Install Etherpad-lite

7 Nov 2025

These are the steps followed to install Etherpad-lite 2.5.3 on CC:

https://github.com/ether/etherpad-lite?tab=readme-ov-file#installation

required: Node.js >= 18.18.2.

nodejs in apt trixie: nodejs/stable 20.19.2+dfsg-1 amd64

install etherpad-lite

apt install nodejs npm

npm install -g pnpm

"pnpm is up to 2x faster than npm" (hmm, oke)

adduser --system --no-create-home etherpad-lite

addgroup etherpad-lite

adduser etherpad-lite etherpad-lite

cd /opt/

git clone -b master https://github.com/ether/etherpad-lite.git

mv etherpad-lite etherpad

chown -R etherpad-lite:etherpad-lite etherpad/

su -s /bin/bash etherpad-lite

cd etherpad/

pnpm i

pnpm run build:etherpad

pnpm run prod

we should now be able to open etherpad at: http://localhost:9001, but as we are not in the same local network as the CC server... we can open it at:

http://193.170.194.207:9001/

works!

systemd file

now, a systemd file to make it run in the background as a service?

cd /etc/systemd/system/

nano etherpad-lite.service

paste the following:

[Unit]
Description=etherpad-lite (real-time collaborative document editor)
After=syslog.target network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
User=etherpad-lite
Group=etherpad-lite
WorkingDirectory=/opt/etherpad-lite
Environment=NODE_ENV=production
ExecStart=pnpm run prod
Restart=always

StandardOutput=append:/var/log/etherpad/etherpad.log
StandardError=append:/var/log/etherpad/etherpad-error.log

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

systemctl daemon-reload

systemctl enable <service file name without .service extension>

/opt/etherpad-lite/bin/installDeps.sh

systemctl start <service file name without .service extension>

To see if it worked:

systemctl status etherpad-lite

nginx

change the nginx config to make etherpad run at https://cc.practices.tools/pad/

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default

paste the following:

# ----------------------------------------------------
# ETHERPAD

location /pad/ {
       proxy_buffering off;
       proxy_set_header Host $host;
       # optional headers
       proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
       proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $remote_addr; # EP logs to show the actual remote IP
       proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme; # for EP to set secure cookie flag when https is used
       # recommended with keepalive connections
       proxy_http_version 1.1;
       # WebSocket support
       proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
       # upstream
       proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:9001/;
}
# make sure that /pad also works 
location = /pad {
       return 301 /pad/;
}

admin access

Admin username and password not set in settings.json. To access admin please uncomment and edit "users" in settings.json

install plugins

List of plugins: https://static.etherpad.org/index.html

To install one:

cd /path/to/etherpad-lite
pnpm run plugins i ep_${plugin_name}

A plugin wish list for CC:

• ep_linkify2 https://www.npmjs.com/package/ep_linkify2

migrate database

and then migrate the database from the OVH server here.. (hmm, would the database of the etherpad version there be compatible the with this etherpad version 2.5.3?.... something to check....)

let's follow this: https://github.com/ether/etherpad-lite/wiki/How-to-migrate-the-database-from-Etherpad-to-Etherpad-Lite