Enable register on Overleaf Server Community Edition (CE)

overleaf_server_enable_register_community_edition.md

I'll leave my workaround to enable register for future reference:

• Start the containers as always

  I'm assuming you're using overleaf toolkit

• Connect to sharelatex container, we need to copy the following files to /var/lib/sharelatex so we can edit them in the host and bind the new version.

  $ cp app/views/user/register.pug /var/lib/sharelatex
  $ app/src/router.js /var/lib/sharelatex
  $ app/src/Features/User/UserController.js /var/lib/sharelatex
  $ app/src/Features/User/UserPagesController.js /var/lib/sharelatex

• Edit file data/sharelatex/register.pug in host (probably you need super user privileges, so do it with sudo). Replace the text inside with this:

  extends ../layout-marketing
  
  block content
    main.content.content-alt#main-content
      .container
        .row
          .col-md-8.col-md-offset-2.col-lg-6.col-lg-offset-3
            .card
              .page-header
                h1 Register
              if message
                .alert.alert-success= message
              if err_message
                .alert.alert-danger= err_message
              form(action="/register", method="post")
                input(type="hidden", name="_csrf", value=_csrf)
                if email
                  div.form-group
                    label(for="email") Email
                    input#email.form-control(type="email", name="email", value=email, required)
                else
                  div.form-group
                    label(for="email") Email
                    input#email.form-control(type="email", name="email", placeholder="email@example.com", required)
                div.form-group
                  label(for="invitationCode") Invitation Code
                  input#invitationCode.form-control(type="text", name="invitationCode", required)
                button.btn.btn-primary(type="submit") Register

• Edit the file data/sharelatex/router.js and add this line after webRouter.get('/register', UserPagesController.registerPage) (around line ~279):

      webRouter.post('/register', UserController.register)

• Edit the file data/sharelatex/UserController.js and add these lines at the top:

  const UserRegistrationHandler = require('./UserRegistrationHandler')
  const { db, waitForDb } = require('../../infrastructure/mongodb')

  Create a function in UserController.js:

  async function register(req, res, next) {
    const { email, invitationCode } = req.body;
    const csrfToken = req.csrfToken()
    if (invitationCode !== "your_password") {
        res.render('user/register', {
          err_message: 'Error: Invalid invitation code.',
          email: email,
          _csrf: csrfToken,
        });
    }
    UserGetter.getUserByAnyEmail(email, { _id: 1 }, (error, user) => {
      if (error) {
        res.render('user/register', {
          err_message: 'Error: ' + JSON.stringify(error),
          _csrf: csrfToken,
        });
      }
  
      if (!user || !user._id.toString()) {
        UserRegistrationHandler.registerNewUserAndSendActivationEmail(
          email,
          (error, user, setNewPasswordUrl) => {
            if (error) {
              res.render('user/register', {
                err_message: 'Error: ' + JSON.stringify(error),
                _csrf: csrfToken,
              });
            }
            db.users.updateOne(
              { _id: user._id },
              { $set: { isAdmin: false } },
              error => {
                if (error) {
                  res.render('user/register', {
                    err_message: 'Error: ' + JSON.stringify(error),
                    _csrf: csrfToken,
                  });
                }
                res.render('user/register', {
                  message: 'Account created successfully. A confirmation email has been sent.',
                  _csrf: csrfToken,
                });
              }
            );
          }
        );
      } else {
        // Don't reveil if the user already exists in database
        res.render('user/register', {
          message: 'Account created successfully. A confirmation email has been sent.',
          _csrf: csrfToken,
        });
      }
    });
  }

  Add these lines after clearSessions: expressify(clearSessions), (around line ~212):

  register: expressify(register),

• Edit the file data/sharelatex/UserPagesController.js and add this line after newTemplateData, (around line 126):

        _csrf: req.csrfToken(),

• Now edit the file vim lib/docker-compose.base.yml and add this lines in volumes section:

  - ../data/sharelatex/register.pug:/overleaf/services/web/app/views/user/register.pug:ro
  - ../data/sharelatex/router.js:/overleaf/services/web/app/src/router.js:ro
  - ../data/sharelatex/UserController.js:/overleaf/services/web/app/src/Features/User/UserController.js:ro
  - ../data/sharelatex/UserPagesController.js:/overleaf/services/web/app/src/Features/User/UserPagesController.js:ro
  

• Finally, down and up the network:

  bin/docker-compose down && bin/docker-compose up -d

Note: I've added an invitation code to restrict user registration in my server. You can remove that check if you want (register.pug and UserController.js). Also, don't forget to change the invitation code if you leave it.