Summary
With a fresh Ubuntu container and Mattermost install, I try to bulk import data from Slack, but the bulk import command is targeting a nonexistent “mattermost_test” database, and when I create the database I get an error about a missing team.
Steps to reproduce
My setup:
Proxmox VE 8.1.3 (latest)
Ubuntu 20.04.6 LTS container template bundled with Proxmox (ubuntu-20.04-standard_20.04-1_amd64.tar.gz)
Mattermost Version: 9.2.3
Database Schema Version: 113
PostgreSQL 13.13 (Ubuntu 13.13-1.pgdg20.04+1)
Steps from container initialisation:
apt update && apt -y upgrade && apt -y install curl gnupg2 software-properties-common
(I create a local sudo user)
curl -o- https://deb.packages.mattermost.com/repo-setup.sh | sudo bash
sudo apt install mattermost-omnibus -y
(I copy .jsonl and data folder to /opt/mattermost/)
mattermost import bulk ./cihcb_mattermost_import.jsonl --import-path ./data --apply
This bulk import (1st run) fails:
pq: password authentication failed for user “mmuser”
I adjust the PostgreSQL conf:
nano /etc/postgresql/13/main/pg_hba.conf
# TYPE DATABASE USER ADDRESS METHOD
# "local" is for Unix domain socket connections only
local all all trust
# IPv4 local connections:
host all all 127.0.0.1/32 trust
# IPv6 local connections:
host all all ::1/128 trust
I then run the bulk import command again:
mattermost import bulk ./cihcb_mattermost_import.jsonl --import-path ./data --apply
Expected behavior
I expect the import to complete successfully, and for the imported data from Slack to appear in the Mattermost interface.
Observed behavior
1st run:
pq: password authentication failed for user “mmuser”
2nd run: (after modifying pg_hba.conf)
pq: database “mattermost_test” does not exist
What I don’t understand here is why the bulk importer is trying to target a database called “mattermost_test”. I don’t see it defined as a prerequisite in the documentation, and it is not created during installation, yet it seems to be required for the bulk importer to function.
3rd run: (after creating “mattermost_test” database in postgresql)
postgres=# CREATE DATABASE mattermost_test;
Error importing channel. Team with name “CihcB” could not be found., resource: Team id: name=CihcB
I think I have followed the steps in the documentation (after many attempts). I do have a team called “CihcB” in the new mattermost instance, however since the bulk import tool is targeting “mattermost_test”, which is just an empty database and not the production database, there are no teams.
I’m aware that the documentation says you should run the bulk import command as the mattermost user, however when I try “su mattermost” I am unable to change user. I can switch to any other user, but not mattermost. I tried resetting the password for the mattermost user and logging in to the terminal as mattermost, but it doesn’t work. Although I don’t think running the bulk import command as root is causing me issues so far.
I have attempted using the mmctl command to bulk upload, but it refused to upload the .zip saying it was too big (369MB).
I have attempted following the documentation to create the mattermost database before installing Mattermost, which setup PostgreSQL 16; but Mattermost Omnibus includes PostgreSQL 13 as part of the installation regardless of whether there is already a database running.
I am aware that there is a turnkey Linux container template for Mattermost in Proxmox, although when I tried it I ran into various undocumented problems.
I’m sorry for the verbosity of my post(!)
