Etherpad Lite - Real-time document collaboration

Etherpad Lite is a real-time collaborative editor, sort of like a web-based multiplayer Notepad that allows groups of users to simultaneously edit a text document, with the ability to display each author's text in their own color. There is also a chat box in the sidebar to allow meta communication.

This appliance includes all the standard features in TurnKey Core, and on top of that:

• Etherpad configurations:

  • The maintained upstream stable package is installed from Etherpad's signed APT repository in /opt/etherpad.
  • Pre-configured to use MySQL/MariaDB (recommended for production).

• Node.js configurations:

  • Includes the supported Node.js 24 LTS runtime from NodeSource's signed repository.
  • The nginx web server is pre-configured to proxy to the Etherpad service, with SSL support out of the box.
  • Etherpad runs under its upstream systemd service and dedicated account.

• SSL support out of the box

• Includes postfix MTA (bound to localhost) for sending of email. Also includes webmin postfix module for convenience.

Note: This appliance does not include Abiword or Libre Office. One of these tools is required to export pads, but they add significant size to the image. They are easy to install, please see below.

Install Abiword and enable it in Etherpad:

apt update
apt install abiword
sed -i "s|\"abiword\" :.*|\"abiword\" : \"/usr/bin/abiword\",|" \
   /etc/etherpad/settings.json
systemctl restart etherpad

Or;

Install Libre Office and enable it in Etherpad:

apt update
apt install libreoffice
sed -i "s|\"soffice\" :.*|\"soffice\" : \"/usr/bin/soffice\",|" \
   /etc/etherpad/settings.json
systemctl restart etherpad

Credentials (passwords set at first boot)

• Webmin, SSH, MySQL: username root
• Etherpad administration: username admin