To run OpenChessClub locally or self-host your own instance, you’ll need a few dependencies installed and a MongoDB connection string for your database.

Installations

Before you begin, make sure you have:

OpenChessClub uses MongoDB to store players, games, and club data. You can: 1. Use a local MongoDB instance (mongodb://127.0.0.1:27017/openchessclub) 2. Or use a hosted MongoDB service such as MongoDB Atlas (recommended).

If you’ve got the required software installed, setting up is easy.

Setting Environment Variables

Currently, there are only three environment variables needed, which hopefully makes the setup process easy.

MONGO_URI=
SESSION_SECRET=
NODE_ENV=

As the project grows, I’m sure that list will become rather large, but for now, this is all.

Running The Project

After you’ve set your environment variables, the next step is to get the project up and running. To do that, it’s as simple as running npm i, waiting for the dependencies to install and then npm run dev. You should now be able to navigate to localhost:3000 to see the dashboard.

Creating a user

Since this software should only ever have 1 or 2 users, there’s no need for a signup page. However, setting up a user account is incredibly easy. In the root of the project, you’ll find a scripts folder. Therein, you’ll find createUser.js. Simply run this script when you’re ready to create your user account: node createUser.js. Follow the prompts, and that’s it. You’ll now have an admin account that you can now login with.