Installation

Scoold is a Java web application that runs on any modern JVM, or natively on x86 and ARMv8 architectures. The easiest way to run Scoold is to run it as a Docker container. Scoold uses ↗ Para as the backend service. Para handles most of the backend operations and works with all of the popular databases.

Prerequisites

Scoold and Para can both be hosted on the same machine, provided it has at least 3 GB of RAM.

Scoold Requirements
Para Requirements

Java runtime environment (21 or higher)
at least 500 MB RAM
1 vCPU or more
10 GB disk space or more (primarily for logs and storing images)

Quick Start: Docker (single command)

Difficulty: Easy

docker compose -f https://github.com/Erudika/scoold.git up

In your browser, Scoold will be accessible at http://localhost:8000.

Option 2: JAR executable

Choosing the standard JAR executable path is the simplest and most reliable way to run Scoold. Here, you have two options - run Scoold and Para locally, or, run Scoold locally and connect to Para Cloud (managed backed).

Quick start with a Para Cloud account

Difficulty: Easy

Create Scoold’s configuration file named scoold-application.conf:

scoold.env = "production"
scoold.app_name = "Scoold"
scoold.para_access_key = "app:scoold"
scoold.para_secret_key = "{Para app secret}"
scoold.para_endpoint = "https://paraio.com"
# add your email here
scoold.admins = "your@email.com"
# (optional) require authentication for viewing content
scoold.is_default_space_public = false

Start Scoold with the command:

java -jar -Dconfig.file=./scoold-application.conf scoold-*.jar

Open http://localhost:8000/signin/register and register a new account with same email you put in the configuration.

To login with a social account, you must create a developer app with ↗ Facebook, ↗ Google or any other identity provider. This is not required when you log in with LDAP, SAML or email/password.

Quick start with a self-hosted Para backend

Difficulty: Moderate

↗ Download the latest executable Para JAR package
Create a folder para and a file para/para-application.conf. Inside the folder, start Para with the command:
Terminal window
```
java -jar -Dconfig.file=./para-application.conf para-*.jar
```
Create a folder scoold and a file scoold/scoold-application.conf (see example above)
From inside the scoold folder, start Scoold with the following command, pointing it to the location of the Para configuration file:
Terminal window
```
java -jar -Dconfig.file=./scoold-application.conf \
  -Dscoold.autoinit.para_config_file=../para-application.conf \
  scoold-*.jar
```
On startup, Para will initialize and create its own configuration file. Scoold will then try to initialize and configure itself automatically by reading the para-application.conf. Alternatively you could provide Scoold with the root access key directly, instead of pointing it to the Para configuration file, like so:
Terminal window
```
java -jar -Dconfig.file=./scoold-application.conf \
  -Dscoold.autoinit.root_app_secret_key="{app:para secret key}" \
  scoold-*.jar
```
The secret key for the root Para app can be found inside the Para para-application.conf, labeled para.root_secret_key.
Open localhost:8000/signin/register and register a new account with same email you put in the configuration

Optionally, you can also install the ↗ Para CLI tool for browsing and managing data in your Scoold app.

For more details about configuring Para, check the Para docs.

Option 3: Native executable

Difficulty: Advanced

GraalVM and Maven are required to build the native executable.

Install ↗ GraalVM and ↗ Maven

Clone the project:

git clone https://github.com/Erudika/scoold
cd scoold

Build using Maven:
Terminal window
```
mvn -Pnative clean package
```
Create the file scoold-application.conf as shown above and execute the native image:
Terminal window
```
cd target/
./scoold -Dconfig.file=./scoold-application.conf
```