• Change Hostname to VA7FI-Linux because that'll be the node name on Mesh Chat:

  sudo hostnamectl set-hostname VA7FI-Linux

Following the instructions on Trevorsbench:

• Install dependencies:

  sudo aptitude install curl apache2

• Download and install Mesh Chat:

  wget https://s3.amazonaws.com/aredn/meshchat_1.02_all.deb
  sudo dpkg -i meshchat_1.02_all.deb

• Edit configuration file:

  sudo pico /usr/lib/cgi-bin/meshchatconfig.pm

<wrap indent> and edit the last two lines so that the zone matches the other Mesh Chat Instances, and the node is the name of your AREDN Node. In my case:</wrap indent>

our $pi_zone                    = 'MIMeshChat';
our $local_meshchat_node        = 'VA7FI-HAP-1';

• http://localhost/meshchat/
• http://<ip from AREDN>/meshchat/

“Lock Error” Ref: https://www.arednmesh.org/content/pi-meshchat-error-sending-message

Looking in /var/log/apache2/error.log, I see many of:

touch : cannot touch '/tmp/meshchat/lock' : No such file or directory.
clould not get lock at /usr/lib/cgi-bin/meshchatlib.pm line 35

Issue is that apache doesn't allow use of /tmp folder. So created these:

sudo mkdir /var/www/html/meshchat/tmp/
sudo mkdir /var/www/html/meshchat/tmp/meshchat/
sudo chown www-data:www-data -R /var/www/html/meshchat/tmp/
sudo chmod 770 -R /var/www/html/meshchat/tmp/

Edit config file to update location of /tmp folder:

sudo pico /usr/lib/cgi-bin/meshchatconfig.pm

And replace every instance of /tmp/ by /var/www/html/meshchat/tmp/

Restart services:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart
sudo /etc/init.d/meshchatsync restart

Not getting chats from other MIMeshChat instances