Installing Review Board¶

The Review Board Installer can help you get going with Review Board in minutes.

It’s compatible with a wide range of Linux distributions and macOS versions, and takes care of installing all system and Review Board packages and guiding you through creating your Site Directory.

Tip

A Site Directory will contain your Review Board configuration, data files, uploaded file attachments, static media files (CSS, JavaScript, and images), and more.

You can have multiple Site Directories on the same server, each serving a separate internal Review Board website. These will all share the same Review Board install.

You’ll create your first Site Directory once Review Board is installed.

If you’re looking for a different solution, you may consider:

Deploying using Docker
Hosting with us on RBCommons (the official Review Board SaaS)

If you need any assistance, reach out to us for support.

System Requirements¶

Tip

Want to skip this and begin installation? Jump to Running the Installer.

Compatible Systems¶

Review Board supports the following systems:

Amazon Linux
Apple macOS
Arch Linux
CentOS
Debian
Fedora
openSUSE
Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Rocky Linux
Ubuntu
WSL2 for Windows

Review Board works on both X86 and ARM systems.

For a full list of compatible Linux versions, see Linux System Compatibility.

Python¶

The Review Board installer requires Python 3.7 or higher.

Review Board itself follows the Python end-of-life release schedule. The installer will show you the latest available version of Review Board compatible with your system.

If your Linux distribution does not come with a compatible version of Python, you may need to upgrade your distribution or look into a solution like Docker or RBCommons.

Databases¶

Review Board supports the following database servers for production:

MySQL (v8 or higher)
PostgreSQL (v12 or higher)

Web Servers¶

Review Board is known to work with the following web servers:

Apache + mod_wsgi
gunicorn
nginx
uwsgi

Sample configurations are generated automatically for these servers.

Running the Installer¶

It’s time to install Review Board!

Follow the simple steps below to begin, or learn about the advanced options for unattended installs or configuring HTTP(S) proxies.

Make sure you’re a superuser.

The installer will need to install system packages. You will need to make sure you are running as root:
```
$ sudo -s
```

Run the installer.

$ curl https://install.reviewboard.org | python3

Alternatively, you can run the installer using pipx (if installed):

$ pipx run rbinstall

Tip

You can install Review Board for a specific version of Python. For example:

$ curl https://install.reviewboard.org | python3.11

# or:

$ pipx run --python python3.11 rbinstall

Follow the installation steps.

The installer will guide you through the following steps:
1. Checking your system for compatibility
2. Choosing an install location
3. Showing the commands that will be run
4. Performing the installation
5. Guiding you through creating your Site Directory or importing an existing Site Directory.
Instructions are provided all throughout, helping you make informed choices about your installation.

You can cancel the installation at any point by pressing Control-C.

Advanced Options¶

Unattended Installs¶

Review Board can be installed in Unattended Mode. This avoids prompting for input, and is used for automated deployments to servers in your infrastructure.

To begin an unattended install, specify --noinput:

# Note the single "-" before the arguments.
$ curl https://install.reviewboard.org | python3 - --noinput

# or:

$ pipx run rbinstall --noinput

By default, this will install to /opt/reviewboard. You can customize this by passign --install-path=<PATH>. For example:

$ curl https://install.reviewboard.org | python3 - --noinput \
    --install-path=/usr/local/reviewboard

# or:

$ pipx run rbinstall --noinput --install-path=/usr/local/reviewboard

Run with --help to see additional options for specifying the Review Board version or controlling other aspects of the install.

Using a HTTP(S) Proxy¶

If you’re behind a proxy server, you’ll need to set the http_proxy environment variable before you run the installer.

To enable a proxy:

$ export http_proxy=http://proxy.example.com/
$ export https_proxy=https://proxy.example.com/

Installation is Complete! Next…¶

Congratulations on installing Review Board!

Continue on to Creating a Review Board Site. If you’ve already created your site directory through the installer, skip to 3. Configure Permissions.