Hosting environments
These pages may require some technical knowledge about server hosting and deployment. If the content of this page feels unfamiliar to you, get someone acquainted with information technology (IT) to help you.
A Terrastories server can be hosted in a number of different environments, online and offline. We have developed workflows for several use cases that we have commonly encountered; however, as an application deployed using virtualization through Docker, there are numerous other ways that Terrastories may be hosted.
Currently, we have workflows, setup scripts, and documentation for the following three hosting environments:
- 🌐 Hosting Terrastories online: It is relatively easy to deploy Terrastories online, as most web applications are created for online usage and so services like Heroku, DigitalOcean, and others are designed to easy online employment. We currently have instructions designed for Heroku (where Digital Democracy hosts the https://our.terrastories.app server) and hope to have instructions for other services soon.
- 🛖 Hosting Terrastories offline as a "Field Kit": For an entirely offline use case, we have a workflow where Terrastories can be set up a computer which serves the application through a hotspot. Other devices connected to that hotspot can then load Terrastories through the browser.
- 🖧 Hosting Terrastories on a mesh network: Terrastories can be set up on a local machine, which serves it through a mesh network that the machine is connected to. This can be an entirely offline mesh network, such as a community network through where a number of other applications and services can be accessed in addition to Terrastories.