This shouldn't be needed as you defined our up-to-date Node.js implementation as dependency already:

It includesyarn.

EDIT: Ah nope it does not includeyarn, butnpm to install it.

1. The PostgreSQL version depends on the Debian version:https://packages.debian.org/postgresql
2. However, it shouldn't be required to alter any config file for this. Something like this should create a user with password authentication:

if [[$(sudo -u lemmy psql -tAc"SELECT 1 FROM pg_roles WHERE rolname='lemmy'")!= 1 ]]thenG_EXEC sudo -u lemmy psql -c"CREATE ROLE synapse WITH LOGIN PASSWORD '$pass_database';"elseG_EXEC sudo -u lemmy psql -c"ALTER ROLE synapse WITH PASSWORD '$pass_database';"fi

I think/hope MD5 is deprecated and not the default how PostgreSQL is hashing passwords. MD5 is okay for integrity checks only, not secure at all since decades 😉.

Hmm! I tried this at first, but could not login to the database. I'll try it again just in case I overlooked something

I'd just leave the database at the default PostgreSQL database directory. This is what what most admins will expect. SQLite is the only database engine where it is common to store databases within the client software data directory.

This will drop all info on reinstalls, which is not intended, is it? In addition to above conditional database user creation, here is how we do in case of Synapse for the database itself:

if [[$(sudo -u lemmy psql -tAc"SELECT 1 FROM pg_database WHERE datname='lemmy'")!= 1 ]]thenG_EXEC sudo -u lemmy createdb --encoding=UTF8 --locale=C --template=template0 --owner=lemmy lemmyfi

Yep sorry, leftover from testing

Does this user require a home directory in/home? For service users it is common to use the software data directory instead, i.e./mnt/dietpi_userdata/lemmy.

This is where I become unsure. I thought userdata was purely for data and configs generated by the user, but not the binaries themselves.

Thelemm_server_path seems to install by default to /home/lemmy/.cargo/bin/, so I figured I would leave it there since it's not data. I did initially try installing to /usr/bin and then setting a sudoers file for lemmy to run it with no password, but I encountered some problems with that (something to do with cargo and rust environment issues).

What's the recommended course of action here?

Hmm, yeah I see. I'd prefer/opt/lemmy for binaries./home should at best only be used for actual login users, not service users.

In this case, I actually wonder whether Rust really needs to be/should be installed aslemmy user or better just asroot and installed to/opt/lemmy? Since we install Rust forroot in some other cases, it might reduce some overhead, at least some disk usage. And usually it is not needed and for security reasons even better if the service user has no write access to the binary/executable, but only to a dedicated working directory for configs and data.

I did initially try installing to /usr/bin and then setting a sudoers file for lemmy to run it with no password

Executables are usually word-executable, so every user can execute every command without sudo, or do I misunderstand?