Self-hosting Para

Standalone server

Either download the executable JAR file and run it, or build it from scratch after cloning the Para repository. To build the “uber JAR” (fat JAR) file you need to enable it with the following Maven profiles:

mvn -Pfatjar,sql,lucene -DskipTests=true package

Finally, run Para server:

java -jar para-X.Y.Z.jar

The JAR contains an embedde server and bundles together all the necessary libraries. This is the simplest and recommended way to run Para. See the Architecture section for more details about the different ways to deploy Para.

Setting up a self-hosted environment

Para can be deployed easily to any PaaS environment like Hostinger, Heroku, AWS, Azure, and others. The JAR file is executable and should “just work” by setting the execution command to java -jar para-X.Y.Z.jar.

In a self-hosted environment where you want to manage your own SSL certificates, it is recommended to run a reverse-proxy server like NGINX in front of Para. As an alternative you can use Apache or Lighttpd.

Example configuration for NGINX

server_tokens off;
add_header X-XSS-Protection "1; mode=block";
add_header X-Content-Type-Options nosniff;

server {
  listen 80 default_server;
  listen [::]:80 default_server;
  server_name www.domain.com domain.com;

  # Redirect all HTTP requests to HTTPS with a 301 Moved Permanently response.
  return 301 https://$host$request_uri;
}

server {
  listen 443 ssl http2;
  listen [::]:443 ssl http2;
  server_name www.domain.com domain.com;

  # certs sent to the client in SERVER HELLO are concatenated in ssl_certificate
  ssl_certificate /path/to/signed_cert_plus_intermediates;
  ssl_certificate_key /path/to/private_key;
  ssl_session_timeout 1d;
  ssl_session_cache shared:SSL:50m;
  ssl_session_tickets off;

  # modern configuration. tweak to your needs.
  ssl_protocols TLSv1.2;
  ssl_ciphers 'ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305:ECDHE-RSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256';
  ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;

  # HSTS (ngx_http_headers_module is required) (15768000 seconds = 6 months)
  add_header Strict-Transport-Security max-age=15768000;

  # OCSP Stapling - fetch OCSP records from URL in ssl_certificate and cache them
  ssl_stapling on;
  ssl_stapling_verify on;

  # Verify chain of trust of OCSP response using Root CA and Intermediate certs
  ssl_trusted_certificate /path/to/root_CA_cert_plus_intermediates;

  # Cloudflare DNS
  resolver 1.1.1.1;

  # Required for LE certificate enrollment using certbot
  location '/.well-known/acme-challenge' {
    default_type "text/plain";
    root /var/www/html;
  }

  location / {
    proxy_pass http://localhost:8080;
    proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto https;
    proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
  }
}

As an alternative, you can enable SSL and HTTP2 directly in Para:

Run the script gencerts.sh to generate the required self-signed certificates:
Terminal window
```
echo "para.local" | sudo tee -a /etc/hosts
./gencerts.sh para.local secret
```
The result of that command will be 8 files - ParaRootCA.(crt,key,pem), para.local.(crt,key,pem) as well as a Java Keystore file para-keystore.p12 and a Truststore file para-truststore.p12. Optionally, you can generate the server certificates using an existing RootCA.pem and RootCA.key files like so:
Terminal window
```
./gencerts.sh para.local secret /path/to/ca/RootCA
```

Run Para using the following command which enables SSL and HTTP2:

java -jar -Dconfig.file=./para-application.conf \
 -Dserver.ssl.key-store-type=PKCS12 \
 -Dserver.ssl.key-store=para-keystore.p12 \
 -Dserver.ssl.key-store-password=secret \
 -Dserver.ssl.key-password=secret \
 -Dserver.ssl.key-alias=para \
 -Dserver.ssl.enabled=true \
 -Dserver.http2.enabled=true \
para-*.jar

Trust the root CA file ParaRootCA.crt by importing it in your OS keyring or browser (check Google for instructions).
Open https://para.local:8000.

mTLS

Para also supports mTLS (mutual authentication) for Java clients.

java -jar -Dconfig.file=./para-application.conf \
 -Dserver.ssl.key-store-type=PKCS12 \
 -Dserver.ssl.key-store=para-keystore.p12 \
 -Dserver.ssl.key-store-password=secret \
 -Dserver.ssl.key-password=secret \
 -Dserver.ssl.trust-store=para-truststore.p12 \
 -Dserver.ssl.trust-store-password=secret \
 -Dserver.ssl.key-alias=para \
 -Dserver.ssl.client-auth=need \
 -Dserver.ssl.enabled=true \
 -Dserver.http2.enabled=true
para-*.jar

The Para client for Java should be configured appropriately:

para.client.ssl_keystore = "/path/to/client-keystore.p12"
para.client.ssl_keystore_password = secret
para.client.ssl_truststore = "/path/to/client-truststore.p12"
para.client.ssl_truststore_password = secret