Discourse CDN integration

Introduction

Discourse is 100% open source discussion platform. It offers some very good community features, such as:

  • Email digest.
  • User management.
  • Backups.
  • Spam management.

If you choose this platform for designing a forum, think of using a CDN service to enhance its performance. Below, you may find detailed instructions on how to integrate CDN with Discourse.

Before you start

  • Before you take any steps please back up your files and database.
  • In the following we are going to integrate a CDN service using its CDN domain 12345.r.cdnsun.net. Please refer to Services/How-To for your CDN domain.
  • If you are going to integate a CDN service also on https:// pages then you must use CDN domain with SSL enabled.
  • If your website embeds custom fonts then please first enable CORS for them.
  • Before you take any steps please make sure that your CDN domain is ready-to-use here.

Create CDN Static service

Please refer to Creating a CDN Static service for more details.

Enable CDN in Discourse

  1. Go to your Discourse installation directory, e.g. /var/discourse.
  2. In the file containers/app.yml replace the following: 
    #DISCOURSE_CDN_URL: //discourse-cdn.example.com
    with the following: 
    DISCOURSE_CDN_URL: //12345.r.cdnsun.net
  3. Run ./launcher rebuild app.
  4. That's all.

Notes

  • View HTML source code of your web pages to verify that you are using CDN, you should see source attribute of your images, CSS, JavaScript, etc. beginning with your CDN domain.
  • Don't see your CDN domain in source code of your web pages? If your website is using any cache plug-in/mechanism then you might want to clear/flush its cache.
  • Having troubles with custom fonts? Please refer to Using custom fonts with CDN - setting CORS for more details.
  • Still having troubles? Check your CDN URLs in our CDN content check or please refer to Debugging a CDN service for more hints.

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