Sharetribe

Sharetribe develops advanced marketplace software for every business life cycle stage.

Sharetribe Go gives you the complete feature set to launch a marketplace for rentals, services, events, or products. The platform is source-available under the Sharetribe Community Public License.

To launch your marketplace in minutes without touching code or worrying about hosting and backups, head to the SaaS version of Sharetribe Go.

If you're looking for a customizable and extendable marketplace solution, check out Sharetribe Flex. Flex is an API-based marketplace solution designed with a developers-first mindset. It allows you to develop your marketplace with the programming language of your choice, build a mobile app, design a customized transaction flow, and easily integrate third party services.

Contents

• Technology stack
• Installation
• Payments
• Custom Landing Page
• Versioning
• Changes
• Upgrade
• Contribute
• Release
• Translation
• Bug tracker
• Documentation
• Community forum
• License

Technology stack

• Ruby 2.7
• Ruby on Rails 5.2.3
• MySQL 5.7
• React + jQuery
• Node.js 10.15 (for compiling JavaScript assets)
• "what you see is what you get" Editor Mercury
• Deploy: Custom Script (not using Mina or Cap3)
• Server: Heroku
• Image hosting: Amazon S3
• Background job: delayed_job
• Gems:
  • devise | Authentication
  • omniauth-facebook | Third party login: Facebook
  • haml and ERB | HTML templating
  • mysql2 | MySQL library for Ruby
  • paperclip | Image upload management
  • passenger | Web application server
  • react_on_rails | Integration of React + Webpack + Rails
  • factory_girl, capybara, rspec-rails, cucumber-rails, selenium-webdriver | Testing

Installation

Requirements

Before you get started, the following needs to be installed:

• Ruby. Version 2.7.5 is currently used and we don't guarantee everything works with other versions. If you need multiple versions of Ruby, RVM or rbenv is recommended.
• RubyGems
• Bundler: gem install bundler
• Node. Version 10.15 is currently used and we don't guarantee everything works with other versions. If you need multiple versions of Node, consider using n, nvm, or nenv.
• Git
• A database. Only MySQL 5.7 has been tested, so we give no guarantees that other databases (e.g. PostgreSQL) work. You can install MySQL Community Server two ways:
  1. If you are on a Mac, use homebrew: brew install mysql (highly recommended). Also consider installing the MySQL Preference Pane to control MySQL startup and shutdown. It is packaged with the MySQL downloadable installer, but can be easily installed as a stand-alone.
  2. Download a MySQL installer from here
• Sphinx. Version 2.1.4 has been used successfully, but newer versions should work as well. Make sure to enable MySQL support. If you're using OS X and have Homebrew installed, install it with brew install sphinx --with-mysql
• Imagemagick. If you're using OS X and have Homebrew installed, install it with brew install imagemagick

Setting up the development environment

1. Get the code. Clone this git repository and check out the latest release:

   git clone git://github.com/sharetribe/sharetribe.git
   cd sharetribe
   git checkout latest

2. Install the required gems by running the following command in the project root directory:

   bundle install

   Note: libv8 might fail to build with Clang 7.3, in that case you can try installing V8 manually:

   brew tap homebrew/versions
   brew install v8-315
   
   gem install libv8 -v '3.16.14.13' -- --with-system-v8
   gem install therubyracer -- --with-v8-dir=/usr/local/opt/v8-315
   
   bundle install

3. Install node modules:

   npm install

4. Create a database.yml file by copying the example database configuration:

   cp config/database.example.yml config/database.yml

5. Add your database configuration details to config/database.yml. You will probably only need to fill in the password for the database(s).

6. Create a config.yml file by copying the example configuration file:

   cp config/config.example.yml config/config.yml

7. Create and initialize the database:

   bundle exec rake db:create db:structure:load

8. Run Sphinx index:

   bundle exec rake ts:index

   Note: If your MySQL server is configured for SSL, update the config/thinking_sphinx.yml file and uncomment the mysql_ssl_ca lines. Configure correct SSL certificate chain for connection to your database over SSL.

9. Start the Sphinx daemon:

   bundle exec rake ts:start

10. Start the development server:

    foreman start -f Procfile.static

11. Invoke the delayed job worker in a new console (open the project root folder):

    bundle exec rake jobs:work

Congratulations! Sharetribe should now be up and running for development purposes. Open a browser and go to the server URL (e.g. http://lvh.me:3000 or http://lvh.me:5000). Fill in the form to create a new marketplace and admin user. You should be now able to access your marketplace and modify it from the admin area.

