# Install CouchDB

By

Charl Cronje

This was is quick install in Portainer with Docker Compose

• Open portainer
• Click on Stacks
• Click on Add Stack
• Give it a name

Add the following in Docker Compose Field

version: '3'
services:
  couchserver:
    image: couchdb
    restart: always
    ports:
      - "104.192.7.185:5555:5984"                    # Change the first value to the desired port
    environment:
      - COUCHDB_USER=admin             # Change the username
      - COUCHDB_PASSWORD=YOURPASSWORD  # Change the password
    volumes:
        - ./dbdata:/opt/couchdb/data

Add 3 Environment variables

PUID: 1000
PGID: 1000
TZ: Africa/Johannesburg

Click on Deploy Stack

Now you should be able to access your instance of CouchDB by going to http://webally.co.za:4449/_utils

Before installing Apache CouchDB on a CentOS 7 server, we need to add a new EPEL repository (Extra Package for Enterprise Linux).

Add EPEL repository using the following yum command.

yum -y install epel-release

EPEL repository has been installed.

Apache CouchDB provides rpm packages for installation on Redhat Linux. So in this step, we will install CouchDB from the Apache repository.

Go to the /etc/yum.repos.d directory and create a new repo file apache-couchdb.repo using the vim editor.

cd `/etc/yum.repos.d/`
nano apache-couchdb.repo

Paste the following lines.

[bintray--apache-couchdb-rpm]
 name=bintray--apache-couchdb-rpm
 baseurl=http://apache.bintray.com/couchdb-rpm/el$releasever/$basearch/
 gpgcheck=0
 repo_gpgcheck=0
 enabled=1

That's it. Save the change, and exit the editor.

Now install Apache CouchDB using the following command.

yum -y install couchdb

After the installation is complete, start the service and enable it to launch at system boot.

systemctl start couchdb
systemctl enable couchdb

Now check the service.

systemctl status couchdb

And you should get a result similar to the one shown below.

Now check the server port.

netstat -plntu

Apache CouchDB has been successfully installed on the CentOS 7 server, and is running under default port 5984.

Apache CouchDB provides the HTTP server for admin access on default port 5984. And has an admin panel Web UI named 'Fauxton'.

In this step, we will enable the CouchDB HTTP server for admin panel access. So to begin with, go to the apache couchdb installation directory /opt/couchdb, and edit the 'default.ini' configuration file under etc/ directory.

cd /opt/couchdb
nano etc/default.ini

Now go to the '[chttpd]' configuration line and change the bind_address value with your IP address.

[chttpd]
port = 5984
bind_address = 0.0.0.0

Save and exit.

Restart the couchdb service using the following systemctl command.

systemctl restart couchdb

Next, open your web browser and type your server IP address as shown below.

http://192.168.1.11:5984/_utils/

And you should get the following Fauxton web UI page.

Note: If you have firewalld running on your server, open the couchdb port 5984 using the firewall-cmd command, as shown below.

firewall-cmd --add-port=5984/tcp --permanent
firewall-cmd --reload

By default, the fresh Apache CouchDB installation has an 'Admin Party'. So anyone who connects to CouchDB server can do anything, including create, delete, add new user etc. In this step, we want to add new admin account for the CouchDB, and we will create that admin account from the admin panel.

Open your web browser and visit the following server IP address on port 5984.

http://104.192.7.185:5984/_utils/

Now click on the Admin Party tab, type the admin user and password for couchdb, and then click the 'Create Admin' button.

New admin user for couchdb has been created.

Now, if you want to login to the admin panel Fauxton again, you will have to enter the login details.

Type your admin user and password to get access to the admin panel.

Apache CouchDB provides an API for managing the CouchDB system. And we will be using the 'curl' command utility for managing the CouchDB system.

In this step, we will discuss basic management. We will try to create the new database, show database list, delete the database etc using curl command.

• Hello CouchDB

To get information about the installed couchdb server, we can use the 'GET' parameter as shown below.

curl -X GET http://localhost:5984/

You will get a Welcome message result similar to the following.

The output reveals CouchDB 2.1.0 installed on our CentOS 7 server.

• Create new database

In order to create a new database, we need admin privileges. And for this action, we will be using the PUT parameter.

We will create a new database named hakase_db.

Run the following curl command without user and password.

curl -X PUT http://104.192.7.185:5984/hakase_db

And you will get the Unauthorized message error.

Now try using the admin user password.

curl -X PUT http://hakase:aqwe123@localhost:5984/hakase_db

And you will see the command is successful.

New database 'hakase_db' has been created through the CouchDB API.

• List database and Info

To get information about the database, we must use the 'GET' parameter.

Run the command below to get the database list on the server.

curl -X GET http://hakase:aqwe123@localhost:5984/_all_dbs

And you should get the 'hakase_db' as part of the retrieved list.

Next, get 'hakase_db' info using the command below.

curl -X GET http://hakase:aqwe123@localhost:5984/hakase_db

And the output should contains information related to the database.

We need the 'DELETE' parameter for deleting the database on the CouchDB server. Delete the 'hakase_db' database using the following command.

curl -X DELETE http://hakase:aqwe123@localhost:5984/hakase_db

Now check again the database list on the CouchDB server.

curl -X GET http://hakase:aqwe123@localhost:5984/_all_dbs

And you'll find that the 'hakase_db' database is deleted.

The installation and configuration for Apache CouchDB on CentOS 7 has been successful.