Installation

CouchDB is crazy easy to install. On Gentoo Linux the package flags should like like these (at least). Adjust flags as necessary for your environment.

[ebuild  N     ] dev-lang/spidermonkey-1.8.2.15  USE="-threadsafe" 50,345 kB
[ebuild  N     ] dev-lang/erlang-13.2.4  USE="-doc -emacs -hipe -java -kpoll -odbc -sctp smp ssl -tk -wxwidgets" 58,686 kB
[ebuild  N     ] dev-db/couchdb-1.0.2  USE="-test" 1,008 kB

Or use the unstable (which is hella-rad!)

~ # ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~amd64" emerge -av couchdb
[ebuild     U ] dev-db/couchdb-1.2.0 USE="-test" 1,046 kB

Configuration

The configuration is stored in /etc/couchdb. Get into that directory and edit the files as necessary. We make the following changes to /etc/couchdb/local.ini

[httpd]
bind_address = 0.0.0.0

[admins]
root = root
$username = $password

It is perfectly acceptable to put the password here in plain-text, CouchDB will mangle it into a hash-sum when it's running. Which also means this file should be writeable by the couchdb user.

~ # stat -c '%A %U:%G %n' /etc/couchdb/local.ini
-rw-rw---- root:couchdb /etc/couchdb/local.ini

Running

~ # /etc/init.d/couchdb start
~ # eselect rc add couchdb default

Futon Administration

Using your favourite web-browser vist http://your.server:5984/_utils/

From this panel you will be able to create a database, configure users and all that good stuff.

Notice the message in the lower-right about everyone being an Admin. That is not good, fix that immediately.