Mailcatcher

Use Mailcatcher to receive sent emails locally:

1. Install Mailcatcher:

   gem install mailcatcher

2. Start it:

   mailcatcher

3. Add the following lines to config/config.yml:

   development:
     mail_delivery_method: smtp
     smtp_email_address: "localhost"
     smtp_email_port: 1025

4. Open http://localhost:1080 in your browser

Database migrations

To update your local database schema to the newest version, run database migrations with:

bundle exec rake db:migrate

Running tests

Tests are handled by RSpec for unit tests and Cucumber for acceptance tests.

Remember to follow all the steps listed in the Setting up the development environment paragraph before running tests because some tests depend on webpack assets.

1. Navigate to the root directory of the sharetribe project

2. Initialize your test database:

   bundle exec rake test:prepare

   This needs to be rerun whenever you make changes to your database schema.

3. If Zeus isn't running, start it:

   zeus start

4. To run unit tests, open another terminal and run:

   zeus rspec spec

5. To run acceptance tests, open another terminal and run:

   zeus cucumber

   Note that running acceptance tests is slow and may take a long time to complete.

To automatically run unit tests when code is changed, start Guard:

bundle exec guard

Working with React, Webpack and Foreman

Some components are created with React (see documentation) and they need to be built with Webpack. We have Foreman Procfiles that can be used to run both Rails and Webpack:

1. React component static build

   foreman start -f Procfile.static

2. React component & hot loading styleguide (http://localhost:9001/)

   foreman start -f Procfile.hot

3. If you need to debug the Rails parts of Sharetribe with Pry, it's not possible with Foreman due to a known compatibility issue. In this case we recommend running Rails with old-fashioned rails server and React builds with Foreman in a separate terminal. That way your binding.pry calls open nicely in the same window with the Rails process.

4. React component static build, React client only

   foreman start -f Procfile.client-static

5. React component & hot loading styleguide (http://localhost:9001/), React client only

   foreman start -f Procfile.client-hot

Setting up Sharetribe for production

Before starting these steps, perform steps 1-5 from above.

1. Set secret_key_base

   Generate secret key

   rake secret

   Add the following lines to config/config.yml:

   production:
     secret_key_base: # add here the generated key

   (You can also set the secret_key_base environment variable, if you don't want to store the secret key in a file)

2. Create the database:

   RAILS_ENV=production bundle exec rake db:create

3. Initialize your database:

   RAILS_ENV=production bundle exec rake db:structure:load

4. Run Sphinx index:

   RAILS_ENV=production bundle exec rake ts:index

5. Start the Sphinx daemon:

   RAILS_ENV=production bundle exec rake ts:start

6. Precompile the assets:

   RAILS_ENV=production NODE_ENV=production bundle exec rake assets:precompile

7. Invoke the delayed job worker:

   RAILS_ENV=production bundle exec rake jobs:work

8. In a new console, open the project root folder and start the server:

   bundle exec rails server -e production

The built-in WEBrick server (which was started in the last step above) should not be used in production due to performance reasons. A dedicated HTTP server such as unicorn is recommended.

It is not recommended to serve static assets from a Rails server in production. Instead, you should use a CDN (Content Delivery Network) service, such as Amazon CloudFront. To serve the assets from the CDN service, you need to change the asset_host configuration in the the config/config.yml file to point your CDN distribution.

You need to configure a couple scheduled tasks in order to properly run your marketplace in production. See the Scheduled tasks documentation.

For production use we recommend you to upgrade only when new version is released and not to follow the master branch.

Setting your domain

1. In your database, change the value of the domain column in the communities table to match the hostname of your domain. For example, if the URL for your marketplace is http://mymarketplace.myhosting.com, then the domain is mymarketplace.myhosting.com.

2. Change the value of the use_domain column to true (or 1) in the communities table.

3. If you wish to enable HTTP Strict Transport Security (recommended), set also the hsts_max_age column in communities table to a non-zero number of seconds. For instance 31536000 (1 year).

Setting up S3

If you want to use S3 to host your images, you need to do a bit more configuration.

1. Create a IAM role which has full S3 access. Save the AWS access and secret keys.

2. In the S3 console, create two buckets, one for upload and one for permanent storage. For example your-sharetribe-images and your-sharetribe-images-tmp.

3. Set the upload bucket (your-sharetribe-images-tmp) to have an expiration (for example, of 14 days) using lifecycle management

4. Enable CORS on the upload bucket.

5. Set the following configuration in your sharetribe config.yml: s3_bucket_name: "your-sharetribe-images" s3_upload_bucket_name: "your-sharetribe-images-tmp"

6. Add your AWS keys to the sharetribe app. The best way to do that is via environment variables, rather than checking them into your config.yml. Set the aws_access_key_id and aws_secret_access_key environment variables to the values for the IAM user.

7. (Optional) When you enable S3, uploaded images are linked directly to the S3 bucket. If you want to serve these assets through CDN, you can set the user_asset_host configuration option in addition to asset_host in config/config.yml.

