Before you start the Mattermost Server, you need to edit the configuration file. A default configuration file is located at /opt/mattermost/config/config.json.

We recommend taking a backup of this default config ahead of making changes:

sudo cp /opt/mattermost/config/config.json /opt/mattermost/config/config.defaults.json

Configure the following properties in this file:

• Under SqlSettings, set DriverName to "postgres". This is the default and recommended database for all Mattermost installations.

• Under SqlSettings, set DataSource to "postgres://mmuser:<mmuser-password>@<host-name-or-IP>:5432/mattermost?sslmode=disable&connect_timeout=10" replacing mmuser, <mmuser-password>, <host-name-or-IP> and mattermost with your database name.

• Under ServiceSettings, set "SiteURL": The domain name for the Mattermost application (e.g. https://mattermost.example.com).

Note

We recommend configuring the Support Email under SupportSettings, set "SupportEmail". This is the email address your users will contact when they need help.

After modifying the config.json configuration file, you can now start the Mattermost server:

sudo systemctl start mattermost

Verify that Mattermost is running: curl http://localhost:8065. You should see the HTML that’s returned by the Mattermost Server.

The final step, depending on your requirements, is to run sudo systemctl enable mattermost.service so that Mattermost will start on system boot.