overleaf-toolkit/doc/quick-start-guide.md

# Quick-Start Guide

## Prerequisites

The overleaf toolkit depends on the following programs:

- bash
- docker
- docker-compose

We recommend that you install the most recent version of docker and docker-compose that 
are available on your system.


## Install

First, let's clone this git repository to your machine:

```sh
$ git clone git@github.com:overleaf/toolkit.git ./overleaf-toolkit
```

Next let's move into this directory:

```sh
$ cd ./overleaf-toolkit
```

For the rest of this guide, we will assume that you will run all subsequent commands from the this directory.


## Take a Look Around

Let's take a look at the structure of the repostory:

```sh
$ ls -l
```

Which will print something like this:

```
    bin
    config
    data
    doc
    lib
    README.md
```

The `README.md` file contains some useful information about the project, while the `doc` directory contains all of the documentation you will need to use the toolkit. The `config` directory will contain your own local configuration files (which we will create in just a moment), while the `bin` directory contains a collection of scripts that manage your overleaf instance.


## Initialise Configuration


Let's create our local configuration, by running `bin/init`:

```sh
$ bin/init
```

Now check the contents of the `config/` directory

```sh
$ ls config
overleaf.rc     variables.env     version
```

These are the three configuration files you will interact with:

- `overleaf.rc` : the main top-level configuration file
- `variables.env` : environment variables loaded into the docker container
- `version` : the version of the docker images to use


## Starting Up

The overleaf toolkit uses `docker-compose` to manage the overleaf docker containers. The toolkit provides a set of scripts which wrap `docker-compose`, and take care of most of the details for you.

Let's start the docker services:

```sh
$ bin/up
```

You should see some log output from the docker containers, indicating that the containers are running. 
If you press `CTRL-C` at the terminal, the services will shut down. You can start them up again (without attaching to the log output) by running `bin/start`. More generally, you can run `bin/docker-compose` to control the `docker-compose` system directly, if you find that the convenience scripts don't cover your use-case.


## Create the first admin account

In a browser, open `http://localhost/launchpad`. You should see a form with email and password fields.
Fill these in with the credentials you want to use as the admin account, then click "Register".

Then click the link to go to the login page (`http://localhost/login`). Enter the credentials.
Once you are logged in, you will be taken to a welcome page.

Click the green button at the bottom of the page to start using Overleaf. 


## Create your first project

On the `http://localhost/project` page, you will see a button prompting you to create your first
project. Click the button and follow the instructions.

You should then be taken to the new project, where you will see a text editor and a PDF preview.


## (Optional) Check the logs

Let's look at the logs inside the container:


```sh
$ bin/logs -f web
```


You can also look at the logs for multiple services at once:

```sh
$ bin/logs -f filestore docstore web clsi
```



## Consulting the Doctor

The Overleaf Toolkit comes with a handy tool for debugging your installation: `bin/doctor`

Let's run the `bin/doctor` script:

```sh
$ bin/doctor
```

We should see some output similar to this:

```
====== Overleaf Doctor ======
- Host Information
    - Linux
    ...
- Dependencies
    - bash
        - status: present
        - version info: 5.0.17(1)-release
    - docker
        - status: present
        - version info: Docker version 19.03.6, build 369ce74a3c
    - docker-compose
        - status: present
        - version info: docker-compose version 1.24.0, build 0aa59064
    ...
====== Configuration ======
    ...
====== Warnings ======
- None, all good
====== End ======
```

First, we see some information about the host system (the machine that the toolkit is being run on), then some information about dependencies. If any dependencies are missing, we will see a warning here. Next, the doctor checks our local configuration. At the end, the doctor will print out some warnings, if any problems were encountered.

When you run into problems with your toolkit, you should first run the doctor script and check it's output. 


## Getting Help

Users of the free Community Edition should [open an issue on github](https://github.com/overleaf/toolkit/issues). 

Users of Server Pro should contact `support@overleaf.com` for assistance.

In both cases, it is a good idea to include the output of the `bin/doctor` script in your message, so the Overleaf team can help debug the problem.