Here's a sample CORS configuration that allows anyone to post to your bucket. Note that you may want to lock down the origin host more tightly, depending on your needs.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<CORSConfiguration xmlns="http://s3.amazonaws.com/doc/2006-03-01/">
    <CORSRule>
        <AllowedOrigin>*</AllowedOrigin>
        <AllowedMethod>GET</AllowedMethod>
        <AllowedMethod>POST</AllowedMethod>
        <MaxAgeSeconds>3000</MaxAgeSeconds>
        <AllowedHeader>*</AllowedHeader>
    </CORSRule>
</CORSConfiguration>

Troubleshooting S3 Setup

• if you are having trouble uploading, look at the request using browser devtools and see what error statuses and messages are being sent.
• double check that your AWS keys are being correctly set.
• if you can upload images successfully, but the images aren't processed, make sure that the delayed-job worker is running.

Advanced settings

Default configuration settings are stored in config/config.default.yml. If you need to change these, use the config/config.yml file to override the defaults. You can also set configuration values to environment variables.

React components can be created using hot module replacement HMR technique in Styleguide (http://localhost:9001/) path in local development environment. Webpack is used to bundle React components for deployments and hot loading. Related webpack configs can be found from folder sharetribe/client/

Unofficial installation instructions

Use these instructions to set up and deploy Sharetribe for production in different environments. They have been put together by the developer community, and are not officially maintained by the Sharetribe core team. The instructions might be somewhat out of date.

If you have installation instructions that you would like to share, don't hesitate to share them at the Sharetribe community forum.

• Deploying Sharetribe to Heroku by svallory
• How to install Sharetribe on Centos 7.x by Arek Hukalowicz

Payments

PayPal and Stripe are the two available payment gateways integrated.

PayPal payments are only available on marketplaces hosted at Sharetribe.com due to special permissions needed from PayPal. We hope to add support for PayPal payments to the source available version of Sharetribe Go in the future.

Stripe can be used in the source available version, as long as your country and currency are supported.

Enable Stripe

Starting from release 7.2.0, Stripe is supported.

Stripe API keys will be encrypted when stored so it is important to configure your own random encryption key. You should fill the app_encryption_key variable in the config/config.yml file with a long random string, unique to your project.

Stripe can be configured from the admin panel, in the "Payment settings" section. Instructions on how to get Stripe API keys can be found there.

If Stripe isn't automatically enabled in the admin panel after upgrading to 7.2.0, you should run the following commands in your Rails console, where <ID> is your marketplace ID (probably 1): TransactionService::API::Api.processes.create(community_id: <ID>, process: :preauthorize, author_is_seller: true) and TransactionService::API::Api.settings.provision(community_id: <ID>, payment_gateway: :stripe, payment_process: :preauthorize, active: true).

Custom Landing Page

Sharetribe Go includes a Custom Landing Page add-on and editor. You can learn more about it here.

The Custom Landing Page Editor should be available automatically, from v9.1.0. If this is not the case, you can find plenty of useful information in the Landing Pages for Idiots Like Me post written by Jeremy D Evans.

Versioning

Sharetribe follows Semantic Versioning where possible.

Given a version number MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH, increment the:

• MAJOR version when you make incompatible API changes,
• MINOR version when you add functionality in a backwards-compatible manner, and
• PATCH version when you make backwards-compatible bug fixes.

See the document How Sharetribe applies Semantic Versioning to read more how Semantic Versioning is applied in practice.

Changes

See CHANGELOG.md for detailed list of changes between releases.

Upgrade

See UPGRADE.md for information about actions needed when upgrading.

For production use we recommend you to upgrade only when new version is released and not to follow the master branch.

Contribute

Would you like to make Sharetribe better?

See CONTRIBUTING.md for the steps to contribute.

Release

See RELEASE.md for information about how to make a new release.

Translation

Sharetribe uses WebTranslateIt (WTI) for translations. If you'd like to translate Sharetribe to your language or improve existing translations, please ask for a WTI invitation. To get an invite, send an email to info@sharetribe.com and mention that you would like to become a translator.

All language additions and modifications (except for English) should be done through the WTI tool. We do not accept Pull Requests that add or modify languages (except English).

Bug tracker

Browse open issues and submit new ones in Github Issues.

We are dedicating the Github Issue only for bugs in the Sharetribe codebase. For general questions, start a new thread in the Community forum instead of opening a new Issue.

After you have opened a new issue, the team will handle it according to these instructions: How to handle Github Issues

Documentation

More detailed technical documentation is located in docs/

Community forum

The Sharetribe Community forum is located at https://www.sharetribe.com/community/.

The forum is a great place to ask support and help for example with issues during the installation.

License

Sharetribe Go is source-available under the Sharetribe Community Public License. See LICENSE for details.