Step 1: Install a snap Application

Snaps

A .snap package for the Ubuntu Core system contains all its dependencies. The packages ensure that the app will always have the proper dependencies and software versions.

  • Importantly, snaps ensure that a system update to an underlying process, such as a Python update, won’t break the application.

Read more:

We will install Rocket.Chat, which is an open-source team communication tool. Tools like this are great because you are in control of your own data, not some big company that makes money by selling your information to the highest bidder or restrict your data due to their policy.

The manual install instructions for Rocket.Chat requires the user to install MongoDB, Node.js, and other dependencies. Then, the user has to configure the service with specific settings. The commands aren’t complicated, but they aren’t guaranteed to work if a different version of a dependency. The snap version of Rocket.Chat installs using a single command. We do not need to be concerned with any dependencies or misconfiguration of the application.

Snaps Introduction

snap is automatically installed on Ubuntu 16.04 and later. You can verify that the service running. You might need to press Ctrl+C to exit the status.

sudo systemctl status snapd
Output
root@vps298933:~# sudo systemctl status snapd
● snapd.service - Snappy daemon
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/snapd.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: active (running) since Thu 2019-03-21 15:47:46 +06; 1h 1min ago
 Main PID: 6978 (snapd)
    Tasks: 11 (limit: 4588)
   CGroup: /system.slice/snapd.service
           └─6978 /usr/lib/snapd/snapd

Mar 21 15:47:46 vps298933 snapd[6978]: helpers.go:691: cannot retrieve info for snap "rocketchat-server": cannot find installed
Mar 21 15:47:46 vps298933 snapd[6978]: daemon.go:379: started snapd/2.37.4+18.04 (series 16; classic) ubuntu/18.04 (amd64) linux
Mar 21 15:47:46 vps298933 systemd[1]: Started Snappy daemon.
Mar 21 16:26:43 vps298933 snapd[6978]: udevmon.go:190: udev monitor observed remove event for unknown device "/sys/radix_tree_no
Mar 21 16:26:43 vps298933 snapd[6978]: udevmon.go:190: udev monitor observed remove event for unknown device "/sys/dentry(2728:s
Mar 21 16:26:43 vps298933 snapd[6978]: udevmon.go:190: udev monitor observed remove event for unknown device "/sys/filp(2728:sna
Mar 21 16:26:43 vps298933 snapd[6978]: udevmon.go:190: udev monitor observed remove event for unknown device "/sys/inode_cache(2
Mar 21 16:31:56 vps298933 snapd[6978]: udevmon.go:190: udev monitor observed remove event for unknown device "/sys/dentry(2610:p
Mar 21 16:31:56 vps298933 snapd[6978]: udevmon.go:190: udev monitor observed remove event for unknown device "/sys/proc_inode_ca
Mar 21 16:37:20 vps298933 snapd[6978]: api.go:1077: Installing snap "hello-world" revision unset

root@vps298933:~#

Here are some basic snap commands. The Basic tutorial by Ubuntu has more information. These commands use hello-world for the sample snap.

View the snap commands using snap help --all

Basics (basic snap management)

  1. snap find hello searches the snap repository for anything containing the text hello

  2. snap install hello-world installs the hello-world snap

  3. snap list displays the snaps installed on the system

  4. snap remove hello-world removes the hello-world snap from the system

  5. snap info hello-world displays information about the hello-world snap package

  6. snap refresh hello-world manually checks for updates about to the hello-world snap

  7. snap enable hello-world enables the hello-world snap.

  8. snap disable hello-world disables the hello-world snap.

Daemons (manage services):

  1. snap services displays the status of services

  2. snap start hello-world start the hello-world snap.

  3. snap stop hello-world stop the hello-world snap.

  4. snap restart hello-world restart the hello-world snap.

  5. snap logs hello-world retrieve the logs for the hello-world snap.

Rocket.Chat

We will follow the installation instructions for the snap version of Rocket.Chat.

  1. Install Rocket.Chat using snap

    sudo snap install rocketchat-server
    Output
    root@vps298933:~# sudo snap install rocketchat-server
rocketchat-server 0.74.2 from Rocket.Chat (rocketchat✓) installed
root@vps298933:~#

  2. Let’s view information about the service.

    • We might need to wait a minute until the service finishes initializing in the background.

    snap services

    root@vps298933:~# snap services
Service                              Startup  Current   Notes
rocketchat-server.rocketchat-caddy   enabled  inactive  -
rocketchat-server.rocketchat-mongo   enabled  active    -
rocketchat-server.rocketchat-server  enabled  active    -

  3. We can see detailed information about the rocketchat-server service.

    snap info rocketchat-server
    Output
    root@vps298933:~# snap info rocketchat-server
name:      rocketchat-server
summary:   Group chat server for 100s,  installed in seconds.
publisher: Rocket.Chat (rocketchat✓)
contact:   https://open.rocket.chat/channel/ubuntu-snap
license:   unset
description: |
  Slack-like online chat server for your office, group or family.   Up and running in seconds.
  Supports file sharing, video conference, geolocation, and much more.   Web and mobile client.
  MIT licensed Open Source project.   List of features at  https://rocket.chat/ ,  MIT licensed
  source code at https://github.com/RocketChat/Rocket.Chat , 24 x 7 community support and community
  server at https://open.rocket.chat/
commands:
  - rocketchat-server.backupdb
  - rocketchat-server.initcaddy
  - rocketchat-server.mongo
  - rocketchat-server.restoredb
services:
  rocketchat-server.rocketchat-caddy: simple, enabled, inactive
  rocketchat-server.rocketchat-mongo: simple, enabled, active
  rocketchat-server:                  simple, enabled, active
snap-id:      wdBUbiEuMNHmAHLBCXQXOcXaOCvbWS1e
tracking:     stable
refresh-date: today at 16:58 +06
channels:
  stable:    0.74.2       2019-02-07 (1364) 234MB -
  candidate: 0.74.3       2019-03-20 (1367) 235MB -
  beta:      1.0.0-beta.1 2019-03-13 (1365) 241MB -
  edge:      0.72.3       2018-12-12 (1355) 224MB -
installed:   0.74.2                  (1364) 234MB -
root@vps298933:~#

  4. We know from the documentation that the snap version of Rocket.Chat runs on port 3000.

    • We can verify that the service is running using curl. The file contains a lot of text, so we’ll examine the header only. This will tell us if Rocket.Chat is working because we look at HTTP status code.

    curl --head http://localhost:3000
    Output
    root@vps298933:~# curl --head http://localhost:3000
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
X-Instance-ID: i2mMgZgKces4Bbnay
X-Powered-By: Express
Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
set-cookie: connect.sid=s%3Ao6c8Ki4-FvdcP0EmRD3Wpj1mFEy4SrAm.jDq5XhNRkLCqDjxjjnp%2B%2Bmg1gfL5yETMryENsCOmuig; Path=/; HttpOnly
Vary: Accept-Encoding
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2019 11:10:16 GMT
Connection: keep-alive