Quick-Start Guide Request

[simon4477]

Could you please provide a detailed step-by-step guide on how to deploy overleaf-cep using overleaf-toolkit for newbies? Does overleaf-cep works with the latest CE v5.2.1?

I can run overleaf CE 5.2.1 following the official Quick-Start Guide using overleaf-toolkit, but I have no idea how to use overleaf-cep with overleaf toolkit.

I don't need LDAP or SAML authentication, I am interested in Real-time track changes, comments, Autocomplete of reference keys, and any other premium features etc.

@svdvonde mentioned in Other Overleaf Extended Edition about an alternative community extension that includes almost all premium features for free (Git Sync, Track Changes, etc.). Is the setup process the same for overleaf-cep and that Other Overleaf Extended Edition?

[svdvonde]

Depends on how newbie. I'm assuming you are already able to set up the standard Overleaf Community Edition using Overleaf Toolkit. If yes, here are the modifications you can make to use Overleaf Toolkit to use this repo's Overleaf Extended Community Edition instead.

Installation

1. Clone the current repo in a folder of your choice. My setup starts in my home directory (~) and has a folder overleaf-cep and overleaf-toolkit.

~/overleaf-cep/<this repo>
~/overleaf-toolkit/<standard Overleaf Toolkit>

2. In ~/overleaf-toolkit/config you can add a new file called docker-compose.override.yml. This file is automatically picked up by Overleaf Toolkit. According to the installation instructions of this repo the contents should be (at least) the following.

---
services:
    sharelatex:
        image: sharelatex/sharelatex:ext-ce

This says that the sharelatex docker image should be sharelatex/sharelatex:ext-ce, as opposed to the image that Overleaf Toolkit selects by default.

3. Now you need to build the image. Navigate to the ~/overleaf-cep/server-ce and run make. This will build 2 docker images, a heavyweight "base" image which contains TexLive + some common dependencies, and "community" image which contains the Overleaf services.

4. When the build process completes, you can use Overleaf Toolkit to start overleaf as normal: bin/up -d. It will use the sharelatex/sharelatex:ext-ce image instead of the standard Overleaf image.

Note that I have not discussed other customisations to configure Overleaf itself. Apart from the customisations that were added by this extended edition (e.g., LDAP auth), the configuration is the same as standard Overleaf/Overleaf Toolkit.

Maintenance

1. Currently this repository is up-to-date with the main branch of the Overleaf Community Edition. When this repository is updated, you can update your local repository. E.g., in my case, I git pull in ~/overleaf-cep/.
2. In most cases it is sufficient to build only the docker image for the Overleaf services, which you can do via make build-community (as explained here).
3. When the image has finished building, restart the Overleaf services via Overleaf Toolkit as normal, i.e., bin/up -d

In regards to other extended editions like Overleaf Ruhr

I have not done it, but I guess you can deploy the Overleaf Ruhr edition using the same method as I explained. I would not recommend this because they have hardcoded a few customisations for their use-case at a German university. For example, you can check out Overleaf Ruhr's login page (in German) here. You will have to remove those customisations or modify them to your use case, and also keep them up-to-date as the Overleaf Community Edition project keeps getting updates.

If I'm not mistaken their code is also based on an older version of Overleaf, I believe v4.0.5.

[simon4477]

Perfect, works like a charm.
Thank you @svdvonde, highly appreciated :)

[yu-i-i]

I would just like to add that I created the tag v2.5.1-ext-ce, which is the codebase of Overleaf CE 5.2.1 plus "extended" patches. Additionally, I have uploaded a ready-made image to Docker Hub (see README.md)

[svdvonde]

Pardon my ignorance, but I'm unaware of what Overleaf version I am running. I'm just up-to-date with the ext-ce branch. Is 5.2.1 recommended, or does it require special upgrade instructions?

[yu-i-i]

The ext-ce branch is essentially the latest state of the main upstream branch plus patches. The v2.5.1-ext tag (I just dropped the "-ce" suffix) corresponds to the codebase of the 5.2.1 image plus patches. In theory, the mainstream image code should be more reliable than the current main branch. So, yes, v5.2.1-ext is recommended. There are no special upgrade instructions—simply check out the v2.5.1-ext tag and build the image, or pull the prebuilt image directly from Docker Hub.

