Preparing the database

The next step is to create and prepare the database. Because Forem is a Rails application, we have built-in tools to help us.

We can use Rails to create our database, load the schema, and add some seed data:

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rails db:setup

Note: If you've already run bin/setup, this will have already been done for you.

db:setup actually runs the following rake commands in order so alternatively, you could run each of these to produce the same result:

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rails db:create
rails db:schema:load
rails db:seed

By default, the amount of articles and users generated is quite tiny so that contributors experience a quick installation. If you require more data for your local installation, you can tune amount of data generated with the environment variable SEEDS_MULTIPLIER.

This variable, which defaults to 1, allows the developer to increase the size of their local DB. For example:

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SEEDS_MULTIPLIER=2 rails db:setup

will result in creating double the default amount of items in the database.

It's currently used only for articles and users.

It can also be used for rails db:seed and rails db:reset.

Seed data creates a handful of regular users, and a single admin user that can be used to log into the application with the Email login option:

email: admin@forem.local
password: password

Other seed modes

To put your local forem into "starter mode", as it would be for a new creator, use MODE=STARTER i.e...

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MODE=STARTER rails db:setup

This mode skips creation of all sample data.