embed code and add it to your website.
  • Go to your account and configure your username and last name. Also, set your default nick as a support agent.
  • Configure your DNS records (SPF) so the server can send legitimate emails.
  • If you plan to use the Rest API response type for a bot, edit /var/www/html/extension/lhcphpresque/settings/settings.ini.php and set site_address to http://<server_ip> or http(s)://example.org.

SWAP​

DigitalOcean does not recommend adding SWAP. However, if you still want to, you can follow this tutorial.