Elaborate on setup steps and CLI commands.

* How to use MIX_ENV

* How to create a user

* Link to certbot's site with the webform which advises how to obtain
  a certificate based on web server/OS.

diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 5b1c9bdddffe99c7d19e05e6bac135c95c0c2623..73ea6ca821efc3f01cbdcb43d9667169e0649c4b 100644 (file)
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -27,27 +27,29 @@ While we don't provide docker files, other people have written very good ones. T
 ### Dependencies
 
 * Postgresql version 9.6 or newer
-* Elixir version 1.5 or newer
+* Elixir version 1.5 or newer. If your distribution only has an old version available, check [Elixir's install page](https://elixir-lang.org/install.html)
 * Build-essential tools
 
 ### Configuration
 
   * Run `mix deps.get` to install elixir dependencies.
 
-  * Run `mix generate_config`. This will ask you a few questions about your instance and generate a configuration file in `config/generated_config.exs`. Check that and copy it to either `config/dev.secret.exs` or `config/prod.secret.exs`. It will also create a `config/setup_db.psql`, which you need to run as PostgreSQL superuser (i.e. `sudo su postgres -c "psql -f config/setup_db.psql"`). It will setup a pleroma db user, database and will setup needed extensions that need to be set up once as superuser.
+  * Run `mix generate_config`. This will ask you a few questions about your instance and generate a configuration file in `config/generated_config.exs`. Check that and copy it to either `config/dev.secret.exs` or `config/prod.secret.exs`. It will also create a `config/setup_db.psql`; you may want to double-check this file in case you wanted a different username, or database name than the default. Then you need to run the script as PostgreSQL superuser (i.e. `sudo su postgres -c "psql -f config/setup_db.psql"`). It will create a pleroma db user, database and will setup needed extensions that need to be set up. Postgresql super-user privileges are only needed for this step.
+
+  * For these next steps, the default will be to run pleroma using the dev configuration file, `config/dev.secret.exs`. To run them using the prod config file, prefix each command at the shell with `MIX_ENV=prod`. For example: `MIX_ENV=prod mix phx.server`.
 
   * Run `mix ecto.migrate` to run the database migrations. You will have to do this again after certain updates.
 
   * You can check if your instance is configured correctly by running it with `mix phx.server` and checking the instance info endpoint at `/api/v1/instance`. If it shows your uri, name and email correctly, you are configured correctly. If it shows something like `localhost:4000`, your configuration is probably wrong, unless you are running a local development setup.
 
   * The common and convenient way for adding HTTPS is by using Nginx as a reverse proxy. You can look at example Nginx configuration in `installation/pleroma.nginx`. If you need TLS/SSL certificates for HTTPS, you can look get some for free with letsencrypt: https://letsencrypt.org/
-  On Debian you can use `certbot` package and command to manage letsencrypt certificates.
+  The simplest way to obtain and install a certificate is to use [Certbot.](https://certbot.eff.org) Depending on your specific setup, certbot may be able to get a certificate and configure your web server automatically.
 
   * [Not tested with system reboot yet!] You'll also want to set up Pleroma to be run as a systemd service. Example .service file can be found in `installation/pleroma.service` you can put it in `/etc/systemd/system/`.
 
 ## Running
 
-By default, it listens on port 4000 (TCP), so you can access it on http://localhost:4000/ (if you are on the same machine). In case of an error it will restart automatically.
+* By default, it listens on port 4000 (TCP), so you can access it on http://localhost:4000/ (if you are on the same machine). In case of an error it will restart automatically.
 
 ### Frontends
 Pleroma comes with two frontends. The first one, Pleroma FE, can be reached by normally visiting the site. The other one, based on the Mastodon project, can be found by visiting the /web path of your site.
@@ -70,6 +72,10 @@ This is useful for running pleroma inside Tor or i2p.
 
 ## Admin Tasks
 
+### Register a User
+
+Run `mix register_user <name> <nickname> <email> <bio>`. The `name` appears on statuses, while the nickname corresponds to the user, e.g. `@nickname@instance.tld`
+
 ### Password reset
 
 Run `mix generate_password_reset username` to generate a password reset link that you can then send to the user.