[IamTaoChen]

Hi, this is a very nice project. I didn't use the toolkit, I deployed Sharelatx manually(docker-compose + variable.env), I had a problem that the sandbox didn't work.(Others are good).

DOCKER_RUNNER=true
SANDBOXED_COMPILES=true
SIBLING_CONTAINERS_ENABLED=true
SANDBOXED_COMPILES_SIBLING_CONTAINERS=true
SANDBOXED_COMPILES_HOST_DIR="${OVERLEAF_DATA_HOST_PATH}/data/compiles"

# TeX Live
TEX_LIVE_DOCKER_IMAGE=registry.gitlab.com/islandoftex/images/texlive:TL2024-2024-10-13-full
ALL_TEX_LIVE_DOCKER_IMAGES=${TEX_LIVE_DOCKER_IMAGE}
ALL_TEX_LIVE_DOCKER_IMAGE_NAMES=TeXLive-2024
TEX_COMPILER_EXTRA_FLAGS=-shell-escape

networks:
  mongodb:
    name: ${MONGODB_NETWORK_NAME:-mongodb}
    external: true

  redis:
    name: ${REDIS_NETWORK_NAME:-redis}
    external: true

services:
  sharelatex:
    image: overleafcep/sharelatex:5.3.1-ext-v1
    container_name: ${OVERLEAF_CONTAINER_NAME:-sharelatex}
    hostname: ${OVERLEAF_HOSTNAME:-sharelatex}
    restart: always
    networks:
      mongodb:
      redis:
    ports:
      - ${OVERLEAF_PORT}:80
    env_file:
      - .env
      - ${OVERLEAF_BASE_DIR:-.}/sharelatex.env
    volumes:
      - /etc/timezone:/etc/timezone:ro
      - /etc/localtime:/etc/localtime:ro
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock:ro 
      - ${OVERLEAF_BASE_DIR:-.}/data:/var/lib/overleaf
      - ${OVERLEAF_BASE_DIR:-.}/logs:/var/log/overleaf

[IamTaoChen]

it works after TEX_LIVE_DOCKER_IMAGE=texlive/texlive:latest-full

[ecesarini]

Hi, this is a very nice project. I didn't use the toolkit, I deployed Sharelatx manually(docker-compose + variable.env), I had a problem that the sandbox didn't work.(Others are good).

DOCKER_RUNNER=true
SANDBOXED_COMPILES=true
SIBLING_CONTAINERS_ENABLED=true
SANDBOXED_COMPILES_SIBLING_CONTAINERS=true
SANDBOXED_COMPILES_HOST_DIR="${OVERLEAF_DATA_HOST_PATH}/data/compiles"

# TeX Live
TEX_LIVE_DOCKER_IMAGE=registry.gitlab.com/islandoftex/images/texlive:TL2024-2024-10-13-full
ALL_TEX_LIVE_DOCKER_IMAGES=${TEX_LIVE_DOCKER_IMAGE}
ALL_TEX_LIVE_DOCKER_IMAGE_NAMES=TeXLive-2024
TEX_COMPILER_EXTRA_FLAGS=-shell-escape

networks:
  mongodb:
    name: ${MONGODB_NETWORK_NAME:-mongodb}
    external: true

  redis:
    name: ${REDIS_NETWORK_NAME:-redis}
    external: true

services:
  sharelatex:
    image: overleafcep/sharelatex:5.3.1-ext-v1
    container_name: ${OVERLEAF_CONTAINER_NAME:-sharelatex}
    hostname: ${OVERLEAF_HOSTNAME:-sharelatex}
    restart: always
    networks:
      mongodb:
      redis:
    ports:
      - ${OVERLEAF_PORT}:80
    env_file:
      - .env
      - ${OVERLEAF_BASE_DIR:-.}/sharelatex.env
    volumes:
      - /etc/timezone:/etc/timezone:ro
      - /etc/localtime:/etc/localtime:ro
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock:ro 
      - ${OVERLEAF_BASE_DIR:-.}/data:/var/lib/overleaf
      - ${OVERLEAF_BASE_DIR:-.}/logs:/var/log/overleaf

Hi @IamTaoChen ,
can I ask you some details about your manual deployment?
Did you handle this docker-compose file and run docker compose up?
I'm very interested on this method but I'm facing some problems with Mongodb because the conainer remains in unhealthy state.

Thank you very much

[IamTaoChen]

can I ask you some details about your manual deployment?
Did you handle this docker-compose file and run docker compose up?

yes. The Mongodb need some special config, I can share my config

networks:
  mongodb:
    name: mongodb
    external: false

services:
  mongo:
    image: mongo:${MONGO_VERSION:-7}
    container_name: ${MONGO_CONTAINER_HOSTNAME:-mongo}
    hostname: ${MONGO_HOSTNAME:-mongo}
    restart: always
    networks:
      mongodb:
        aliases:
          - ${MONGO_HOSTNAME:-mongo}
    ports:
      - ${MONGO_PORT:-27017}:27017
    env_file:
      - .env
      - ${MONGO_BASE_DIR:-.}/mongo.env
    volumes:
      - /etc/localtime:/etc/localtime:ro
      - ${MONGO_BASE_DIR:-.}/data:/data/db 
      - ${MONGO_BASE_DIR:-.}/log:/var/log/mongodb 
      - ${MONGO_BASE_DIR:-.}/config:/etc/mongo 
    command: --replSet rs0 --auth --bind_ip_all --keyFile /etc/mongo/keyfile
    healthcheck:
      test: echo 'db.stats().ok' | mongosh localhost:27017/test --quiet
      interval: 10s
      timeout: 10s
      retries: 5
# mongoDB

➜   tree -L 2
.
├── config
│   ├── keyfile
│   ├── mongod.conf
│   └── permission.sh

permission.sh

#/bin/bash
#  openssl rand -base64 756 > keyfile
chown 999:999 keyfile
chmod 600 keyfile

mongod.conf

replication:
  replSetName: "rs0"

setup

docker exec -it mongo bash
mongosh admin --username root --password {PASSWORD}
rs.initiate({ _id: "rs0", members: [ { _id: 0, host: "mongo:27017" } ] })


mongosh --host mongo --port 27017 -u root -p  admin123A --authenticationDatabase admin
use admin

[yu-i-i]

it works after TEX_LIVE_DOCKER_IMAGE=texlive/texlive:latest-full

I don’t understand why it’s not working with your image texlive:TL2024-2024-10-13-full. The only possible reason I can think of is that the binaries are not in the path /usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/local/texlive/2024/bin/x86_64-linux/, but that seems unlikely.

[simon4477]

[yu-i-i]

If you use Overleaf from this repository, you don't need to upgrade TeXLive to the full version. This is because the compilation is handled not by TeXLive in the main container (sharelatex:ext-ce) but by one of the designated containers. The list of the images for compilation is specified by the ALL_TEX_LIVE_DOCKER_IMAGES variable (see Sandboxed compiles). You can select the required image for your project from the project menu.

The footer content in the UI is controlled by the OVERLEAF_LEFT_FOOTER and OVERLEAF_RIGHT_FOOTER variables, see this example of variables.env.

[simon4477]

Thanks @yu-i-i :)

I am not using sandbox compilers. I was wondering how to achieve this for non-sandboxed compilers.

I have another question. How do I use the prebuilt overleaf-cep image instead of building it? building takes very long time.

[svdvonde]

See instructions on the main page.

Alternatively, you can download a prebuilt image from Docker Hub:
docker pull overleafcep/sharelatex:5.3.1-ext-v1
Make sure to update the image name in overleaf-toolkit/config/docker-compose.override.yml accordingly.

Images are uploaded to dockerhub: https://hub.docker.com/r/overleafcep/sharelatex/tags

[simon4477]

Thank @svdvonde :)

[simon4477]

@yu-i-i, @svdvonde Hi

Although its not an issue, it kind of a feature request. when using scheme-full, glossaries gives the following error:

No file output.gls.

There is a workaround here which works but it requires a latexmkrc file to be created by a user in every project.

Since cep rebuilds the image, is it possible to build the image with latexmkrc so that the user won't need to create latexmkrc file for every project?

Also, i am wondering how to install it on the scheme-full container?

[svdvonde]

I can't help you with that I'm afraid. There is a TEX_COMPILER_EXTRA_FLAGS option which you can maybe use? I don't know if it could help in this case (I am not well versed in latex compiler options)

[healy-hub]

Thank you for your work, sincerely!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[yu-i-i]

Your are welcome :)